It’s January, and you know what that means in the context of cars and the northern hemisphere — things get weird as the going gets cold. We’ve all heard the tales of fuel lines icing and doors being stuck due to ice, but what happens to electric vehicle range in winter? While charging can clearly be affected, as we saw during a recent Chicago deep-freeze that tested the limits of Tesla’s Supercharging network, what may have led to the long lines and dead cars in the first place? The analysts at Recurrent pulled data from more than 10,000 EVs to figure out what sort of range decline owners were looking at in freezing weather. The results are eye-opening if you live somewhere that gets cold and don’t have EV experience.
This isn’t Recurrent’s first time publishing data on winter EV range, but the analytics firm has recently updated its findings for 2024, and these efforts have some serious relevance given what we’ve seen recently. Extreme cold across Canada and the northern United States over the past week has put some serious strain on EV drivers, from an Alberta electrical grid alert advising drivers to “Delay charging electric vehicles” to Tesla DC fast charging pandemonium in Chicago.
Through forces outside their control, some drivers are being asked or forced to stretch their battery packs as far as practical, which begs the question: How far can they go when things get cold? The chart below from Recurrent shows range reduction across the board at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, although the amount of range reduction can vary wildly from model to model.
Of models without heat pumps, the real winner is the 2020 to 2021 Hyundai Kona Electric. Not only did it beat its EPA estimate under ideal conditions, it had the furthest winter range of any vehicle observed. Despite a range swing of 34 percent between ideal and freezing conditions, observed range at 32 degrees Fahrenheit fell to a reasonable 84 percent of the EPA range figure, or around 216 miles. By managing expectations, Hyundai set a fairly achievable target. Under-promising and over-delivering works, people.
In contrast, look at what the 2021 Volkswagen ID.4 achieved. Recurrent found that observed range under ideal conditions worked out to 95 percent of the 260-mile EPA estimate. While that isn’t bad, drop ambient temperatures to 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and a not-so-funny thing happens: Range drops by 45 percent over the EPA rating, or 46 percent over observed range in ideal weather. The result, according to this study, is a freezing weather range of 165 miles, which isn’t a brilliant number.
Across 4,576 Tesla Model 3 Long Range models, Recurrent found range at freezing to be half of EPA estimated range. Only doing half of advertised range due to what Minnesotans call a lovely January day just doesn’t seem acceptable. Mind you, range under ideal conditions isn’t great either, and if we compare the two, we’ll see a real-world range drop of 24 percent in winter. While it is worth noting that since the study came out, Tesla revised range estimates for its cars, a claim made to the public is a claim made to the public. Some buyers are likely pissed, just like the Chicagoans who recently experienced some serious Supercharging issues during a deep-freeze.
If you’ve heard about EV performance in cool weather, you may be familiar with heat pumps, heat exchange systems that can heat or cool the battery pack or cabin without consuming an enormous amount of energy. Compared to resistive heating, they’re often considered a more efficient method of cabin thermal management. However, effectiveness in freezing conditions seems difficult to conclude from Recurrent’s study alone. Recurrent only had observed data on two vehicles with heat pumps across all observed examples, the 2021 to 2022 Audi E-Tron and the Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD. At 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the Audi E-Tron managed 80 percent of its EPA range figure, while the Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD managed a mere 48 percent of its EPA range figure. Intriguingly, the Model Y saw the exact same percentage of real-world range drop as its heat pump-less Model 3 sibling, and if that doesn’t suggest inconclusive benefits of heat pumps in freezing weather, I don’t know what does.
Now, Recurrent isn’t the only organization to have a crack at figuring out EV range loss in winter. Consumer Reports did instrumented testing of a Ford Mustang Mach-E, a Tesla Model Y, a Volkswagen ID.4, and a Hyundai Ioniq 5, and found that all four vehicles lost around 25 percent of their range at 70 mph on the same drive loop in 16-to-17-degree Fahrenheit cold compared to balmy 65 degree Fahrenheit temperatures. As for methodology, here’s what Consumer Reports did:
The cars were taken on the road concurrently and driven on the same 142-mile round-trip route of Connecticut Route 2 and I-91. We used adaptive cruise control set to 70 mph and the widest gap to prevent any aerodynamic trailing effect or sudden decelerations and accelerations due to surrounding traffic. The regenerative braking mode was set to its lowest setting for each car to level the playing field. We paused for 10 minutes with the cars off at the midpoint.
Once back at our Auto Test Center, our engineers didn’t just record the remaining range indicated in the cars. They applied the ratio of miles of range used vs. miles driven throughout the trip to extrapolate what would be the total range for that specific trip. We also checked that ratio against the miles driven per each percent of state of charge (SOC) as extra validation of our methodology.
That’s a solid comparison test, so to find similar range deficiencies across all vehicles involved suggests a wider technological limitation. It’s also worth noting that this cold weather range drop may be improving over time. In 2019, the Associated Press reported that AAA tested several older electric cars and found a 41 percent drop in driving range at 20 degrees Fahrenheit on a chassis dynamometer. We’re talking laboratory conditions here.
You’re probably thinking “But Thomas, combustion-powered cars aren’t as fuel-efficient in the winter as they are in the summer.” You’re absolutely right. Winter driving negatively affects fuel economy. However, in the greater context, partly because of the inefficiency of combustion engines and partly due to more than a century of infrastructure build-out, this isn’t a massive problem.
