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EV drivers discover fundamental flaw in battery tech as -30F temps hit the US

hunglee2 3y ago
One of the main values of sodium-ion batteries - apart from being substantially cheaper than lithium-ion - is cold temperature efficiency. VW have a China JV which is focused on this market - JAC Yiwei EV will be the first sodium-ion powered EV to go into mass production, happening Q1 2024
- okokwhatever 3y ago
  sodium-ion batteries support also shorter ranges but I get your point.
starbase 3y ago
Realistic take: your 400 mile range EV runs ~300 in the dead of winter. Your 300 mile EV runs ~230 miles. If you drive less than 200-300 miles per day, you plug in at night and never worry. Took me a full year to stop worrying about it. Was always doing the range math in my head.
- stbenjam 3y ago
  Until you need to do a road trip. I hated it. Non-Tesla charging networks are perpetually broken and few and far between in more rural areas. Going from MA to NH or VT was always nervewracking as they became just barely in reach in winter. I know it will get better (especially once everyone is on NACS), but it’s pretty tough out there now.
  - MochaDen 3y ago
    Hopefully this will just get better and better as charging networks improve, as batteries improve, and charging technology improves. We're already seeing some good steps in all these areas.
- hardware2win 3y ago
  Only 25% reduction? Ive seen people complain in eastern eu about 50% drop
  - 8fingerlouie 3y ago
    It depends A LOT on car, battery make, and temperature. For temperatures above -10C (14F), a car with heat pump will typically have a range drop of 20-30%, where a car without heat pump will have a somewhat higher range drop, but when temperatures go below that, the heat pump becomes increasingly less efficient. Some cars will back a backup PTC heater, where others, like (recent) Tesla Model 3/Y/S will run a motor to generate "waste" heat. Some cars will also scavenge waste heat from the battery, while others cannot. Some personal experiences in -15C (5F) is that Tesla Model Y LR loses about 25% range, where a VW ID.4 Pro loses closer to 40% range, despite having a heat pump. Ranges are measured on the same stretch including city driving and highway driving.
reacharavindh 3y ago
This is why a real hybrid car would be ideal. Front axle driven by ICE, and rear by electric motor and a battery with say 100 mile range. For 90% of the rides, the 100 mile electric drive train is enough, and you almost ride operational cost free if you also have solar panels and charge at home. There is no anxiety for extreme weather or those occasional long trips because the ICE got you covered. I don’t know if any car does this combination without breaking the bank.
- okokwhatever 3y ago
  Bravo!
- CharlieDigital 3y ago
  Prius Prime. Not 100 miles, but enough to do quite well for daily errands.
- vegardx 3y ago
  Plug-in hybrids makes very little sense, compared to pure hybrids or battery-electric vehicles. You end up with a complex drive train and a lot of added weight. To me it makes more sense to just use a hybrid if range is an issue. You need quite a large battery to drive 100 miles, and in your example you end up with an engine that is only used 10% of the time, but costs quite a significant portion of the overall cost of the car. You also have the added maintenance costs, which are higher for plug-in hybrids due to much more complex drive train. The reality is that for most people this is a non-issue. The biggest issues in temperatures that low is that your combustion engine won't start because your 12V battery has failed. All solvable, by just using a block heater. Which incidentally is the same way you can mitigate a lot of the range losses due to cold battery in EVs.
  - wil421 3y ago
    BMW makes an PHEV X5 with 40 miles of range and the normal straight 6 B58 motor. No small underwhelming I4 in a transverse FWD config. It’s between the Model X/Y in price. I have a kayak/bike trailer I use in the warm months. For my daily 35 miles commute I could use electricity and still have the capabilty to do long drives with all my kayak or biking stuff plus all the kids stuff. I’m a huge BMW fan but the Model X was freaking awesome. The Model Y felt like a Ford Pinto with the hardest suspension you could find.
Perenti 3y ago
As a resident of Queensland, Australia, why do people _choose_ to live in lands of ice and snow? So much of the world seems quite horrid to my sub-tropical habituated self.
- pjc50 3y ago
  Ironically, quite a lot of the really remote Canadian jobs are extracting fossil fuels.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  their choices are not objective decisions. its what they know and where their friends, family, community, house, job, tombstones, effigies, entrepreneurial endeavors and partners are.
