Funny this is still a thing people doubt. Scandinavia here - we love our EVs and especially in the winter when they heat up themselves and always start on the first try.
My coworkers are worried they’d have to charge their cars every other day… At their home charger… Seems like such a hassle to do I guess.
That’s what you do. Awesome to always have a “full tank of gas” when you suddenly need to drive somewhere you hadn’t planned for.
Fossil fueled cars also lose range in the winter so it’s all just about whether your car has range enough for your needs.
People plug in their phone every night and it’s fine but doing the same for the car is too much?
EV owner here, you definitely don’t unless you are commuting really far every day. EVs these days have comparable range to a petrol car.
We charge a full charge maybe once or twice in two weeks? Driving two kids to and from two different schools every day, two trips to the gym every week, maybe a slight detour for grocery shopping.
The battery is so beast in a mediumish city. We don’t even have a charger, we just charge at the cheapest place in town, near the gym. Drive there then walk 5 mins to the gym, spend about 2–3h a time at the gym, fill up about 20–40% twice a week for like $3–$6 a pop. Nothing money. A lot less than we paid for gas before, and a lot more than we’d pay if we did have our own charger.
What’s the fav EV in your side of Earth?
VW ID.7 is usually the monthly best seller atm and is the one we’ve had ourselves since 1.5 years now. Awesome car - vastly superiour to our previous Tesla Model 3.
I was driving to the burrito store in town yesterday in -8° conditions. I noticed to keep the car at 17° the heater was using 50km of range. My normal 100% charge gives me 360 km of charge but in winter mode where the battery heater is on my max range goes closer to 300km at 100%.
This isn’t really a problem since I only drive to work and back which is 3km each way.
I don’t think that’s due to the heater at all. It’s just that in the cold, the battery is not as efficient and the car is displaying that to you by showing a lower kilometer gauge. Of course using the heater affects your range but not by 50km or anywhere near that.
It’s just to do with temperature as far as I understand (though I may be wrong).
The 50 km for the in cabin heater is because when I have the temp set in the cabin to 18.5 degrees and fan speed 3, the range said 300km, when I turned it off the range went to 350km so the car is saying I will lose around 50 km of range if I keep the heater on the whole 300km trip.
Huh okay that seems like a lot. I only lose about 10km or so when I have the heat turned on. Perhaps my car has a heat pump and yours doesn’t? Not sure if that might be the explanation.
Yea, that’s a big reason I went with the mid range EV6 since the base model has a resistive heater.
You’re both correct.
The climate system and especially the fans can use a lot of energy. My Volvo EX40 has an extended range mode that specifically only mentions reduced climate control capacity when enabled.
But during very cold temperatures you can probably expect up to 30% reduction in range depending on battery and make/model etc. Not only due to climate control but probably including it.
Uhhhh, depends on how you define “good”. Traction? Excellent. But it also exacerbates ones of the biggest hangups for EV’s: range. Especially if it doesn’t have a heat pump. On a freezing day, driving in snow, your range could be literally cut in half. But this is one of many reasons the “most Americans only drive 30 miles” argument is bullshit. I always advocate for getting more range then you think you’ll need, because those estimates are only under near-perfect conditions.
Are people really worried about the driving itself? I thought most people were afraid of reduced range/cabin heating time (which is true, if over exaggerated).
The vast majority of people’s day-to-day driving is perfectly suited to an EV, the issue is many people buy a vehicle that can also handle the less frequent other types of driving that EVs aren’t as good at. If vehicles weren’t so expensive maybe it would be more common to own an EV and then a gas/hybrid to solve this, or maybe it could become more acceptable/easy/cheaper to rent a different vehicle for those other times.
I’m a bit worried about having instant torque on a slippery surface. Seems like it would break traction more easily.
But, yeah, the range reduction caused by heating is also a consideration.