Combustion engines lose a ton of energy in the form of heat, which is why water-cooled engines use coolant to keep things, um, cool. This hot coolant gets looped into the cabin through a radiator called a heater core, and the air blown over that heat exchanger warms the cabin. Meanwhile, electric cars rely heavily on electric resistance heaters, which consume a considerable amount of electricity on top of drivetrain needs. According to the EPA, “Fuel economy tests show that, in city driving, a conventional gasoline car’s gas mileage is roughly 15% lower at 20°F than it would be at 77°F.” That’s a substantially smaller percentage drop at a substantially lower temperature than Recurrent’s EV data shows.
Then there’s the matter of infrastructure. Unless you’re driving in the absolute middle of nowhere, you can count on fuel stations every few miles to reliably fill the tanks of combustion-powered cars. The EPA claims there are a whopping 168,000 gas stations across America, and they have refueling down to an absolute science. In contrast, Axios reports that 32,000 individual DC fast chargers existed across America as of July 2023. Considering each charger is largely analogous to a fuel pump, that’s not a huge number. Plus, DC fast charging is fraught with unreliability. A 2022 University of California study of public Bay Area DC fast charger found 22.7 percent total downtime. Imagine if 22.7 percent of gas stations in the Bay Area simply didn’t work. That would be a problem, right?
While current chemistry can’t fix EV range drop in winter, more robust charging infrastructure can make things easier for drivers. It’s generally true that we’ve generally graduated from range anxiety to charging anxiety, but cold weather performance still has a ways to go. If you live in a place that gets cold, take winter range into account before road-tripping an electric vehicle. Speaking from experience, hitting turtle mode just a few hundred yards from a charging station is more effective than coffee.
(Photo credits: Tesla, Volkswagen, Ford, Hyundai)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
Here’s Why So Many Tesla Owners Are Stranded In Chicago’s Deep-Freeze
-
ZF’s New ‘Heat Belt’ Wants To Improve Winter EV Range By Heating Your Seat Belts
-
Electric Cars Lose Lots Of Range In The Winter. Here Are Two Silly Solutions Involving A Special Suit And A Partition
-
Why Wheels And Tires Make Such A Huge Difference To An EV’s Range And A Gas Car’s MPG
-
Thousands Of Anti-EV Extremists Are Using My $2000 Nissan Leaf As Proof Electric Cars Are Bad
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
I haven’t seen quite that much range loss on my Mach-E at those temps, but one crucial note is that my car sits in my heated garage to charge and I have it pre-condition in the morning before I drive. That means the seats, steering wheel, and cabin are all toasty using wall power before I drive.
The Mach-E doesn’t have a heat pump, but it is very well insulated, so the heater doesn’t have to cycle all that much, and a big upside of a large resistive heater vs a heat pump is the car blows hot air INSTANTLY. My wife’s Leaf with a heat pump takes a lot longer to warm up.
If all else fails, or we lose power for an extended period of time, I have a gas Jeep and
I typically see about a 15% range drop in the winter, and I factored range loss into my research when I bought the car. Even still, that’s way more range than I need in a day, and I can easily charge overnight in my garage. That’s not a use case that applies to everyone though, so I always tell people who ask if they should buy an electric car to do their own research.
Cost is the next part to discuss. All well and good that a Tesla, Ford, other EV, etc can be pre-conditioned which can help overall range, it still costs money to power the car to heat it up. Just like someone running a gas powered car for a few minutes to warm the cabin, it costs money and range to do that. Might not be a significant number, especially for folks who typically buy EVs (assuming higher average income) but money is money and electricity costs varies considerably around the US (and rest of world).
Not a huge thing, but I never see it listed that pre-conditioning a Tesla (or Ford in your instance) for 30-45 minutes (winter or summer) actually increases your cost per mile, which it certainly does, but benefits range.
Who’s preconditioning for 30-45 minutes? Even outside, it takes my Model 3 about 5 minutes to precondition for a drive – cabin heated, windows defrosted, battery ready. Took my Ram 15-20 minutes after remote start to do that.
Well first off, I explicitly mentioned preconditioning in my garage for a reason. The car isn’t roasting in the sun or trying to warm up in sub-zero temps. It takes about 5 min from whatever temperature extreme it was at to be comfortable.
Also, the financial aspect was my primary reason for even exploring EVs, so I have a lot of data on that. Thanks to a weird habit my parents taught me, I’ve tracked every fill up, service, and repair cost for every gas car I’ve ever owned, so I had YEARS of fuel cost data for exactly my use case. Thanks to all that, I calculated it cost me $0.33/mile to drive my gas car.
We have a smart EV charger that tracks the power usage and is connected to the utility for accurate pricing. After a few years of data, it costs us $0.03/mile to drive electric.
For two daily-driven EVs used for all our normal activities and only ever charged at home, our electric bill increased about $30/month. That’s compared to the $175/month we’d been budgeting for gas every month.
I will say being able to charge at home is pretty important though.
FREEZING? In Wisconsin we look at “freezing” with fond memories. Some around here call that a heat wave.
Also Wisconsin – I was excited when the high was a positive number F. Low is still negative, but it’s way warmer!
I’m in the south and about to buy a Lightning. The amount of people on the lightning group that are upset about range loss is funny. Do people just “buy the tech” without actually understanding what they’re buying? I know that it’s very common with electronics but come on….a vehicle isn’t something that’s easy to just dump a couple hundred on and lose a few bucks…I just don’t get it…
They want the latest and greatest and will save *so much money* not buying fuel. And yet they will pay thousands or tens of thousands more for an EV without understanding the strengths and weaknesses.
