71–80 of 81 posts
A friend hypothesized that a lot of Tesla drivers charge the same way they refilled their gas cars, by waiting until the last minute and supercharging back up to "full". This doesn't work when it's so cold so people need to learn to charge a little at a time.
EVs need to learn.
My "favorite" thing about these stories is all the anti-EV'rs coming out and going "hahaha, stupid EV drivers". Except they don't realize their ICE car is part of the problem. These extremely unusual storms and cold snaps are part of climate change and their pointing and laughing is only going to make things worse. At the end of the day, the real story is that EV's are having teething problems in unusual cold conditi…
Seems like a huge reach. Chicago, specifically seemed to have some extremely cold weather in the 80s[1] and basically nothing since then until now. From my personal anecdata, winters up in Canada seem milder than when I was a kid - some 30 years ago. Politically, attributing every instance of bad weather to climate change with no evidence plays into climate change denier narratives and seems like a bad move. [1] http…
So unusual that EV manufacturers could not test?
This is where a hybrid powertrain / PHEV is superior to EV. In an ideal system you want redundancies, especially redundancies that cover for each other's weaknesses.
This is where a hybrid powertrain / PHEV is superior to EV. In an ideal system you want redundancies, especially redundancies that cover for each other's weaknesses.
Not just a hybrid but a series-type hybrid. Electric motors drive the wheels and the gas engine is just there to generate electricity. At every level of society I see products being designed for the "best case" only. For example, unlocking your car with electronic keys. I am afraid a generation will have to live through "hard times" in order to get us thinking about resilience again and planning for the "worst case".…
Indeed. And then being sold with caveats concealed.
It's a charger issue, did any one read the damn article?
" One expert told the news outlet that cold weather can impact the ability of electric vehicles to charge properly.
"It’s not plug and go. You have to precondition the battery, meaning that you have to get the battery up to the optimal temperature to accept a fast charge," said Mark Bilek of the Chicago Auto Trade Association. "
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what the article says. The article doesn't even state the problem. The actual problem is that cold batteries have higher resistance, so these cold cars aren't charging. The owners need to run the heaters in their car for 30-45 minutes before they try to charge to be able to effectively charge at all.
Right if everybody's range is reduced (due to cold) and charging takes longer (to warm up the battery, if it wasn't warmed before arriving, which could either be user error or due to a car that was parked nearby outdoors before being taken to the charger), then the effective capacity of the chargers is reduced by a large factor and quite possibly people are running out of battery waiting for a spot. I suspect a large…
How could that conceivably be user error?
For cold climates, ev's have a built block heater, and it takes power. The problem is refueling, a sitting ev needs to power its own heater running down the battery, and to make it worse, batteries already have lower power in winter. Thus the cars are all waiting to refuel and ran out of power. A Hybrid is a better option until refueling EV's are not an issue.
When ever will refuelling EVs not be an issue?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I drove to the UP and back the last few days with a 2019 Model 3 SR+ (mentioning this so people understand the range I was working with) with no issues besides increased charging stops because of road and weather conditions. This issue is a specific issue with this charger and the location. This sucks for all the drivers with dead cars, but I feel like the situation is being mischaracterized by this shallow news arti…
> This issue is a specific issue with this charger and this location This is contradicted by the article.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right if everybody's range is reduced (due to cold) and charging takes longer (to warm up the battery, if it wasn't warmed before arriving, which could either be user error or due to a car that was parked nearby outdoors before being taken to the charger), then the effective capacity of the chargers is reduced by a large factor and quite possibly people are running out of battery waiting for a spot. I suspect a large…
> if it wasn't warmed before arriving, which could either be user error How could that conceivably be user error?
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Btw I'm not saying the current article was high quality—I haven't looked at it. But it needs to be a judgment about the article, not the site. Pretty much every major site occasionally puts up good articles, and no major site has good (for HN) articles all the time.