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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

#61

Post by marvin »

vanous wrote: post #47
simfree wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP should have gone by percentage of battery left, and just left the car plugged in. Not plugging in when arriving and letting the battery freeze (cold soak) overnight, unplugging after 30 minutes of 1.5kW level 1 charging and basing his entire decisions on what the car's guess-o-meter says for remaining milage is pretty crazy IMO. Seems like OP chose to do the worst thing possible at each juncture to ensure a bad ch…

I am all for EV, but if besides needing to take care that I plug my phone and my watch every night I must also not forget to plug in the car and if I forget, I must apologize at work for not coming in, or my kids cannot go to school... just because it easily can get to -15°C here... then it feels like a technology issue and not like me doing the worse thing possible...

Regular EV user here - plugging it in is something you do every time you park, the way you lock your doors. It takes five seconds. Press the «open charge port» button on the charging cable and stick it in the charging socket. Done.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#62

Post by rtkwe »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #39
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…

I mean by that metric, it's hard to figure out how to install a dryer in your house too. It's the same circuitry.

With the difference that the dryer connections are usually installed when the house is built so there's easy access to run the wires to and from the breaker box. Installing them afterwards is more expensive and complicated to do because of the limited access.

It's also not something you can expect to find anywhere other than at another EV owner's place. Admittedly over time that will become less of an issue but for now it's going to be pretty rare.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#63

Post by neon_electro »

GalenErso wrote: post #32
brianglick wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't really need a heated garage (at home, anyway) if you had a 220 volt charger. That should be able to overcome any charging challenges in extreme cold, anyway. Relatively easy to get that into your garage. Also - if you arrive at your friend's place in the winter and park overnight, you won't lose a ton overnight if the car's just parked there.

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…

Do you just assume all EVs lose massive amounts of battery state of charge while unplugged? There's a reason Tesla vehicles lose battery while parked and unplugged; they have cameras and other computer systems continuing to run, sapping power.

On the other hand, I have driven a 2018 Bolt EV for 4 years, 48k miles, and never once had an issue with the car being unplugged and returning to a car with less range than I left it.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#64

Post by simfree »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #59
simfree wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

18Mpg becomes 10Mpg or worse in the winter in my experience. EV driving can be more efficient if you don't let your battery cold soak for hours, or equally inefficient if you do leave your car unplugged overnight.

I live in place that routinely goes below freezing in winter. I’ve never noticed gas mileage change because of temperature. I would definitely notice a difference of 8 MPG. Where do you get that info? Is it personal experience? If so, where do you live?

Here in the Pacific Northwest, driving both last winter in BC and currently in the mix of snow, freezing rain and slush. I'm using the same three peaks rated all season tires as I was using in the summer, and driving the same routes as well.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#65

Post by jmclnx »

labcomputer wrote: post #50

It’s interesting that nobody in this thread has yet mentioned the numerous range tests showing that Teslas achieve less than EPA range in many “real world” (warm weather) tests. Part of the EPA methodology is to penalize EV range using either a fixed constant or measurements of performance at reduced temperatures. Because Tesla cars perform better in the cold, they use the measurement method when calculating EPA rang…

I saw a similar discussion about Gas Mileage. The point was to allow us to compare the differences between different models under similar conditions, not to get real world results.

Maybe EVs need more complex testing ?

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#67

Post by tshaddox »

rtkwe wrote: post #62
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean by that metric, it's hard to figure out how to install a dryer in your house too. It's the same circuitry.

With the difference that the dryer connections are usually installed when the house is built so there's easy access to run the wires to and from the breaker box. Installing them afterwards is more expensive and complicated to do because of the limited access. It's also not something you can expect to find anywhere other than at another EV owner's place. Admittedly over time that will become less of an issue but for n…

Right, so you’re only saying that EVs are new, not that they’re more difficult to setup than a dryer.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#68

Post by NotYourLawyer »

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.

Chargers are a problem for apartments in urban centers though.

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#69

Post by rapind »

saturn_vk wrote: post #56
vanous wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am all for EV, but if besides needing to take care that I plug my phone and my watch every night I must also not forget to plug in the car and if I forget, I must apologize at work for not coming in, or my kids cannot go to school... just because it easily can get to -15°C here... then it feels like a technology issue and not like me doing the worse thing possible...

But that's a thing you learn. Just like you learn to check your oil level before starting in a conventional vehicle. Everything has its own set of things you have to know

> Just like you learn to check your oil level before starting in a conventional vehicle.

Yeah, I (and everyone else) totally do that…

Re: The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

#70

Post by neon_electro »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #34
Animats wrote: post #7

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

GM (Chevy) actually excellently engineered packs for cold weather. But what you might be seeing here is in fact the result of their attention to battery longevity. The packs in the Volt & Bolt have a lot of systems set up to maintain temperatures optimal for battery lifespan (in both cold and hot weather); one of the things that distinguishes them from the lackadaisical engineering in e.g. a Nissan Leaf. Lessened ran…

And because of this cautious design, shouldn't used car consumers be able to better trust used Volts and Bolt E(U)Vs to have withstood their mileage and calendar years with hopefully less degradation?
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