This is the reason why despite incentives in NY, hardly anyone upstate has bought an EV yet. It was 14F this morning on my way to work (finally, temps that are typical for winter instead of the rain we’ve been getting). While the winters have been in general far warmer than normal for the past 5+ years (uh oh), we still still get cold snaps and there’s still the potential for a polar vortex/stalled out jetstream situation that turns our region into a freaking popsicle for 4-5 months.
For that reason, up north, we’re really better off with Hybrids and PHEVs.
One charger isn’t necessarily the equivalent of one fuel pump. It’s actually less, because of the dwell time. To fuel up a dozen cars in one hour, you need one fuel pump, but several chargers.
They didn’t say equivalent, they said largely analogous. Obviously they aren’t the same, the point is just that there are far fewer, making recharging more challenging than refueling.
And my point is that a charger is not analogous to a fuel pump, because you need many more chargers than fuel pumps to fill up the same number of cars within the same time period.
Yeah it’s a pedantic point, because the point of the statement is just that there are far fewer charging stations
Winter test data at 32F? ????????????????
We just went through a five day period where the high was -12F and the low was -38F. The windchill factor was -40F to -60F. Let’s see some data at those temps.
Finnish carmagazine TM have done pretty exhaustive winter testing for decades. And last 3 years also for EV:s and hybrids.It’s a shame that other magazines aren’t interested on bying their results/articles, they are _very_ througout. They test braking systems, traction on several situations, handling caracterics, different heating systems and their speed, fuel economy, etc.
But yeah, 32F is not really winter. In my neck of the woods (northern Finland) it’s howered for 4 months now around -10 to -20C and last month around -30-35C. Our Skoda Enyaq 4x (AWD ID4 with *heat pump and less capacitive crap) does OK. Biggest thing as thing has been the studded winter tyres that have rather blocky thread, much more offroady-sort than Nokia Hakkas I’ve had before. And they caused a 25% drop in range (I drove same 60km bit of road before and after and on same day). But on highway driving it seems to be able to do in -25C about 260km @105km/h. Pre-heat consumes about 5%, so driving short distances takes a quite hit. But this is pretty basic, in similar short trips in our ICE cars have used about 3x the fuel they use after they warm up.
My main take on the EV stuff is that EV:s make excellent city family cars, and optimum case would be about Golf sized second car. And bigger diesel or **plugin hybrid for longer distances. In 3 seasons the EV works fantastically in road trips and fits our lifestyle with lots of outdoor stuff and 2 toddlers great. We drive a lot (about 40tkm/year) and it’s ***cheap on electricy, but roadtrips on winter are a bit more complicated. Other times it’s no issue.
*Heat pump might be a big deal in the article ID4 range hit. I don’t think most of the cars have it, in our market it’s standard, but most markets it’s rather costly option.
**None of our friends plugin hybrids have really worked on electricity for months. This Rav4 hybrid doesn’t use electicity below -10C and according to my friend their fuel economy has been around 12l/100km. V90 T8 my co-worker has is likevise, and fuel economy has been 15l/100km for few months. And my friends 1,5 year old Kona plugins main battery went kaputt in october.
***saving of about 4k€/year
I agree with your points. EV is for city driving, and PHEV for outside, or other efficient cars.
My Volt is getting longer in the tooth and during the winter months, I only get 30-35 miles of EV range instead of 40-45 miles. During the summer, though, I still average 55-60 miles of EV range.
I feel better now. Been recording fuel and mileage on my car since I got it. I got a pleasant surprise after a thorough tune up and getting an alignment issue fixed*. Gas mileage went up 10+ percent. And then I feel like a loser when all those mph gains fled in the winters. Now I know it happens to everyone when it’s chilly out.
*Front tires out of alignment with an equal amount of toe out after new struts. Ate up my front tires, ate up my gasoline, and would laugh at me with a ridiculous amount of understeer. But since it didn’t pull to the side, it ‘seemed’ fine…
A thorough tune up? As a mechanic, I can tell you a thorough tune up is spark plugs and an air filter.
Removal and scrub down of the throttle body and butterfly. Clean the MAF. PCV valve replacement. Removal of intake manifold to remove any excess deposits. Sea foam the oil a couple hundred miles before a change. I only have 118 hp to work with in a car just a hair under 3k lbs… I can use any advantage I can get.
Otherwise plugs and an air filter, Bob’s Your Uncle.
A lot of the work was due to me not being happy with the fouling of the MAF. That sent me off to clean every bit of carbon on the intakes. I want to re-shim the valve buckets in the future.
I feel for the people affected…but- unfortunately a good subset of people are affected by the human nature of procrastinating and not preparing. Compounding this is the fact that the United States is gigantic and a good chunk of our country gets way colder than 32° from the middle of December through March. These cars are not the answer quite yet, but they are interesting in their own right. Progress!
In contrast, Axios reports that 32,000 individual DC fast chargers existed across America as of July 2023. Considering each charger is largely analogous to a fuel pump, that’s not a huge number. Plus, DC fast charging is fraught with unreliability. A 2022 University of California study of public Bay Area DC fast charger found 22.7 percent total downtime. Imagine if 22.7 percent of gas stations in the Bay Area simply didn’t work. That would be a problem, right?
Its worth noting that there are at last count 289M gasoline vehicles in the United States*. If we assume somewhere between 6-12 pumps per station** that works out to 143-287 cars per pump. Not all pumps always work. Gas stations close, pumps break get blocked by tanker trucks and other things but in general gas pumps work pretty well. Lets further assume a 95% up time to get at any given time 150-300 cars per pump.
Conversely there are only about 2,442,270 EVs currently registered in the United States*** which works out to only 76 cars per DC fast charger. Even knocking out 22% of them brings you to just under 100 cars per DC fast charger.
