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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

#101

Post by b112 »

GalenErso wrote: post #32
brianglick wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't really need a heated garage (at home, anyway) if you had a 220 volt charger. That should be able to overcome any charging challenges in extreme cold, anyway. Relatively easy to get that into your garage. Also - if you arrive at your friend's place in the winter and park overnight, you won't lose a ton overnight if the car's just parked there.

Meanwhile, with an ICE car, you don't need to worry about having a garage, nevermind a heated one; the right charger, warming a pack, losing fuel overnight, or taking three hours to fully charge. I can pull up to any gas station and fill my tank in 2 minutes. And my gas isn't magically evaporating if it's a little chilly. The 30 different requirements for EVs to work in cold weather are too complex and prohibitively…

unless the EV industry pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

It's call h2, and multiple cars on the road (kia, toyota, hyundia) work just fine.

One federal funding/grant program, and refuel stations will abound.

And h2 is every bit as green as electric, for both can be supplied via green methods.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#102

Post by hedora »

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…

Not all 110v chargers are equal.

My BMW came with a 6/10 amp (software selectable) emergency use charger.

I bought a 16 amp 110V charger from Amazon, and it is more than enough to keep up with my daily commute. (It is equivalent to an 8 amp 220V charge cable.)

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#103

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

gambiting wrote: post #82
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Got it. So just make sure your vehicle is constantly consuming energy and you'll never have an issue... unless the power is out for an extended period of time.

You never started your car and just let it warm up before setting off in winter? How much energy do you think that uses?

No. That's a waste of a useful resource. It's also illegal in various places.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#104

Post by letitbeirie »

gambiting wrote: post #41
GalenErso wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, with an ICE car, you don't need to worry about having a garage, nevermind a heated one; the right charger, warming a pack, losing fuel overnight, or taking three hours to fully charge. I can pull up to any gas station and fill my tank in 2 minutes. And my gas isn't magically evaporating if it's a little chilly. The 30 different requirements for EVs to work in cold weather are too complex and prohibitively…

But......EVs do work in cold weather? You lose a bit of range, but so what? My ICE car also gets worse mileage in winter. And if you're talking about extremes - then there's a reason why block heaters with external power connections are very common in certain places - even the best ICE struggles to start in -40C or less.

At those temperatures you're up against the flash point of gasoline, which is already the lowest of any (liquid) fuel I can think of.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#105

Post by rtkwe »

MBCook wrote: post #85
rtkwe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check their post again their car lost loads of charge over a very short range because of the cold so in effect it was losing range overnight. It lost 15 miles over 1 mile of driving and another ~15-20 on the next mile driving back.

But it was on level one charging (110v). A level two charger, even a slow one, should be able provide enough current to heat the battery and still charge the battery at the same time.

Most of the time if you're not at your own home you'll be on 110V chargers. To get 220V charging at someone else's you're likely either at another EV owners house who's gone through the trouble of installing a 220V port or you're lucky and they have a conveniently placed dryer in the garage you can steal 220V power from.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#106

Post by gambiting »

bch wrote: post #88
gambiting wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I easily notice the difference in my car, it goes from about 8L/100km in summer to 10L/100km in winter. That's on the same tyres in both seasons.

Driving through snow?

No, just driving on the motorway, at a solid 140km/h. Did the exact same drive in winter and in the summer just this year and that was the difference in consumption(I want to add that I can see the difference in daily use too, but I just happened to do the exact same 700km drive where the only different factor was the season of the year, so it gave me a very good reference point for specific numbers).

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#107

Post by gambiting »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #103
gambiting wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never started your car and just let it warm up before setting off in winter? How much energy do you think that uses?

No. That's a waste of a useful resource. It's also illegal in various places.

Well, I envy wherever you live then, must be nice in winter!

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#108

Post by hedora »

Phlarp wrote: post #99
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 rip…

At what temperature would it consume 2000 watts keeping the battery warm? Surely it uses a heat pump, so it is pumping 8000-4000W of heat into the battery pack. That would be a large steady state heat loss!

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#110

Post by gambiting »

Animatronio wrote: post #95
rcarr wrote: post #38

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. 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.

I 100% agree. Compared to the long way down and long way round it focused way way too much on technical issues and range anxiety, instead of the locations and people like the other two series.
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