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The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

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Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#91

Post by olivermarks »

JPKab wrote: post #10

I live just outside of Boulder Colorado. We just had a polar vortex like a huge chunk of the country did intents were 14 below zero fahrenheit. My Tesla model 3 actually does very well although of course there is a range reduction. This is one of the areas where Tesla shines compared to other auto manufacturers because they have always viewed themselves as a battery company first. There's not really much you can do t…

The recommendation is to not charge BEVs inside garages due to the fire risk.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/08/04/tesla-f...

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#92

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

rapind wrote: post #69
saturn_vk wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's a thing you learn. Just like you learn to check your oil level before starting in a conventional vehicle. Everything has its own set of things you have to know

> Just like you learn to check your oil level before starting in a conventional vehicle. Yeah, I (and everyone else) totally do that…

Not even once.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#93

Post by fuoqi »

swayvil wrote: post #45

Flywheels. What's the state of the tech for that? Surly that's where we should be developing. Last I heard they're very efficient. In theory it has no ceiling, storagewise. And it certainly isn't constrained by a chemical reaction. The only downside is keeping it from blowing up. Right?

Are you suggesting to use flywheels as an energy source in EVs??? There is a heap of issues with this idea, the main ones:

- They are VERY heavy. Typical energy density for flywheels is 10-40 kJ/kg (if you account for the whole flywheel), while Li-ion batteries and gasoline store 300-1000 kJ/kg and 46700 kJ/kg respectively (the latter does not account for ICE efficiency).

- They are relatively big, since you can store more energy with a bigger diameter (limited by material's strength-to-weight ratio).

- Flywheel is a big gyroscope. You do not want to rotate it around while it spins.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#94

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

saturn_vk wrote: post #56
vanous wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all for EV, but if besides needing to take care that I plug my phone and my watch every night I must also not forget to plug in the car and if I forget, I must apologize at work for not coming in, or my kids cannot go to school... just because it easily can get to -15°C here... then it feels like a technology issue and not like me doing the worse thing possible...

But that's a thing you learn. Just like you learn to check your oil level before starting in a conventional vehicle. Everything has its own set of things you have to know

I’d estimate I have driven cars 10,000 times and I have never done that. Just take it to a mechanic every 5k miles. And nothing that touches the oil has ever gone wrong.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#95

Post by Animatronio »

rcarr wrote: post #38
gambiting wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire series of Long Way Up felt like it was filmed maybe ~5 years too early. So many of the issues were caused by the bikes just being prototypes. Also the solution is easy - when the car is plugged in, just heat the battery so it charges at optimal rate and is ready for your journey. Some cars already do this(the new BMW i4 and I guess the iX too)

> The entire series of Long Way Up felt like it was filmed maybe ~5 years too early. So many of the issues were caused by the bikes just being prototypes. That was kind of the point though: they wanted to push the boundaries of what was possible. There's a good quote attributed to Leonard Bernstein: > To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time. I feel like the project pushed Harl…

I remember they said a team from Rivian went ahead and installed chargers in several places along the route. And still they had a huge case of range anxiety. Instead of focusing on places and people they were harping about batteries, recharging, messing the schedule bc of that and so on. Frankly, it was a huge fail, especially compared to their previous trip through Siberia.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#96

Post by hijinks »

linsomniac wrote: post #9

Range impact of cold weather does seem to be a real thing, I can't speak personally because I own a Tesla which has some of the lowest impact. Another thing to keep in mind is: Charging speeds of cold temps. While the Tesla seems to do great at range, charging at cold temps is not great. When it's below freezing, home charging can be tough to impossible. A few days ago (when it was merely "cold", before the huge cold…

if you garage the car it should be ok. I'm outside of Denver and this latest cold spell at night was -22 and my garage temp sensor was 52.

Ya EVs aren't fun in cold areas if you don't have a garage or on a road trip

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#97

Post by rtkwe »

tshaddox wrote: post #67
rtkwe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the difference that the dryer connections are usually installed when the house is built so there's easy access to run the wires to and from the breaker box. Installing them afterwards is more expensive and complicated to do because of the limited access. It's also not something you can expect to find anywhere other than at another EV owner's place. Admittedly over time that will become less of an issue but for n…

Right, so you’re only saying that EVs are new, not that they’re more difficult to setup than a dryer.

No for existing construction they will be more complex because the walls are all closed in so routing the 220V cable to the outside or garage is more difficult. Electrical is done before the walls are finished for a reason...

Maybe not if you're lucky and the existing dryer connection is already in your garage but it's not going to be that simple for most people. Again dryer connections get installed at build time and have for the last couple decades so most people already have them.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#98

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #59
simfree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18Mpg becomes 10Mpg or worse in the winter in my experience. EV driving can be more efficient if you don't let your battery cold soak for hours, or equally inefficient if you do leave your car unplugged overnight.

I live in place that routinely goes below freezing in winter. I’ve never noticed gas mileage change because of temperature. I would definitely notice a difference of 8 MPG. Where do you get that info? Is it personal experience? If so, where do you live?

Cold air is denser. Pushing it out of the way saps more energy and drops the effective work done. You're oblivious to it because a motor vehicle has so much available power on tap. It is very noticeable on a bicycle at high speeds.

Conversely. Sailboats get more efficient in cold temperatures because more energy is imparted on the sail.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#99

Post by Phlarp »

d_watt wrote: post #19

Anecdotally last winter, had a Model Y up in maine for a trip home. I arrived at a backwoods house with ~60 miles left. It was around 10 farenheit the next day when I hooked up a 110 volt line to the car. Over the next 30 minutes the mileage dropped to 55 as it took more energy to heat the battery than the line could deliver. I unhooked it and planned to drive 20 miles to the nearest charger, but after 1 mile of trav…

If it's cold enough a Tesla plugged into 120v/20a charging circuit will actually lose voltage over time. It's consuming over 2000 watts just to keep the battery at an acceptable temp for the chemistry to function.

The weight of the battery pack is great for traction in warm / dry conditions, but when driving on ice that weight is just momentum sending you sliding into snow banks.

After a bumper or body panel gets ripped off during the inevitable extraction from above mentioned snow bank, expect to wait 6-9 months for the most basic of body work.

The self driving is an absolute clown show in anything but perfect conditions (mounting evidence it sucks in perfect conditions too~)

Nothing in the world excites me more than expensive nerd toys with electric power trains, but as a Minnesota native I'll take a $900 rolling trash can beater car over a top of the line Tesla six months out of the year. There is a very valuable lesson in observing the legacy auto industry existing in Michigan where the winters get very cold and cars need to perform with snow or ice on the roads. Meanwhile Tesla mostly engineers their cars to be good at driving from LA to SF and back.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#100

Post by simfree »

midasuni wrote: post #87
simfree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18Mpg becomes 10Mpg or worse in the winter in my experience. EV driving can be more efficient if you don't let your battery cold soak for hours, or equally inefficient if you do leave your car unplugged overnight.

18mpg is 21mpg with U.K. gallons. My fairly large Skoda gets 45-50 in the real world, maybe dropping to 42 if I’m pushing it to 85mph on the motorway. Even back when I owned a mid 80s Nissan around 2000 I was getting 25mpg (us gallon). Why is US mileage so awful?

Large SUVs with overcooked engines to meet emissions requirements (lower PM2.5 emissions at the cost of slightly worse fuel economy) get bad mileage.

Having all wheel drive or 4 wheel drive, high ground clearance, a poor aerodynamic design (driving 70mph or 80mph sounds bad in many of these cars) also hurts efficiency.

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