Yes EVs take longer to charge, yes they have shorter ranges and need to charge more often on road trips
BUT
As we all well know from EVngelsts EVs can charge at home, at work and on slow chargers not included in this accounting which takes a LOT of pressure off those DC chargers that are mostly used by folks who can’t use a slow charger or are on a road trip.
Given all this I think a deeper dive is needed to get a real picture.
*https://financesonline.com/number-of-cars-in-the-us/
**https://www.enelxway.com/us/en/resources/blog/what-is-the-future-of-gas-stations-vs-ev-chargers
***https://explodingtopics.com/blog/electric-vehicles-stats
This is what I came to say.
If we’re comparing Apple to apples, there are actually 123.6 million EV chargers in America, supplemented by 32,000 public fast chargers.
Until gasoline is plumbed into every home in the country, this will remain true.
Buy a NGV and you might kinda get your wish.
Good point!
Makes you wonder why we use gasoline in the first place.
Because you need a compressor. Home NGV compressors only go to about 3000 PSI, not the 10k psi of commercial compressors so range is an issue with home CNG refueling.
That’s not to say a home 10k PSI compressor isn’t impossible, just expensive and it might break a lot.
Hybrids and PHEVs for all their issues are the easiest path forward for the short term. Maybe with an ICE powered by propane, biodiesel, ethanol or all the above.
Can confirm. My dad has a Mach E and experienced said drop off on a trip he took recently. It was in the 20s or 30s, so not cold at all by Wisconsin standards. He takes this trip somewhat frequently, about 150 miles each way. Usually he can charge at home, go to where he’s going, charge there before returning home. On this trip he had to stop in the middle each way to charge. He’s kinda pissed because he likes that car and it’s great for around town, but I think he’s having second thoughts about the limitations he faces with it in the winter here. He’s an old guy and doesn’t want to be sitting around at some charger when it’s freaking freezing out, and there aren’t exactly a lot of them available outside of the cities. I need to check in with him and see how it’s doing now that it’s 0 degrees out.
So he’s getting like 75 miles range?
Something is seriously wrong with his car. If Ford can’t fix it or give a refund, I would call a lawyer.
Looks like 150 miles each way, with an unknown amount of charge remaining.
Yes 150 each way, stopping in the middle each way.
So first leg, the battery was getting low around 75 miles. After a stop to charge, the battery completed the journey, then traveled another 75 miles to return to the half way point, so a total of 150 miles for the second leg. Strangek did state that he generally charges at his destination, so it’s more likely that the second leg was also 75 miles.
Something is wrong with that vehicle.
Oh, yes your right he “had” to stop at 75 yea that’s bad.
Yeah. It’s 150 miles each way. He probably could make it, but I think it was close enough that he felt like he needed to charge on the way there and on the way back. In warmer months he gets over 200 miles on a charge so it’s not an issue.
I can corroborate. My 2021 MME returned 80 miles on 75% of battery (small pack, AWD) on Tuesday this week. Zero F, snow tires, 75% highway. And it was exactly as I expected when I bought it used this year. It uses resistance heat, I need snows to get out of Grumpy Hollow to the state route. But it’s still efficient even at 50%, with my spend for the day working out to 45 mpg. In the summer when I have excess solar power I drive on gravy…
Wow, that’s pretty shocking. Of course it’s still more than enough range for most use cases, and as you stated, still saving compared to gasoline.
Preconditioning your car is critical if you own an EV in a cold climate. Preconditioning will significantly increase your range – pretty much back to normal levels. The downside is that you’ll be using a lot of energy in the preconditioning phase, but if the goal is range, it’s key.
This is pretty dubious. It looks like they haven’t made any effort to address confounding on the bare basics, and not fully trusting the dashboard range estimate is like EV ownership 101. Who’s only getting 175 miles on a good day in a Model X 100D? My old 75D easily got 200. Here’s what I have from personal experience:
Ford Focus EV compliance car, no battery thermal management whatsoever: 30% decrease full summer to full winter in Seattle (70s to low 30s).
Model X 75D: 20-ish percent decrease.
Model 3 long range: 20-ish percent decrease.
Porsche Taycan CT4: 20-ish percent decrease.
Those occasions when I’ve driven through real, proper cold in Canada, the range decrease is more, but without letting the battery cold-soak, it’s not that crazy. Let the battery cold soak and drive only a handful of miles at a time, yeah, you’ll see some terrible figures. The real problem in winter is the charger crowding. The adage about “don’t drive in the winter with less than a full tank of gas” so you don’t die if you get stuck or something else annoying happens applies at least last strongly to EV travel in the winter. Keeping your EV above (say) 30% charge at public chargers while on a trip in the winter with all the attendant charger issues is pretty much awful. I try to make are my trips are all 1-leg in the winter, now.
Everything is chemistry.
This is another reason why PHEVs are better. The waste heat BTUs from a small internal combustion generator can be used to create the proper environmental envelope for optimizing battery pack performance or keeping the cabin of the vehicle in human-habitable range. Although people tend to think about people and livestock needing heat in cold weather, the truth is that even electronics have temperature requirements. I suspect that we will be seeing more organic designs for EVs in the future that are spec’d for the chemistries involved.
Indeed. I think until battery storage density roughly quadruples that hybrids are the answer. BEVs are awesome for certain current use cases, but there are too many compromises in most other situations. It’s going to be a long, arduous transition with no perfect solutions. When (if?) said density improves by a full order of magnitude the fun is really going to begin, as battery storage density will start to approach the net usable power nearing that of liquid fuels. We won’t be using gas cans any longer, it will all be battery modules. Until then, Prii!