  - justusthane 3y ago
    > their choices are not objective decisions. You could say that about any decision about anything, so it's pretty meaningless. I live in northern Ontario. It's below 0F all this week, and that's on the warm side for this time of year. We usually get a week or two of -20F, and -30 is cold but not remarkable. And believe if or not, people _do_ choose to live in these climates, regardless of the ties you listed above. I love winter. I love the stillness, I love being cozy inside, I love the feeling of braving the elements outside. Maybe it's a bit trite, but knowing that just being outside can literally kill you if you're not prepared for it tends to make you feel pretty alive. I love how everything dies or hibernates in the winter, and I love the renewal and rejuvenation that comes with spring. And like a sibling comment pointed out, you can always put on more clothes to be comfortable, but you can only take off so many. I hate heat and humidity. I bike to work five days a week year-round and run outdoors all winter. Late summer when it's so hot and miserable to be outside is when I stop running.
    - yieldcrv 3y ago
      its a good testimony, the middle of nowhere has a stillness because nobody wants to live there otherwise it would be a dense high cost of living area already you are perfectly aware of the contrarian nature of your choice
ZeroGravitas 3y ago
Well if EVs can only do a 1200km journey from Saskatoon to Kelowna in -30F weather at $30 dollars* less cost than fuel for an ICE, then there's no way they're ready for the mass market. ($60 dollars less if those are canadian dollars) * https://www.travelmath.com/cost-of-driving/from/Saskatoon,+Canada/to/Kelowna,+Canada https://www.travelmath.com/cost-of-driving/from/Saskatoon,+C...
ricardobeat 3y ago
Looking at the map, Saskatoon to Kelowna is a 1200km trip that takes 13 hours. The article says “it takes 3x longer” because of charging, so that would make it… 26 hours of charging alone? Maybe they shouldnt be writing zero-effort news articles based on some random tweets. Bjorn Nyland on YouTube has plenty of reviews where he charges in cold weather, all you need is to make sure the battery is preheated (I believe Teslas do it automatically once you add a charging stop to the gps route) and then charging happens at normal speeds.
- moogly 3y ago
  > all you need is to make sure the battery is preheated A lot of EVs (really; a lot) don't even have preheating, or you cannot start it manually (like Tesla).
  - thebruce87m 3y ago
    I can precondition my Tesla. The car is scheduled to be fully defrosted, cabin preheated and battery preconditioned for 8.30 every weekday. If you navigate to a supercharger it will precondition the battery as you approach.
    - moogly 3y ago
      I know. But when you're driving you need to navigate. Which is drawback compared to cars where you can just have a button to tell it to start preconditioning regardless.
      - thebruce87m 3y ago
        I suppose having a manual override is better than not having it - especially for non-Tesla chargers - but for most long journeys I’m setting up the sat nav anyway for traffic and it’s aware of each supercharger stop to the destination.
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  Plugging the details in to ABRP, it seems that this journey would be 14 hours and 40 minutes of pure driving. In a Tesla Model Y LR you would need to stop every hour or two for about 15 minutes to top up and the total charging time would be under 2 hours. Not sure if this is taking into account extreme low temperatures so let’s assume not. Maybe he meant that it would be 3x longer with the extreme temperatures for charging only? So 6 hours instead? But I agree, it’s a total trash article. No actual quotes from owners, only third parties. No comparison on how ICE vehicles fare under similar conditions.
thebruce87m 3y ago
What a trash article. They have a bunch of quotes from people who have spoken to EV owners, not owners themselves. Here are some actual owners: https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/194yg8x/how_are_your_evs_doing_in_this_weather_genuinely/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/194yg8x/how_are_yo... > My partner’s gas car wouldn’t start last night so we took the EV. That’s how it’s going
punkybr3wster 3y ago
This is about as stupid as “Diesel drivers discover fundamental flaw in diesel tech as -30F temps hit the US”. Ironically the solution is essentially the same — keeping your car plugged in to keep warm.
Alifatisk 3y ago
We should be able to punish trash / low-effort articles so they don’t rank higher.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836

