Electric Car Owners Confront a Harsh Foe: Cold Weather • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by NDizzle » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:37 PM UTC

epistasis wrote: post #41

jdpedrie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The differences are a) you don't lose notable range in cold weather (and your car continues to reliably tell you your remaining range), and b) there's always another gas station a block down.

Yes, you do lose notable range in a gas car in cold weather: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/coldweather.shtml It's really interesting what sort of things are considered problems with EVs that just get ignored with gas cars. The dual standard is pretty interesting to observe.

Anyone who has driven long distances in the cold (where you can calculate your mpg easily, as you are just driving all day, what else are you doing?) knows that is bullshit. My van that gets 20-25 mpg in the summer gets... 20-25 mpg in the winter. The only time it's affected is when I'm crossing the rockies. Mountains...

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

#52

Post by natch » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:38 PM UTC

boh wrote: post #7

wyldfire wrote: post #4

I'm not sure that this warrants such a generalization from the title. The article itself goes on to quote: > “This is not a categorical problem for electric vehicles,” he added, “because it has largely been sorted out in other places.” > ... Cold weather is likely to be less of an issue as companies update electric vehicles models. Even in the last few years, companies have developed capabilities that allow newer mod…

The only place where they provide specific examples of how things are "largely sorted" is Norway and they themselves admit: > the majority of people in Norway live in houses, not apartments, and nearly 90 percent of electric vehicle owners have their own charging stations at home, he said.

This last quote just showcases a few people’s ignorance (at a minimum the author, the editor, and the person being quoted) of the fact that nobody needs a “charging station” at home. All you need is an outlet and a charging cable.

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

#53

Post by samstave » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

mminer237 wrote: post #11

It seems like electric cars necessitate garages. Basically all these problems seem to be caused by people leaving them outside unplugged overnight, which I don't know how they deal with during the summer even. I can't imagine driving a car I have to stop for an hour to publicly charge every week. I guess it would be fine if you could charge it on the street or whatever, but you would still be using a lot of power jus…

I wish charging stations were a bus along the row of spaces with arms that rise up from the center of a parking spot to couple with the charging port of a car on the underside. Then, if its not a EV - the arm just stays down and the spot is just a flat regular spot.

If that makes sense.

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

#54

Post by bluSCALE4 » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:41 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #19

A simple solution would be to warm the battery to a reasonable temperature but I don't know if that's feasible for such a large battery. It's not as easy as keeping a phone in an inside pocket vs an outside one. The car should be built with heaters around the battery. The power must come from the charger at charge time (but maybe the battery self warms itself while charging,) then from the battery. What's more: power…

Simple huh? I know the Chevy Volt has an engine to warm the battery. With a massive battery like Tesla's, I don't see heating the battery as "simple".

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

#55

Post by natch » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:42 PM UTC

brad_Saggy wrote: post #40

chollida1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do have a place to charge their cars. There are charging places all over the place, and possibly at their work. They just don't have one at home. That's going to become even more common as not every single parking spot can be turned into a charging space.

That's the funny part I don't understand. We want EVs to become mainstream but all apartment/condo dwellers should magically have a personal charging station.

Or an electrical outlet within reach. “Charging station” makes it sound inordinately expensive. An outlet is all they need and is already hard enough that there’s no need to make it sound harder than it is.

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

#56

Post by Gys » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:43 PM UTC

Dupe. Extensive discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39013931

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

#57

Post by epistasis » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:44 PM UTC

NDizzle wrote: post #51

epistasis wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you do lose notable range in a gas car in cold weather: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/coldweather.shtml It's really interesting what sort of things are considered problems with EVs that just get ignored with gas cars. The dual standard is pretty interesting to observe.

Anyone who has driven long distances in the cold (where you can calculate your mpg easily, as you are just driving all day, what else are you doing?) knows that is bullshit. My van that gets 20-25 mpg in the summer gets... 20-25 mpg in the winter. The only time it's affected is when I'm crossing the rockies. Mountains...