Agreed! The hybrid vehicles are the real solution currently. They just work and temp does not cause the same issues because you can still gas up and go
100% agreed. My sister sold her Prius 4 years ago and bought a Tesla model 3. She does a trek from Texas to Oklahoma every month. All was well until Tesla closed the supercharging station she used halfway through the trip due to lack of demand. She’s tired of having to rent a car for the trip now and her Tesla is being sold to by a new Prius Prime .Her electric car experiment is almost over and she’s ready for it to end.
The waste heat BTUs from a small internal combustion generator can be used to create the proper environmental envelope for optimizing battery pack performance or keeping the cabin of the vehicle in human-habitable range.
I REALLY want to say keep pack AND cabin warm, however I don’t have the numbers of how much energy it takes to do either. How much energy does it take to warm up and keep warm a Prius cabin and/or battery in a Minnesota winter?
All I can say is a Prius moving at 70 MPH and getting 50 MPG uses about 1.4 GPH of which only 40% becomes mechanical energy at best. Assuming the worst case heat scenario that means 0.84 GPH of gasoline turned into heat or 95,540 BTU each hour. That’s enough for a 1600 sqft house in Zone 5:
https://www.ferrellgas.com/tank-talk/blog-articles/how-many-btus-you-need-to-heat-your-home-shop-garage-and-more/
I’d think that’s way more than needed to heat a Prius cabin and battery.
Thanks for the math. You obviously see what I mean. I think that ultimately a very much smaller ICE genset will do the trick quite well for the average consumer vehicle. As Crankshaft said, it’s all about the chemistry.
And them BTU’s are just chemistry…
I’ve said the same for some time. Unless the car is getting FuelShark MPG I think it will put out more than enough waste heat to keep its occupants and battery happy, even in Siberia. That assumes the exhaust heat can be harnessed as well but think that’s doable.
My college physics teacher used to say back in the nineties: “life is mostly physics, chemistry and bit of sex in the middle” :D.
He was rather interesting fellow, in electrics related quizz there was just drawing and just question what is missing. My classmate wrote “pus*y” and he got point as in principle it was correct (and there was no girls in our class). He still failed to pass the test, but it was funny at the time. Also one dude had to get stiches as he distributed big coils by throwing them to people and one dude was so hung over that didn’t notice. Got about 150g sharp edged metal blob right into his temple :D.
This really isn’t news as it something we all knew, but it is interesting to see the numbers behind it.
And…… This right here is why range is still an issue with electric cars. Yeah some cars can go 400 miles on a charge. Yes that’s enough. But the car doesn’t always do 400 miles on a charge.
This pretty much precludes towing in the winter with an EV. This is worst case, but imagine you load up a car on a trailer to tow behind your pickup. You need to go 250 miles. No problem because your Lightning has a 300 mile range.
Except that 300 miles is actually 280 because EPA. And that 280 became 250 because you’re not a perfect driver. And that 250 just became 150 because you have a car on a trailer. And it’s 30° out, so that 150 just became 90. And it’s uphill, so that 90 just became 70. But you don’t want to cut it that close at charging stations, so realistically you can drive 50 miles without charging.
There are not charging stations every 50 miles. There are huge sections of the country that do not have gas stations every 50 miles and will never have charging stations every 50 miles. You will not haul your car where you need to go.
This is worst case, but people tow cars up hills in the winter every day with their combustion pickups, and they get where they’re going. It’s also not worst case, because I included less than 50% range loss due to cold, but the study shows up to 50%. The study also only studied down to 32°, and I could be driving in 0°.
I don’t hate electric cars, they have their place, but they are currently so unable to replace what gas cars do, and the people saying otherwise have never owned a pickup or hauled anything.
My truck, with its 48 gallon tank, can hold the equivalent of 1600 kWh on board and replenish it in 5-10 minutes at virtually any freeway exit in America. If it were diesel, it would be harder to refill, but could hold more like 1800 kWh.
Battery capacity is an order of magnitude from where ICE vehicles are already.
It’s way off topic, but where are you getting 48 gallons in 5 minutes?
Slow gas pumps are a pet peeve of mine — so much so that I occasionally time them out of spite. My baseline (including payment processing, because that’s also annoying) is 16 gallons in 8 minutes. Whenever I drive through Missouri, the pumps seem to get slower — on my latest road trip, I hit a pump that delivered 5.5 gallons in 10 minutes.
I’m not usually getting 48 gallons at a time, but usually at the Sams Club I go to I can get 30 something gallons in ~5 min. Never timed though so just an estimate.
I can totally pump 30 gallons in 5 minutes. I buy fuel almost exclusively at Costco or Maverik.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I have no problem with electric vehicles, I have a problem with how they work in my region. We’ve had a prolonged period of temperatures as low as -29°F…air temp. -60°F with wind chill. If I need to drive somewhere and get back safely, an electric vehicle may not be the best choice. If this testing was performed at 32°F, just imagine the impact at 61°F cooler. Once they can develop the technology enough to help mitigate this, I would be interested in purchasing an electric vehicle. That said, I tend to be annoyed at so many people touting EVs as the solution for the whole country, forgetting that there is a good 20-25% of the landmass dealing with temperatures like this. We are not all California.
“But what if I want to drive to the mooooooon? What if SpaceX hires me tomorrow and Elon Musk says I have to provide my very own Tesla Roadster for spacefaring duties and it runs out of battery halfway to the asteroid belt because it’s so cold in the vacuum of space?”
