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I'd be interested how well electric cars faired in Norway as I would expect the colder months would impact the battery performance (reduce range). Which makes
by Zenst 8y ago
I'd be interested how well electric cars faired in Norway as I would expect the colder months would impact the battery performance (reduce range). Which makes me wonder if manufacturers do any country adaptations for the local climate.
- Thlom 8y agoThe reduced range isn’t that bad and most trips are relatively short and nowhere near draining the battery.
- readhn 8y agocold climates are better for batteries than hot.
- nickelcitymario 8y agoI really want that to be true, but try having your car battery die 3 times in a single week of -44 degree celsius (-47 fahrenheit) weather. Or, less dramatically, watch your phone go from 100% charged to 5% charged in just 30 minutes in that same temperature. I'm no physicist, but anecdotally, you are very very wrong. UPDATE: See hwillis' comment below. I'm so very very wrong, and am ashamed of my ignorance.
- hwillis 8y agoIt is actually true. The battery stores just as much energy when it's cold, and has higher efficiency. The problem is that that efficiency drops dramatically as you try to pull more power. A very simplified explanation would be that the charge carriers have a harder time moving quickly through cold electrolyte. This results in a kind of drag (most of which is actually literal drag) that results in a lower voltage on the output. Your phone measures its charge via the voltage (partly), so when it starts pulling more power it suddenly registers much lower voltage. If you turned it off and let the voltage recover, it would show as charged again. Normal lead acid batteries will fail for the same reason; they can't push amps at low temperatures. If they were heated up they would work fine and they will have lost less charge than if they had been sitting at room temperature. Electric car batteries are the same, but the cold temperature enables to push much more power for longer without getting too hot. Please do not compare phone batteries to large, carefully controlled and well-treated batteries like those in new EVs. They are totally different animals. Phone batteries are probably the most brutal of all common battery applications; they are used as heat sinks, have zero temperature control, and regularly experience forces and temperatures that are way out of spec.
- nickelcitymario 8y agoI retract my comment. This is absolutely fascinating. Thanks!
- Galaxeblaffer 8y agoUnless they made the battery protect itself from the cold with some kind of thermal management system ? Such a system could run in external power when plugged in, and as a safety be able to run on it's own power, draining the battery of course.
- readhn 8y agothey already use this approach. batteries have its own thermal management system.
- Gibbon1 8y agoTrue. Range is reduced but the degradation is slower. Based on complaints it seems Nissan Leafs smaller batteries with crummy thermal management degrade fairly quickly in hot climates. But are 'fine' in mild climates.
- andrewtbham 8y agohttps://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-superowner-arctic-circle https://www.tesla.com/blog/tesla-superowner-arctic-circle The temperature dropped to -40 degrees Celsius. It was so cold that the trains couldn’t operate and the diesel in the buses froze. But the Model S was just fine.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoMoney quote: “We found out that it’s a super winter car,” says Jens. “It’s so fantastic. It’s much easier and better than an ordinary car.” He likes that you can heat the Model S remotely via an app, so that there’s no ice or snow on the car when you’re ready to drive it. He also says the winter range is almost the same as the summer range. In December, he and Røsnes took the Model S to an ice hotel in Sweden, 200km from Narvik. The temperature dropped to -40 degrees Celsius. It was so cold that the trains couldn’t operate and the diesel in the buses froze. But the Model S was just fine."
- newnewpdro 8y agoIn an old book about the development of the Prudhoe Bay Oil Field in Alaska, it was called Alaska Crude if memory serves, they described having to burn fires beneath the oil pans of their trucks to unseize the moving parts because the oil had frozen solid. EVs seem obviously superior in this department, at least when it comes to cold enough temperatures to freeze engine oil.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Zenst 8y agoYes, I've seen Ice Road Truckers - scary job. Also that environment would be the true test of any EV truck. Which is an area far more in its infancy compared to cars.
- tonyarkles 8y agoCharcoal briquettes in a roaster pan can be useful there too, if you're ever in that situation. You get the radiative warmth without the flame (once it's burned down).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gwbas1c 8y agoMy Model 3 gets about 70% of range in freezing temperatures, (25F, or about -5C). That's driving 75MPH with the butt warmer on. (About 115KPH.) The range improves if I turn the butt warmer off and the heat down.
- Zenst 8y agoYes the heating would be a mare factor in an electric vehicle compared with combustion flavours that produce heat.
- Brakenshire 8y agoI don’t think the Tesla has a heat pump yet, which would affect those figures.
- gwbas1c 8y agoOur older Leaf had bad range in the cold, and I think it had a heat pump. I thought Tesla used a system to bring waste heat from the motors and battery into the cabin? Maybe that's only the S, because the 3's motor is more efficient?
- roland35 8y agoLithium batteries have different temperature ranges based on what they are doing. Looking at an LG datasheet I pulled online (https://www.powerstream.com/p/LG-ICR18650HE2-REV0.pdf https://www.powerstream.com/p/LG-ICR18650HE2-REV0.pdf) you can see: Operating - Charging: 0-50C Operating - Discharging: -20-75C Storage (1 month): -20-60C So starting at -20C you run into trouble! Many people forget that the charging temperature range is narrower, but luckily if you are connected to a charger you could use some of that energy to run the Battery Thermal Management System.
- ptaipale 8y agoElectric cars are often second cars in family. They're nice for short distances, like commute to work. For long distances - and distances on road in Norway can be very long - internal combustion engine and its range still rules.
- bluedino 8y agoIt was an interesting winter for Tesla owners https://www.thedrive.com/news/24944/these-are-all-the-issues-tesla-model-3-owners-will-deal-with-this-winter https://www.thedrive.com/news/24944/these-are-all-the-issues...
- vamin 8y agoSorry for the paywall, but I was reminded of this article in the Economist about the popularity of the Toyota Prius in Mongolia. One reason is low prices, but another is that they will start in extreme cold when ICE engines can't: https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/12/22/everyone-in-mongolia-drives-a-prius https://www.economist.com/asia/2018/12/22/everyone-in-mongol...