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The Albertan above was reporting a temperature of -32°C. Searching a few sites online, it was hard to find any data on that. -15°C meant 50% range. I'm guessi
by capitainenemo 3y ago
The Albertan above was reporting a temperature of -32°C. Searching a few sites online, it was hard to find any data on that. -15°C meant 50% range.
I'm guessing your car probably also has battery heating though. And so long as the grid was able to handle it (which does seem to be a problem from the comments above in Alberta even with their tiny EV fleet) most likely you'd just plug it in, and it would stay nice and warm all night with no range impact in the morning - at the cost of a bit of power..
- SoftTalker 3y agoTo be fair, a lot of petrol engines, and certainly diesel engines will have trouble starting at those temps unless they are in top condition. "Plug in heaters" are the solution there as well, to keep the engine block warm. Diesels will also need fuel treatement or fuel heaters to keep the fuel from turning to gel.
- speedgoose 3y agoI drove my EV by -30 on Norway this month. Keeping about 19 degrees inside was using a lot of energy as cars aren’t well insulated. The range is bad in winter but fast charging produces a lot of heat in the battery, you can see steam going from below the car while charging, that can then be moved to the cabin after. So long trips aren’t that bad. But you spend more, for sure. And you need a good winter EV. A lot of EVs on the market are terrible winter EVs. Also, you don’t keep the battery warm all night as it would waste too much energy, but you should pre-heat the battery if you want descent battery performances immediately after you drive. On my car, it takes a few minutes while connected to the wall. I can start it from the phone or program it.
- archi42 3y agoMay I ask for more precise anecdata: What EV is that? And which EV are worse for the colds snaps? Around here it's -5 to -7, so much less severe and if I understood my wife correctly, the Ora has a ~20% drop in range. Still good enough for our use case, but when I'll replace my PHEV with a proper BEV this might be more relevant.
- speedgoose 3y agoI didn’t name it to not sound like one of those owners but it’s the best selling EV: a Tesla model y. It also has a LG battery pack, that performs better in the cold than the Panasonic, CATL, or BYD batteries Tesla also use. About the worse EVs for winter, that would be the ones with no or small battery heaters. The old imiev for example. A 20% drop of range by -5 is pretty good. Your wife may enjoy a cold interior or trust the temperature display of the car AC.
- archi42 3y agoThanks :) And oh well, ours would be pretty good then, but sadly I just got new data from her: 30% or 260km down to 160km, and the lowest temps for the last days were only 0 to -5 degC. Still good enough for her daily total of 60km. One big factor: The dealership didn't want to add the heat pump, and we didn't want to pay that extra in full for a car we would not keep anyway (plus we were lucky and could get the car from their stock).