Then don’t buy an electric vehicle for this extremely niche use case, but try to be aware that your weird January car hauling habits are so far outside the norm that they generally aren’t worth caring about. Call a car hauling service for this once in a lifetime activity.
And……… You are the person I was talking about who literally cannot imagine needing to tow a trailer in the cold and therefore cannot see any reason that electric cars can’t replace all gas cars. I used a car as an example of a heavyish trailer that people tow behind their half ton pickups all the time. Obviously a moving trailer or camping trailer or whatever is comparable.
Is going on a road trip with a trailer really “so far outside of the norm that it’s generally not worth caring about”? That’s literally what camper trailers are meant for. That’s literally how like half of Americans do long distance moves. 75% of people avoid doing this in the cold, but the other 25% have to. I’ve moved cross country in the winter. It would not have been possible with an electric car.
And my example was intentionally worst case to show off the absurdity of a 50 mile range. What about the extremely normal American activity of going to Grandma’s house 200 miles away for Christmas? Let’s say you drive a Tesla Model S long range that can go 400 miles on a charge. Oh shoot its December because Christmas, and you have 50% range loss. Okay, you’re cutting it awfully close to get to Grandma’s house. Shoot, you have the kids and the dog in the backseat, and you cranked the heater. You only have 180 miles of range and you won’t make it to Grandma’s house. Is that “so far outside the norm that it’s generally not worth caring about”?
Like I said, there’s nothing wrong with getting around using the power of electrons. Electric vehicles have their place. However, they are currently incompatible with the traditional American road trip if there are complicating factors like a trailer, cold weather, or even a really big hill. There are enough things that electric cars just can’t do right now that they cannot replace gas cars for many Americans. Even if they could afford them.
While most of what you’re stating has some truth, I really think you’re overstating the magnitude of the issue.
Most people could get by with about 50 miles total range.
99.99% of drivers will never tow a trailer with a car or heavy load on it. Thousands of people still will, but almost all won’t. It is a miniscule demographic. It should also be noted that most ICE vehicles can not and will not ever tow anything. That includes a huge percentage of those 1/2 ton pickups.
For those very very few people who need 400 miles of range daily and regularly tow cars on trailers, an EV is not a wise choice.
EVs could easily replace ICE cars for most Americans and Canadians, if the power grid were ready to support it. Note that I’m referring to the power grid and not the public charging network, as nearly all EV charging is done at home.
One of my friends that drives an EV uses it almost exclusively when taking road trips, while leaving her van at home. I asked her why she would do that when EVs are obviously such a nightmare on long trips. Her response was “I save a hundred bucks on the round trip.”
Lol towing is not a miniscule demographic. Look at the sales figures for boats and RV trailers alone every year. Besides all the people who tow for work.
Towing is extremely underrepresented among auto blog commenters but it is much more common in the middle of the country than you and some others in this thread seem to think.
I’m too lazy to look up numbers on this, but all I’m saying is that while I agree that there are many thousands of people towing everyday, they still make up a small percentage of the overall drivers on the road.
One thing I fully agree on is that current EV products don’t seem ready for serious towing, and ICE is a much better choice for this.
That being said, I know a few people who have a truck by necessity, because they have big toys. It’s either you buy your 80k truck to tow your boat or trailer 1-5 times per year, or you have a boat with no truck, and have to grovel to your buddies twice a year and hope one will help you move your boat.
Small percentage maybe, but 99.99% is a heinous exaggeration. Maybe 80% of people never tow a trailer, but even that is high, and one in five is most certainly not a “miniscule demographic”.
Walk though a parking lot and see how many vehicles have hitches on them. Walk through your neighborhood and see how many houses have some kind of trailer on the side yard. Heck, drive down the interstate and look at how many cars have trailers on them. All of these are massively more frequent than 1 in 1000.
You are obviously one of the people who never tows and has a poor understanding that other people are not like you. Electric cars are bad for towing, but as I stated in another reply, electric cars can’t even handle a winter road trip to Grandma’s house for Christmas, and that’s a deal breaker for many Americans.
I did specify people who haul heavy loads like a car, etc. Just to humor you, maybe 3 million Americans do this regularly. That still means 99% of Americans never do, and that’s most Americans.
As far as people who have hitches to haul their utility trailer or pop up, maybe 10% if I’m being generous. EVs are perfectly adequate for this.
If you need to take a camper long distance, to me it makes more sense to rent one than to drive a 1/2 ton pickup year round for the 6 times in your life that you’ll do this, but that’s just me.
I actually tow. I’ve been around for a bit and I understand the realities of people’s needs versus indulgence. Driving what you want is a wonderful thing, it doesn’t have to be rational.
Electric cars can handle a winter road trip to grandma’s just fine, but you have to do your research before you purchase, as they are obviously not created equal.
So, I guess I should drop you a line when I’m looking for a buddy with a big truck and a car hauler?
“maybe 3 million Americans do this regularly. That still means 99% of Americans never do”
No. That means 99% of Americans don’t do it regularly, it does not mean they never do it. Irregularly is very different from never, and you can do something irregularly but still justify owning a pickup.
Considering that much more than 3 million or 1% of Americans own a trailer, I’m gonna go ahead and say your number is wack.
If range actually drops 50% in December, and Grandma’s house is 200 miles away, then there are very few EVs that could handle that trip, since there are few with over 400 miles range.
In my case, Grandma’s house is actually 300 miles away, and I live in Idaho and it’s usually closer to 10° than 32° during this drive. There may be one charging station along the way, but I know there are zero charging stations along the last ~230 miles.
There is not a single electric car on the market that can go 300 miles through cold and elevation change loaded down with kids if the range loss is actually as bad as this study suggests. You are just plain wrong when you say, “Electric cars can handle a winter road trip to grandma’s just fine”.
