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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

#91

Post by johndunne »

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.

Completely agree. I’m looking for a new car and I’ve dry runned some long road trips I commonly do between Yorkshire and Dublin, and in a pure ev car, it’s a very different prospect to petrol only.

Plus, hybrid has lots of regenerative energy recovery that can be done to extend the mpg on the same fuel.

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

#92

Post by LargeWu »

sharms wrote: post #5

I just drove the Tesla Model Y around where this past weekend it was -10F. Range was probably 15% lower overall (lots of heating / heated seats etc) and we were cautious to make sure we stayed charged up (huge traffic delays due to the storm meant you could be stuck in your car for 6-10 hours). Overall everything worked out, I did have battery anxiety but there were also gas cars which had anxiety.

Only 15% seems extremely good. General consensus is that EV's lose at least 40% capacity in such weather.

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

#93

Post by cjrp »

tw04 wrote: post #76
natch wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not exactly accurate. Pick a car - say a Mustang Mach-e: a standard 15A outlet is going to charge at 4miles/hr. Say you get home a 6pm, never go anywhere, and leave it plugged in overnight - that's 48 miles of range. If you're talking dead of winter in Chicago in negative temps, assume half that. Long story short: a 15A outlet really isn't going to get the job done for charging a car. Also you cannot just char…

Do people need 48 miles (or 24 miles if the charging is slow because of the temperature) of range every day? Genuine question, I don't know what driving in that area is like, i.e. nearest grocery story could be 10 miles?

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

#95

Post by thebruce87m »

Im_your_dada wrote: post #25

Also door handles freeze as Musk genius design failed to include cold climate drivers. Now inapp unlock is an upgrade that you have to pay. You would have to pay me to own a Tesla.

In app door unlock is a paid upgrade? I’ve never paid but I have it.

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

#96

Post by Kon-Peki »

_ea1k wrote: post #81
boh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a lot of cold towns in the US that didn't have the same issues as Chicago. There's more to it than just "Cold weather". TBH, perhaps the more general problem is that EVs aren't fully ready for dense cities yet. Or maybe dense cities aren't ready for EVs.

To be clear, when this problem was happening in Chicago, the temperature was a lot colder than Oslo. Like -30°C with a wind chill approaching -50°C. That's not "cold weather", that's "insanely cold weather".

According to Wikipedia, it has never been anywhere close to that cold in Oslo. And yet, due to the climate change effect on the arctic jet stream, Chicago sees this kind of temperature for a few days in 2-3 out of every 5 winters.

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

#97

Post by NDizzle »

thebruce87m wrote: post #85
NDizzle wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You had to stop 3 times for a 275 mile drive?!

ICE cars have to go to a gas station every ~500 miles. For some EV owners like me, the trade off in time saved refuelling an ICE car is spent on charging on rare long journeys. I actually save time overall. But each use-case is different.

On long journeys I stop every 300-350 miles. Bladders can't make it longer than that, although the cars certainly can. I wouldn't stop at all on a 275 mile trip. I would fill up before I return, however.

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

#98

Post by Symbiote »

mikestew wrote: post #77
natch wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have to assume you either don’t drive much, or don’t actually own an electric car. Those are the only explanations I have for making such an inaccurate (I hesitate to quote the word “ignorant“) statement. — Owner of an EV that would take days to charge on 120V

A North American outlet can provide a continuous power of around 1440W.

The comment could be someone in Europe (etc) where "an outlet" means 220-240V, with a continuous power of around 2500-3500W, depending on the regulations in that country.

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

#99

Post by 015a »

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.

I don't necessarily think the problem is the range loss; the problem is the lower range to begin with, and the unreliable public charging infrastructure.

The 2024 Toyota Camry gets over 600 miles of highway range. We don't think about ICE vehicles in that way, but compare that to a Model 3 Long Range: ~340 miles @100% battery, but realistically you're running 90%-10%, so its more like ~270 miles. Losing 20% of your range to cold weather is A LOT more tenable when you're working with 400+ miles of range to begin with.

Superchargers are pretty reliable. Inhumanly reliable actually, especially compared to other charging networks. Many, many parts of the country have stretches of 130+ miles with no DC Fast Charging options, or just a Supercharger and one non-Tesla option.

So, run the math on that. You're looking at a 280 mile range EV. Subtract 20% just because you can only run it 90%-10%, not 100%-0%: 224 miles. Subtract 20% because cold weather (and that's charitable; some of these brands are more like 30%-40%, bad insulation, no heat pump, etc): 180 miles. There's one DC Fast Charging station between you and your destination. Your destination is 160 miles away, and that DC Fast Charger is managed by Electrify America. This isn't a double-standard or "range anxiety": This is a legitimate problem.

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

#100

Post by jcranmer »

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.

Read your own link more carefully. If I'm taking my car on a short commute so that it never gets up to temperature, then maybe, the absolute worst case scenario, I might suffer as much range loss as the best case scenario for an EV. But when the engine is at temperature and remains at such (for example, I'm taking a long-distance drive where range actually matters), the range loss on a gas car is minuscule, whereas the EV car still suffers significant range loss.
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