And as somebody who drives an EV, occasionally in cold weather, I would also assert based on my personal experience that losing range is "bullshit" but I also realize that others have different experiences.

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

#58

Post by randomfrogs » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

hgomersall wrote: post #24

TD-Linux wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All electric cars already do this, either with resistive heaters directly on the batteries or with water heaters in the coolant loop.

Presumably once going the internal losses keep it warm?

Depends on the car. My Bolt battery takes a LONG time to get warm just from driving, even with the battery heater running. You can speed it up a bit with yoyo driving (speed up to use power, then regen brake to dump power back into the battery, repeat as necessary) for about a half hour.

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

#59

Post by the-alchemist » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

What a crappy article. One can't complain NYT is too pro-EV.

This problem is a combination of growing pains, uneducated EV drivers, old EVs with crappy batteries, some bad infrastructure, and EV manufacturers that don't put enough diagnostics.

1. Ask anyone who has lived in these kinds of cold temperatures. Cold starts in ICEs are always a problem. in upstate NY, you always need a pair of jumper cables ready. you might get to where you're going, and then can't make it back.

2. Different battery chemistries have different cold vs. warm characteristics. Surprise, surprise, the newer, better, more expensive battery packs don't suffer in the cold as much. The loss can be as low as 3% (Jaguar I-Pace) to 30% (Ford Mustang Mach-E, VW ID.4). See https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-temperature-affec...

3. EVs have two battery packs: a small 12V one, like a regular car battery, and the BIG one. If the 12V one dies, you can't start the car, even if the BIG one is good. (EV manufacturers should install better 12V batteries and provide better diagnostics for this kind of problem.)

4. EVs also have a "pre-conditioning" charge, where (massively simplified) battery warms itself to prevent damaging itself when it's too cold. This can drain the battery, but if the car is plugged in, it's not a problem, it'll just pull the charge from the plug (even if the battery doesn't need charging).

5. Sounds like a few chargers "froze" up. Just like gas pumps, but obviously it's a much bigger issue because there's always another gas station down the road, unlike EV chargers.

6. Most EV owners charge at home, and we just plug in all the time because it's easy, convenient, and we can pre-heat the car with a button on our remotes, saving on battery.

7. Some EVs use resistive heat instead of a heat pump for heat gen, which can eat a lot of juice, but it's not a big deal anymore because the battery packs are so big.

So, really, my takeaway is that Tesla and the other EV manufacturers need to:

- cold proof their charging stations (probably a simple "growing pain")

- educate their users a bit. (if the car won't make it overnight because it'll have to do a conditioning charge based on the weather forecast, WARN the driver!)

- use better batteries. this issue will fix itself as the better manufacturing techniques spread throughout the industry

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

#60

Post by PaulHoule » Wed, Jan 17, 2024, 2:45 PM UTC

xyst wrote: post #21

yet another reason why “EVs won’t save the world but rather save the dying auto industry” Country needs to invest in supporting alternative transportation options across the nation. Cities need to be redesigned. The attitudes need to change. Car centric transportation doesn’t work at scale.

Hard to say. I see cars deployed at great scale today in the US though certainly you run into trouble at high densities. High-density cities in the US are unaffordable to the extent that it's not so clear that the millionaires who can afford to live in them will want to if school teachers, barristas, police officers, sanitation engineers and such can't afford to live there.

High-density cities have received a huge amount of subsidization from the internet bezzle too such as half-price Uber rides and same day Amazon deliveries. I think a lot of this is about deceiving the chattering classes so they can deceive us. If my farm had 1-day Amazon shipping and Hollywood had the 5-day shipping I get you can be sure that you wouldn't hear glib talk about how fast Amazon shipping is and in fact slow AMZN shipping would be a running gag on sitcoms. It's no accident that Jim Cramer gets 1-day shipping or that my congressman gets 1-day shipping (otherwise Bezos buying The Washington Post would have been a waste.)

In 2024, NYC and San Francisco have more to answer for in the "sustainability" department than Austin, TX, Scranton, PA, or any "normal" city in the US which is affordable.