I’m not trying to be rude or mean, I want to keep this a civil conversation, but some of the things you’re saying are way out in left field.
The ironic thing about all of this is that I drive an old half ton pickup and don’t own a trailer.
Aha, so it’s actually you that doesn’t ever tow, but you’re clearly a seasoned towing expert lol.
Anyways, I stand corrected. Nearly every American will need to drag a fifth wheel or loaded car hauler at some point, and they will need to do this going to grandma’s, which is 300 miles deep into the woods.
I’m also gonna go ahead and say that my numbers are wack, because I’ve pulled them directly from my ass.
There is no truth to my statement that someone can drive an EV to Grandma’s. It may be true for the virtually nonexistent demographic of people who live less than 300 miles from grandma, but like I said, these people exist mostly in my imagination.
Of course I’m joking lol
I think the sticking point here is your belief that EVs are unsuitable for most car buyers, while I believe the opposite, and that’s perfectly fine.
And I think it’s fantastic that you drive a 1/2 ton just for the hell of it. We should all drive what we want to.
My belief is that most Americans do road trips enough that an electric car would be fairly limiting as an only car. For an around town commuter car they’re great, and plenty of people don’t do road trips often or long enough for this to matter.
With charging infrastructure, charging speed, and range getting better every day, electric car road trips are becoming increasingly practical. But, as you might remember from the sole premise of the article we’re commenting on, that doesn’t work so well in the cold.
I do drive a half ton pickup, not for the heck of it, but because I often carry things in the bed that I don’t need a trailer for. I do occasionally tow with that pickup, but more often with my dad’s Expedition or my buddy’s 3/4 ton. I don’t tow all that often, and I would say not regularly, but I do tow often enough that it would be extremely inconvenient and cost prohibitive to rent a different car every time I needed to. And I think that a huge proportion of Americans, or at least American pickup owners, are in a similar situation.
“Walk though a parking lot and see how many vehicles have hitches on them. Walk through your neighborhood and see how many houses have some kind of trailer on the side yard. Heck, drive down the interstate and look at how many cars have trailers on them. All of these are massively more frequent than 1 in 1000.”
I disagree. Having a hitch doesn’t mean that hitch gets used. Just like how people buy a truck for a just in case that never comes they add on a trailer hitch for the same but less likely reason. I’m guilty of this myself. I owned a Jeep with a trailer hitch for 10 years. I used it to tow once.
Having a trailer doesn’t mean that trailer moves. Even if it does it might happen so infrequently its meaningless.
As to the interstate I only notice trailers when they’re being towed by speeding asshats.
You disagree that massively more than one in 1000 drivers tow a trailer, not regularly, but sometimes?
By hitch, I meant a ball and ball mount, not a receiver(although more than 1 in 1000 receivers is used occasionally). If somebody has a ball on their car it’s likely they use it occasionally, and if you don’t believe me you can look at the scratch marks on the ball.
Having a trailer doesn’t mean it moves?
In suburban Western and midwestern US, like one in four households has a trailer of some kind(boat, box trailer, camper, ect). Do you really think that 249 out of every 250 trailers sits on the side yard, being towed so infrequently it’s meaningless?
You’re making some really odd arguments here, and I have no idea why several people here seem to think that towing a trailer is an extremely rare occurrence that a totally negligible proportion of the population undertakes. There’s enough sales of 3/4 ton pickups and tow packages to make it obvious that towing and hauling do in fact happen.
“By hitch, I meant a ball and ball mount, not a receiver(although more than 1 in 1000 receivers is used occasionally). If somebody has a ball on their car it’s likely they use it occasionally, and if you don’t believe me you can look at the scratch marks on the ball.
I do notice those since I have experienced the pain of smacking my shins on them a few times and because I think people who leave those on when not in use should have their shins smacked with a metal rod every time they park in a public space.
No, I don’t see many of those. Most of the hitches I see have an empty receiver.
“In suburban Western and midwestern US, like one in four households has a trailer of some kind(boat, box trailer, camper, ect).”
1 in 4 households? Where are you getting that? I live in the suburban western US and I have no idea where 1 in 4 households could even put a boat/box trailer/camper. There’s no room!
Suburbia isn’t all detached single family houses with big garages and big yards. Where is someone living in a townhouse, condo or apartment complex supposed to stash one of these things? Even if you have the room good luck with the HOA.
Out of curiosity I took a quick look at a Google satellite map of my area. I didn’t see many trailers or campers stashed away, even in houses with large yards. Some of those campers are used as semi permanent MIL cottages so they aren’t being used for vacations. Even street parked campers used by low income workers on larger streets stay put for weeks at a time, only being moved when forced to and even then only a block or two.
“Do you really think that 249 out of every 250 trailers sits on the side yard, being towed so infrequently it’s meaningless”
Given how many of the trailers I do happen to notice look like they don’t move for months at a time yes. Given I don’t see that many trailers on the road, yes. It’s anecdotal but it’s what I got. Maybe I’m wrong though. Convince me. Show me data.
More than a million towable RV trailers alone were sold just in 2021-22.
https://www.rvia.org/news-insights/2022-rv-shipment-surpass-493000-third-best-year-record
You may choose to believe that all of those trailers (plus all the boats, utility trailers, flatbeds, and all the campers sold prior to 2021) are all sitting most of the time, but to me that is the implausible and extraordinary claim that requires evidence.
Thanks for the data. That IS a lot of towable RV trailers. Those numbers came during Covid so maybe a bit high overall but still, that’s a lot of RV trailers.