The traction control loop with electric motors is way way faster than using the brakes and hydraulic clutch packs for traction control. EVs can even modulate the Regen braking to improve traction downhill. The Model 3 I drive is legitimately one of the best cars I have ever driven in the snow as far as traction goes.
My kia EV6 has a snow mode for that very reason.
Such a dumb article. The ev problem in the cold is the range and charge speed. Not the weight or anything else. Lithium batteries take more damage charging and discharging in the cold. It also wastes a lot of battery to keep the battery and passenger compartment warm, and it will charge slower with a lower maximum capacity in the cold.
Bottom line is that if you have a 500km range ev, you shouldn’t expect it to be able to go further than 300km in extremely cold weather, or have the same amount of torque\power. Even worse if it’s been left unplugged and outside. This won’t ever change with a wet cell lithium battery. Other ev batteries are slowly starting to crop up.
Oddly enough this was never something I even questioned about EVs. There shouldn’t be any real difference in winter drivability just because of a different power source. Tires do most of the heavy lifting there. Cold weather does other things to EVs but the general drivability doesn’t degrade anymore than an ICE vehicle. The second half of the article goes into a lot more of the drawbacks of EVs and why they’re less of a drawback as time goes on.
I think most fears about EVs are about the reduced range in winter, especially when combined with fast travel:
What if I need to drive 800 kilometers over the winter holidays, with subzero temperatures, highway speeds, and a car packed to the brim - all of which severely reduce range?
And sure, this is probably the toughest scenario for EV range calculations.
Yeah that kind of stuff is covered in the second half. The first half and the title seem to allude that people just think EVs drive worse than their ICE counter parts somehow in cold weather.
various YouTube videos, and Reddit and Quora threads — often featuring inaccurate or misleading information — all essentially telling potential EV owners that if they want to drive in colder months, they’re better off buying a gas-powered car.
When I told a friend of mine I was going to the Arctic to drive EVs, their response was: “Do they even work in the cold?”
Yeah, my old EV drove just fine, but I had an old 2013 Nissan Leaf with really limited range. Last year we had a long period where temps were single digits. I had only enough range to drive to work, and then I’d have to go charge up at Walmart after work to get home!
It drove fine in the snow, and had seat heaters and heated steering wheel and the heater would heat the car right up (when I used it). I really loved that car! Newer EVs have much greater range - but that cold just knocks back the range like crazy.
Since getting a full EV right before this winter and being in Michigan I can see a few things that they need to improve. On my 2026 EV9 I notice a snow buildup on my hood as there is no engine to warm it also on the wipers. So they need to add a hood and wiper heater and I can see zero issues with an EV in snow.
Most people don’t do this for some reason but you really should be removing snow from your hood and roof already. I’m not sure what Michigans laws are but in my state if a chunk of snow/ice flies off my car into somebody else’s vehicle while driving and causes an accident or damage (cracked windshield, whatever) then that’s my fault and can be cited and my insurance will have to cover the other drivers damage.
It’s pretty common to see the big contraptions out here to pull crap off the top of semi trucks/trailers for this very reason.
People are just lazy. Most wouldn’t scrape the ice off the windshield if they thought they could see through it
Engine hoods have an insulation layer in a fire blanket.
Unless you’re running your vehicle for an hour or longer without moving, it’s not melting snow. And when moving, it’s being cooled too fast to melt.
Brush the snow off, you’re supposed to anyways!
My car will literally boil rain on the hood in slower traffic lol
For what’s it’s worth, a warmed up vehicle will usually be warm and melt fresh snow. But if there’s an inch of snow, it’s just gonna melt the bottom into ice and restick to the hood. Snow is a fantastic insulator, so it doesn’t take much for it to protect the rest.
Ya I’ve got a hybrid and I’ve noticed a drop in battery usage under 0C. Its not huge but efficiency went from 4.6ish L/100km to around 5.5-6. Still pretty good but noticeable.
Get a BMW iX which has heated wipers. Also has heated arm rests, and door panels and dash panels.
