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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

#2

Post by Tostino »

That is interesting to see the difference the manufacturers bake into their battery designs as far as software control goes. Tesla seems to quite tightly control pack charge and discharge through their bms, and limit things in software rather than hitting chemical limits of the batteries like some other manufacturers seem to be allowing.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#3

Post by brianwawok »

Tostino wrote: post #2

That is interesting to see the difference the manufacturers bake into their battery designs as far as software control goes. Tesla seems to quite tightly control pack charge and discharge through their bms, and limit things in software rather than hitting chemical limits of the batteries like some other manufacturers seem to be allowing.

It also matters who has heat pumps and who doesn’t. Keeping the meat bags warm is a lot of energy.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#5

Post by jeffrallen »

brianwawok wrote: post #3
Tostino wrote: post #2

That is interesting to see the difference the manufacturers bake into their battery designs as far as software control goes. Tesla seems to quite tightly control pack charge and discharge through their bms, and limit things in software rather than hitting chemical limits of the batteries like some other manufacturers seem to be allowing.

It also matters who has heat pumps and who doesn’t. Keeping the meat bags warm is a lot of energy.

The heat pump is for the batteries. If there's some heating/cooling left over, it's for the meatbags.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#8

Post by galangalalgol »

brianwawok wrote: post #3
Tostino wrote: post #2

That is interesting to see the difference the manufacturers bake into their battery designs as far as software control goes. Tesla seems to quite tightly control pack charge and discharge through their bms, and limit things in software rather than hitting chemical limits of the batteries like some other manufacturers seem to be allowing.

It also matters who has heat pumps and who doesn’t. Keeping the meat bags warm is a lot of energy.

Looking back into the source article some of the more better performers do actually have heat pumps. It seems one of the mistakes is that some of them do not start heating the batter in advance, while others spendnpower to keep it warm while plugged in.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#9

Post by linsomniac »

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 snap hit us), I drove the car and then parked it to charge for the night. It charged at a rate of 1 mile per hour. Usually it'll hit 30-40. I have it set to start charging at midnight, which meant that the battery cooled down after driving for ~6 hours, before it started charging. I could have started charging as soon as I got home, but then I'm in the 3x higher electricity pricing... I could bump that up to 9 or 10pm to help.

This also impacts road trips. If you are traveling in freezing temps, definitely charge before checking into a hotel (unless the hotel has a charger, which is fairly rare), rather than in the morning. Instead of 30m charge time, it can take 60-120 minutes to charge at a Supercharge.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#10

Post by JPKab »

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 to beat years and years of data on BMS and various battery conditions. Tesla's are collecting and transmitting data on current temperature state of the battery etc all the time.

Things like fit and finish of body panels are something that the other manufacturers have decades of experience with in Tesla doesn't. But on batteries we are now talking about 10 years of data Tesla has that they don't. And the culture in the Detroit Auto industry isn't exactly a good one when it comes to promoting competent engineering management.

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