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Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

nytimes.com

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Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#191

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

alright2565 wrote: post #176
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These little towns grew up before there were cars. they used horses... I think it's hilarious how people are trying to argue that a single train stop in a town is somehow public transportation for the citizens of that town to get around said town. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Your comment reminds me of this cartoon: https://i.imgur.com/aVpP0t6.png It's interesting how quickly we forget about how things used to be. My grandparents were subsistence farmers in my lifetime, and they did not use horses to get around town. I don't think they ever owned a horse. For regular everyday travel, they walked. They'd sometimes need to go work out in a field. On those days, they'd hitch up the cows to t…

oh yeah, that's why saddle's weren't invented.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#192

Post by natch »

_ea1k wrote: post #115
joezydeco wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the vehicle is cold soaked and only has a minimal amount of charge left, won't most of it be consumed by the EV trying to preheat the battery? Seems like you're then trapped in a corner case that you can't get out of: not enough energy to allow for any kind of charge at all.

Yes, and it sounds like this is exactly what happened in some cases. People would charge hunt until they were out, wait in line for hours, then get to the unit with a cold soaked battery. Even if the charger is working perfectly, the first 30 minutes might be spent just running the battery heater. It might even be worse with rear drive model 3, which unfortunately might also be a big part of the Uber rental fleet. It…

No what happened in the case on the news is a charging station was malfunctioning but did not report itself to the system as such.

If it has been in operation, there would have been no problem charging in the cold.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#193

Post by joezydeco »

natch wrote: post #192
_ea1k wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it sounds like this is exactly what happened in some cases. People would charge hunt until they were out, wait in line for hours, then get to the unit with a cold soaked battery. Even if the charger is working perfectly, the first 30 minutes might be spent just running the battery heater. It might even be worse with rear drive model 3, which unfortunately might also be a big part of the Uber rental fleet. It…

No what happened in the case on the news is a charging station was malfunctioning but did not report itself to the system as such. If it has been in operation, there would have been no problem charging in the cold.

This is a video from last year. It shows the cold soak but also shows that maybe the car itself won't latch to the NACS connector?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-c8AUeKs5c

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#194

Post by joezydeco »

natch wrote: post #192
_ea1k wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and it sounds like this is exactly what happened in some cases. People would charge hunt until they were out, wait in line for hours, then get to the unit with a cold soaked battery. Even if the charger is working perfectly, the first 30 minutes might be spent just running the battery heater. It might even be worse with rear drive model 3, which unfortunately might also be a big part of the Uber rental fleet. It…

No what happened in the case on the news is a charging station was malfunctioning but did not report itself to the system as such. If it has been in operation, there would have been no problem charging in the cold.

Seems like all the Superchargers in Chicago were having trouble as well:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/chicago-area-superch...

And then you have a cascade of drivers going from charger to charger looking for an open plug.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#195

Post by pkulak »

thfuran wrote: post #184
pkulak wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally disagree. Density and transit are the defining traits of NYC. What's something else NYC offers that you can't find in a similarly sized, but spread out, population? Keeping in mind that the population of NYC is about that of the entire Dallas-Ft. Worth metro area, or the entire state of Washington.

UN HQ, Wall Street, potentially one's family, etc. Cities just aren't fungible. There are way more reasons someone might prefer or be pushed towards one or another besides the traffic or transit.

Hell, if you're listing off important US map pin-points, you can't beat DC. But people would still rather live in NYC (according to the market). But even if NYC had the most destinations, that's just another way of saying "density", which is my entire point.

And I'm not talking about personal differences, like family. Paris isn't a world class city because my mom lives there. I get that individuals have reasons to live places. I'm talking about populations, not people.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#196

Post by NickM »

xyst wrote: post #48
tw04 wrote: post #6

90% of the complaints appear to be from folks who have no ability to charge at home. I would agree with the sentiment that if you have to drive any significant distance daily, and live in an apartment where you can’t charge at home, having an EV is going to be a giant pain and it might be a little too soon to go that route. I’d imagine we’re still several years away from having robust enough charging infrastructure a…

The real blunder in this country is the lack of viable alternative transportation options in a majority of the nation. Visited NYC recently and didn’t need to rent a car. Primarily took the bus, ferry, and rail car/trains. In some cases I just walked from my hotel to the destination. Could have rented one of the e-bikes as well. Transportation costs for just 1 week were less than $100 (a quarter of this was because o…

Most of the country is not as dense as NYC, and the less dense the area, the less public transit makes sense.

This is true from both an economic and an environmental standpoint: not only is it expensive to run public transit when fewer people use it, it’s also less environmentally friendly because you have big heavy buses and trains spending a lot of time driving around with few people riding them.

That said, I would certainly like to see better public transportation in many areas, but it’s not a silver bullet. The idea that EV infrastructure is a waste of money because we just need more public transportation is pretty preposterous, IMO.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#197

Post by _ea1k »

joezydeco wrote: post #193
natch wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No what happened in the case on the news is a charging station was malfunctioning but did not report itself to the system as such. If it has been in operation, there would have been no problem charging in the cold.

This is a video from last year. It shows the cold soak but also shows that maybe the car itself won't latch to the NACS connector? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-c8AUeKs5c

Yeah, that's the video that I was thinking of that explicitly tested it. It usually isn't a thing that happens in the real world.

The last couple of days have been different. People have left their cars in the parking lot for hours, which effectively is what OOS did in their test.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#198

Post by thegrim33 »

antisthenes wrote: post #108
billy99k wrote: post #45

We should have pushed for hybrid cars. This way, we can build the infrastructure along-side our current gas stations and give people an incentive to buy them (increases range of gas powered cars). It would have been a win-win all around. Instead, governments want to force us to all electric too early with nowhere near the proper infrastructure.

> We should have pushed for hybrid cars. Who's this "we"? Toyota has already sold millions of hybrid vehicles to willing customers all over the world, probably more than all electric vehicles combined. Also, government can't force anything, if people don't have the money and the home charging needed for an EV, then they won't get it, short of govt giving them a free car.

> government can't force anything

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pathway-for-zero-emission...

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/wa-adopts-zero-emi...

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/news/california-moves-accelerate-100-...

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#199

Post by natch »

tw04 wrote: post #123
mdorazio wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, though. The average American drives 37 miles a day [1]. Your 48 miles overnight is more than enough 9 months out of the year even in a place like Chicago. A once a week trip to a faster charger or just a top-off when you're at a store / workplace that has chargers would cover the other 3 months. For places with less extreme winters than Chicago (the vast majority of US population centers), it's a non-issu…

48 miles assumes 12 hours of charging every day, in 50 degree or warmer weather. You haven't covered how you're planning on securing the charger or getting power to it for someone that lives in an apartment. I have multiple EVs in my household, I'm completely onboard. People acting like they're for everyone today are delusional with the current state of charging infrastructure in the US. We've had the unfortunate nee…

Buy Tesla and only Tesla and most if not all of this is solved. However for now “not for everyone” is certainly still true in many places.

Re: Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather

#200

Post by _ea1k »

natch wrote: post #188
joezydeco wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the vehicle is cold soaked and only has a minimal amount of charge left, won't most of it be consumed by the EV trying to preheat the battery? Seems like you're then trapped in a corner case that you can't get out of: not enough energy to allow for any kind of charge at all.

Preheating is not an absolute necessity for charging. It is done because it helps the charge go faster.

True, but in an extreme case, the battery may not take a charge at all without being warmed up. This may take 30+ minutes if it is extremely cold soaked.
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