One of the main values of sodium-ion batteries - apart from being substantially cheaper than lithium-ion - is cold temperature efficiency. VW have a China JV which is focused on this market - JAC Yiwei EV will be the first sodium-ion powered EV to go into mass production, happening Q1 2024

okokwhatever 3y ago
sodium-ion batteries support also shorter ranges but I get your point.

starbase 3y ago

Realistic take: your 400 mile range EV runs ~300 in the dead of winter. Your 300 mile EV runs ~230 miles. If you drive less than 200-300 miles per day, you plug in at night and never worry. Took me a full year to stop worrying about it. Was always doing the range math in my head.

stbenjam 3y ago
Until you need to do a road trip. I hated it. Non-Tesla charging networks are perpetually broken and few and far between in more rural areas. Going from MA to NH or VT was always nervewracking as they became just barely in reach in winter. I know it will get better (especially once everyone is on NACS), but it’s pretty tough out there now.
- MochaDen 3y ago
  Hopefully this will just get better and better as charging networks improve, as batteries improve, and charging technology improves. We're already seeing some good steps in all these areas.
hardware2win 3y ago
Only 25% reduction? Ive seen people complain in eastern eu about 50% drop
- 8fingerlouie 3y ago
  It depends A LOT on car, battery make, and temperature. For temperatures above -10C (14F), a car with heat pump will typically have a range drop of 20-30%, where a car without heat pump will have a somewhat higher range drop, but when temperatures go below that, the heat pump becomes increasingly less efficient. Some cars will back a backup PTC heater, where others, like (recent) Tesla Model 3/Y/S will run a motor to generate "waste" heat. Some cars will also scavenge waste heat from the battery, while others cannot. Some personal experiences in -15C (5F) is that Tesla Model Y LR loses about 25% range, where a VW ID.4 Pro loses closer to 40% range, despite having a heat pump. Ranges are measured on the same stretch including city driving and highway driving.

reacharavindh 3y ago

This is why a real hybrid car would be ideal. Front axle driven by ICE, and rear by electric motor and a battery with say 100 mile range. For 90% of the rides, the 100 mile electric drive train is enough, and you almost ride operational cost free if you also have solar panels and charge at home. There is no anxiety for extreme weather or those occasional long trips because the ICE got you covered. I don’t know if any car does this combination without breaking the bank.

okokwhatever 3y ago
Bravo!
CharlieDigital 3y ago
Prius Prime. Not 100 miles, but enough to do quite well for daily errands.
vegardx 3y ago
Plug-in hybrids makes very little sense, compared to pure hybrids or battery-electric vehicles. You end up with a complex drive train and a lot of added weight. To me it makes more sense to just use a hybrid if range is an issue. You need quite a large battery to drive 100 miles, and in your example you end up with an engine that is only used 10% of the time, but costs quite a significant portion of the overall cost of the car. You also have the added maintenance costs, which are higher for plug-in hybrids due to much more complex drive train. The reality is that for most people this is a non-issue. The biggest issues in temperatures that low is that your combustion engine won't start because your 12V battery has failed. All solvable, by just using a block heater. Which incidentally is the same way you can mitigate a lot of the range losses due to cold battery in EVs.
- wil421 3y ago
  BMW makes an PHEV X5 with 40 miles of range and the normal straight 6 B58 motor. No small underwhelming I4 in a transverse FWD config. It’s between the Model X/Y in price. I have a kayak/bike trailer I use in the warm months. For my daily 35 miles commute I could use electricity and still have the capabilty to do long drives with all my kayak or biking stuff plus all the kids stuff. I’m a huge BMW fan but the Model X was freaking awesome. The Model Y felt like a Ford Pinto with the hardest suspension you could find.

