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The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

axios.com

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Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#201

Post by pard68 »

tim333 wrote: post #191
pard68 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes that'd be quite a problem. Our cold lasts so little here that I've never had a need to start any of my tractors in the freezing, just wait a day and it's back to warm.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#202

Post by tpoindex »

Animats wrote: post #7

Looks more like a brand problem. Especially Chevy. Different battery technology?

Seems that the underlying study that included the Bolt was from Feb. 2019 (the AAA study cited), so their battery recall/fix and newer software may have helped.

Another couple of red flag in the AXIOS article was: "AAA found the loss in driving range could be as high as 41% with the heater on full blast." Hmmm, even with the recent Siberean cold air mass blast here in Colorado, I don't need the heater on full in my ICE cars with outside temps of -5F. Also, the recurrent.com study show some of the vehicles ratings based on verified range versus estimated range - why? Perhaps it's accurate, but mixed methodologies in the same study.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#203

Post by Dylan16807 »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #58
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…

Yeah, the biggest thing EV proponents seem to miss is that you don't need to force it to be 100% for everyone. Confine any mandates to urban centers where it makes sense, you can get buy in from everyone and solve 95% of the problem. At that point there will be lower hanging fruits than the last 5% or w/e.

You think it's the proponents that miss that it doesn't need to be 100%? The arguments I see that act like it has to be 100% EVs are basically all anti-EV arguments.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#204

Post by Dylan16807 »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #166
hristov wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With an ICE car, if you park regularly in very cold weather, your car can fail randomly for an obscure reason and it can take a long time to figure it out or you will need a trip to the mechanic. Or you may need a massive and expensive repair. Remember that a lot of people have to spend 10-15 minutes warming up their cars before they drive them in cold weather. I do not want to go into details, better car mechanics t…

> your car can fail randomly for an obscure reason Your electric car can fail randomly for an obscure reason too, and good luck getting anyone at all that can fix it. > Remember that a lot of people have to spend 10-15 minutes warming up their cars before they drive them in cold weather. Only because they're idiots. No-one needs to leave a vehicle for 10 minutes to "warm up", even in the coldest of weather. Drive gen…

> Only because they're idiots.

Even if we ignore the "heard bad advice" versus "idiot" issue, that's still untrue because there are other reasons besides what's best for the machine.

Maybe they aren't in the car, and they're warming it up to be comfortable.

Maybe there is ice on the car they need to melt.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#205

Post by eric_h »

jtc331 wrote: post #40
nradov wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hardly crazy to expect that the car should display an accurate range estimate based on the current temperature.

Gas car range predictions are also regularly nonsensical. I thought this was well understood.

On my car (2013 mini) the range prediction is actually a more accurate indicator of how much fuel is in the tank than the (separate) fuel tank meter. Not sure why, you’d think they’d use the same input data for both, but it’s true.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#206

Post by hgsgm »

joshuanapoli wrote: post #174
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…

It’s strange that people’s experiences are so varied with EVs in cold weather. Here it’s 14F right now and my Model Y is charging at 30 mph (versus 32 mph in warm weather). Driving 120 miles this morning at 11F used maybe 10% more energy than normal. The doors, though, we’re quite sticky and frustrating to open.

Is that the temp where the car is? (garage?)

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#207

Post by xyst »

Yet another reason why EVs won’t save us from the inefficiencies of car centric transportation.

Americans, can we stop this failed experiment and let’s (re)build our cities with public transportation and alternative forms of transportation (ie, biking, walking, micro-mobility). Return the spaces occupied by parking lots, parking garages and use that space to house people. End these implied subsidies on “car housing”.

Death to the suburban experiment.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#208

Post by pandaman »

samwillis wrote: post #165
rtkwe wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unless you are not in North America. Most of the rest of the world have a base voltage of, and all domestic outlets are 220-240.

In the US "220V" refers to a high current outlet normally, in a country where household outlets are 220V, you still need a high current outlet and, for safety reasons, most outlets are not high current, just like in the US.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#209

Post by Dylan16807 »

hedora wrote: post #108
Phlarp wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

From what I can find in a quick search: On a normal plug, drawing 12 amps, older Teslas without heat pumps would start losing the battery heat fight around -15C.

A heat pump should be able to do a lot better.

Also you're probably only going to get 16 amps of actual draw on a 20 amp circuit.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#210

Post by BenjiWiebe »

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.

The reason diesel doesn't usually gel is that, starting in the fall, fuel stations/refineries start adding anti-gelling agents to the diesel.

If you have "summer diesel" in your tractor during a cold spell, it will gel. And a block heater won't help, since the fuel gels in the fuel lines and tank too. And trying to start the engine pulls in that gel into the fuel filter and sort of strains the chunks out, causing your fuel filter to need to be replaced even once it's warmed up.

I'm not sure at exactly what temperature it happens, but a Kansas winter will typically gel summer diesel at least a couple of times.

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