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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

#191

Post by tim333 »

pard68 wrote: post #172
jws wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken by someone who's never had their diesel fuel begin gelling in the fuel line at night on a frigid, remote highway and trying to figure out if you can make it to somewhere with heat before you stop completely. Then finding out they only have gasoline, so you try to figure out how much gas you can add to the diesel tank to keep it from gelling but still run adequately to move you along. Sometimes we forget that w…

Is that something that actually happens to diesel engines? I have multiple diesels and while they are difficult to _start_ in the cold they are fine once started for me. But yes, cold enough and combustion engines are hard to get going. My Subaru hates cold days, it'll go a few seconds on a below freezing day before ignition. My diesel tractors actually have electric plugs to keep the manifold hot.

It is an can be a pain for non diesel drivers if large trucks grind to a halt and block the motorway. That's happened in the UK in unusual cold spells.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#192

Post by cesarb »

kzrdude wrote: post #179
cwalv wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you know what I don't do? Freeze my ass off standing in a gas station in subzero temperatures and howling winds! Not missing that at all. Right! And I suspect by 2035, not having a 220v outlet in the garage will be like not having a microwave in your kitchen in the mid 90's.

I'm curious, is 220V (or 230V) more than twice as fast/twice as good as 110V? The discussion here makes it sound like it. All I know is that you'll need higher amperage with lower voltage, but it can compensate proportionally. I guess heat losses and other problems are significant, if it's a problem at 110V?

> All I know is that you'll need higher amperage with lower voltage, but it can compensate proportionally.

This discussion is assuming that the amperage is the same. The common "default" AC socket in the USA is AFAIK the NEMA 5-15, which is a 15A socket; the common "default" AC socket in other countries is AFAIK usually either 16A, 15A, or 10A, so at most you'd have one extra ampere.

Of course, if you're adding a dedicated socket where you'd expect to plug a car (or other high-power devices like a large air conditioner), you'd put a higher-power socket like a 20A one. But this discussion is, as far as I understand, about what you could find on a random garage; I believe it would be unexpected to not have at least one common "default" AC socket on am enclosed garage, but finding a higher-power AC socket would be less likely.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#193

Post by thefounder »

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…

>> I can pull up to any gas station and fill my tank in 2 minutes.

But you don't have a gas station at home, don't you? So you have to worry about gas stations and how far they are. And your car makes you and other people sick(i.e cancer and various diseases due polution)! That's so 2020!

On a more serious note you are comparing the shortcommings of an emerging technology with a mature technology. Saying that the old tech is better makes no sense to me.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#194

Post by josephcsible »

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…

> When it's below freezing, home charging can be tough to impossible.

Don't mix up "home charging" with "level 1 charging". A lot of EV owners will get a NEMA 14-50 receptacle to level 2 charge, and then there's no problem at all charging while below freezing.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#195

Post by throwaway290 »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #77

Living in a region were you need to warm up car for 5 minutes to stop it being an unwelcoming block of ice, and experiencing frequent failures to get the starter running due to discharged battery due to cold, I always wondered how much cold affects battery performance and his much the heating costs in miles. Tesla's figures look unbelievably good, and I think they don't account for heating. In -20° you'd need at leas…

Norway proves EV are OK in the cold. They overtook ICEs already.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#196

Post by avar »

Scoundreller wrote: post #152
simfree wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even when it comes to cars, often the US base model has a larger engine than the EU base model. No idea why: speed limits are often higher in EU and often with more hills.

It's because in addition to fuel being cheaper in the US, many EU countries tax you on engine displacement, CO2 emissions, fuel economy etc.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#197

Post by magicalhippo »

trog wrote: post #149

How does Norway deal with their EV population given its cold weather?

We've had an EV for almost 5 years now. We first had a BMW i3 94Ah model. It had decent battery thermal management, so it performed fine for us. Yes effective range was down quite a bit, IIRC ~150km in -15C vs ~230km in summer, but it was quite manageable.

It got totaled thanks to someone hitting us, and we ended up with a 24kWh Leaf. It doesn't have much in terms of thermal management, so with that we really notice the winter. Like, to and from work is just fine, but any significant trip in sub-zero (Celsius) conditions ain't fun. We knew it wouldn't be great, and we're looking to replace it.

I'd say for our kind of weather, which have many days below -5C during winter, and living in a city or suburbs like we do, the Leaf is fine as a second car. The i3 was good enough since we didn't do lots of long trips during winter, just a few to the cabin and such. Both the i3 and the Leaf (and others) have climate timers, so you can get the car nice and warm in preparation for a trip, using power from the grid. This helps a fair bit both in comfort and in range.

More modern cars are even better though, obviously more range to start with but also with things like battery preheating which sacrifices some of the battery energy to heat it up in preparation for proper fast charging.

I admit I do get a bit of range anxiety during winter from time to time, mostly because the consequences of running out with -10C or so outside isn't fun. If I was living more on the countryside, there's few competitors to Tesla I think just due to the range and thermal management.

All in all, we're definitely not gonna get another ICE. There's just too many things we like about the EVs.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#198

Post by avar »

simfree wrote: post #119
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Driving with an iced over window impairing visibility is illegal in most places, you have to address this with defrosting and perhaps scraping before moving the vehicle. Idling combustion vehicles is bad, but sometimes it's a necessary evil to ensure visibility so the driver can avoid harming other road users.

> Idling combustion vehicles is bad.

Not really, you're spending a fraction of the fuel you'd use per minute if you were driving.

So, in terms of pollution it's no worse than taking a short detour to wherever you were going.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#199

Post by thaumasiotes »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #98
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You're oblivious to it because a motor vehicle has so much available power on tap.

Dropping from 18 mpg to 10 mpg would increase your cost of fuel by 80%. It'd be hard to be oblivious to it.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#200

Post by pard68 »

wilg wrote: post #186
pard68 wrote: post #173

>More Americans are opting to purchase an electric vehicle Is there a source for this claim? I am suspicious that _most_ Americans are shopping for an EV.

That's why the quote says "more" and not "most".

Wow, I need glasses. Read that whole article but the first line was bugging me. Went back read it again. Never noticed it said "more".

Thanks!

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