Perenti 3y ago

As a resident of Queensland, Australia, why do people _choose_ to live in lands of ice and snow? So much of the world seems quite horrid to my sub-tropical habituated self.

pjc50 3y ago
Ironically, quite a lot of the really remote Canadian jobs are extracting fossil fuels.
yieldcrv 3y ago
their choices are not objective decisions. its what they know and where their friends, family, community, house, job, tombstones, effigies, entrepreneurial endeavors and partners are.
- justusthane 3y ago
  > their choices are not objective decisions. You could say that about any decision about anything, so it's pretty meaningless. I live in northern Ontario. It's below 0F all this week, and that's on the warm side for this time of year. We usually get a week or two of -20F, and -30 is cold but not remarkable. And believe if or not, people _do_ choose to live in these climates, regardless of the ties you listed above. I love winter. I love the stillness, I love being cozy inside, I love the feeling of braving the elements outside. Maybe it's a bit trite, but knowing that just being outside can literally kill you if you're not prepared for it tends to make you feel pretty alive. I love how everything dies or hibernates in the winter, and I love the renewal and rejuvenation that comes with spring. And like a sibling comment pointed out, you can always put on more clothes to be comfortable, but you can only take off so many. I hate heat and humidity. I bike to work five days a week year-round and run outdoors all winter. Late summer when it's so hot and miserable to be outside is when I stop running.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    its a good testimony, the middle of nowhere has a stillness because nobody wants to live there otherwise it would be a dense high cost of living area already you are perfectly aware of the contrarian nature of your choice

ZeroGravitas 3y ago

Well if EVs can only do a 1200km journey from Saskatoon to Kelowna in -30F weather at $30 dollars* less cost than fuel for an ICE, then there's no way they're ready for the mass market. ($60 dollars less if those are canadian dollars) * https://www.travelmath.com/cost-of-driving/from/Saskatoon,+Canada/to/Kelowna,+Canada https://www.travelmath.com/cost-of-driving/from/Saskatoon,+C...

ricardobeat 3y ago

Looking at the map, Saskatoon to Kelowna is a 1200km trip that takes 13 hours. The article says “it takes 3x longer” because of charging, so that would make it… 26 hours of charging alone? Maybe they shouldnt be writing zero-effort news articles based on some random tweets. Bjorn Nyland on YouTube has plenty of reviews where he charges in cold weather, all you need is to make sure the battery is preheated (I believe Teslas do it automatically once you add a charging stop to the gps route) and then charging happens at normal speeds.

moogly 3y ago
> all you need is to make sure the battery is preheated A lot of EVs (really; a lot) don't even have preheating, or you cannot start it manually (like Tesla).
- thebruce87m 3y ago
  I can precondition my Tesla. The car is scheduled to be fully defrosted, cabin preheated and battery preconditioned for 8.30 every weekday. If you navigate to a supercharger it will precondition the battery as you approach.
  - moogly 3y ago
    I know. But when you're driving you need to navigate. Which is drawback compared to cars where you can just have a button to tell it to start preconditioning regardless.
    - thebruce87m 3y ago
      I suppose having a manual override is better than not having it - especially for non-Tesla chargers - but for most long journeys I’m setting up the sat nav anyway for traffic and it’s aware of each supercharger stop to the destination.
thebruce87m 3y ago
Plugging the details in to ABRP, it seems that this journey would be 14 hours and 40 minutes of pure driving. In a Tesla Model Y LR you would need to stop every hour or two for about 15 minutes to top up and the total charging time would be under 2 hours. Not sure if this is taking into account extreme low temperatures so let’s assume not. Maybe he meant that it would be 3x longer with the extreme temperatures for charging only? So 6 hours instead? But I agree, it’s a total trash article. No actual quotes from owners, only third parties. No comparison on how ICE vehicles fare under similar conditions.

thebruce87m 3y ago

What a trash article. They have a bunch of quotes from people who have spoken to EV owners, not owners themselves. Here are some actual owners: https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/194yg8x/how_are_your_evs_doing_in_this_weather_genuinely/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Calgary/comments/194yg8x/how_are_yo... > My partner’s gas car wouldn’t start last night so we took the EV. That’s how it’s going

punkybr3wster 3y ago

This is about as stupid as “Diesel drivers discover fundamental flaw in diesel tech as -30F temps hit the US”. Ironically the solution is essentially the same — keeping your car plugged in to keep warm.

Alifatisk 3y ago

We should be able to punish trash / low-effort articles so they don’t rank higher.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12173836