My followup question – where ARE they? We have some RV trailers around but not THAT many. The ones I do see are rarely moving.
A couple of potential reasons. I’m in coastal California where high gas prices, tight living quarters, tight parking and an epidemic of HOAs means its harder to keep one of these monstrosities around. The ones that are around are often MIL cottages or living space for folks who can’t afford rent on an apartment so they tend to stay put as much as possible. When they do move is usually just far enough to reset the meter attendant’s clock.
Weather is another reason. Its winter. I don’t think people tow Rvs much in winter, especially in places that get a proper winter. I think RV towing is a late spring to early fall thing, even in mild climates unless you count ice fishing shacks as towable RVs.
There is also geography. The next state over is Nevada a few hundred miles away. The border is protected by a wall of Sierra and Cascade mountains. Nevada itself is – with the maybe exception of Reno – a moat of hick towns and UFO highways all the way to Utah which isn’t much better till you get to the Rockies. We also have a 55 MPH speed limit for trailers. All that may be keeping a lot of the RV trailers sold outside of CA out of north and central CA. Oregonians Idahoans and Washingtonians have great camping and summertime beaches up there so why bother coming here?
SoCal is a different matter. They get Zonies. When I lived in San Diego on the beach and yes we did have RV trailer parks that were full in summer, nearly empty in winter. Once they rolled into town they stayed put. People didn’t haul them around town. That’s twice a year that I can say they were towed which counts as “rarely”. Furthermore when those folks came and left it tended to be very early in the morning, like 12-3 AM to avoid the desert heat. I’ve been stuck in huge jams of Zonie RVs on I8 all heading out of town in the wee hours of the morning so maybe when they move they tend to migrate as a group unseen by residents. I still count that as rare.
I don’t own an RV trailer so perhaps RV trailer owners can add their two cents on this. If you do please make sure to include the general area of where you live, where you go and how often.
Well, my input would be just as biased, because I live within an hour of where they are all built (Elkhart, IN) and 12 months a year they are being hauled all over the country from here.
Anecdotally, when I’ve travelled the country in summertime, I see an awful lot of them being pulled through middle America (where chargers are already few and far between). State park RV lots are already sold out for every summer weekend locally. People like to camp. Buying a $100K truck to tow a $100K trailer would not be for me, but a lot of people seem to enjoy it.
You know how there are self storage yards with rows and rows of motorhomes and camper trailers?
Almost all RV trailers are sitting most of the time. These are occasional use toys for most. I know so many who own RVs, boats, trailers, etc, and all of them are parked almost all of the time.
Even people who make a concerted effort to use theirs as much as possible will only tow it like 5 times a year.
Where I live it’s illegal to leave your hitch ball installed when not towing. You generally won’t be ticketed, but you are definitely liable for the injuries you cause.
A friend of a friend broke some poor woman’s leg doing this, and it cost him dearly.
Good!
Illegal is interesting. I think vastly too many people leave their hitches in, especially considering how easy it is to remove, but they’re also not a big issue by any means.
If people walk into any part of your parked car that is 100% their fault. It’s courteous to remove the hitch when not in use, and I do, but a law is interesting.
If you don’t mind me asking, where is this law?
“If people walk into any part of your parked car that is 100% their fault.”
And that kids is how you get your stupid ball smashed through your truck’s back window…
Yeah. I’ve observed that people in Ohio and Indiana want to buy a camper and drive to somewhere that’s not Ohio or Indiana.
Can’t really blame them there.
V10omous and Rustbuckets are right on the money here. Many people tow boats, campers, trailers etc ‘regularly.’
Having a BEV for another car for city use locally (100mi/ day) would make sense. But I could not replace my gas half ton pick up with a comparable BEV vehicle for many of the activities I and many others do in the middle of the country; heck even California outside major cities. I’m sure 80% of the time there’s nothing in the bed and it’s a family cruiser, but being able to fill up with gasoline – quickly – virtually anywhere is nice, and go 400+ mi and not have to worry.
Depends on your region, like many things. Plenty of people have pickups and SUVs here, some with hitches, and virtually none of them ever tow anything. The hitches are more useful to prevent parking foibles than they are for anything else.
I live in an area with boating, but to see someone towing a boat with their vehicle (car/truck/SUV) even once a week during summer would be a lot. The boats get moored at the marina and the amount of people with quads, trailer campers, or anything like that is essentially a rounding error.
The only noticeable towing is done by landscaping diesel box trucks or people trying to YOLO it with older pickups to make a living.
Oh man, you are right with the trailer hitch thing! I accidentally backed mine right through someone’s radiator in the Meijer parking lot. I felt like a buffoon, and it cost me the insurance $. And it was one of the only times I didn’t remove the hitch and store in the bin when not towing 🙁
Trailer campers are a rounding error? Are you off your rocker?
There is more than one large dealership in my area dedicated exclusively to sales of camper trailers, with a lot of a couple hundred. But apparently nobody actually tows these trailers that they just paid $150k for.
My dude, I was talking about campers, quads, etc IN MY AREA. That’s why that part of the sentence is attached to the first part of the sentence that talks about a marina near me where people moor their boats.
I am aware that in other parts of the country (and my own state even) people quad, trailer, and camp. I thought this was clear by me starting my previous post with “depends on your region”, which implies they are different. You’ve already mentioned you have a bunch of farm trucks and whatnot merging onto the highway, clearly we live in very different areas.
Curious how everyone seems to “know” this just based on their own vibes.
Perhaps your neighbors don’t inform you about their towing plans?
Many thousands of camper trailers and boats are sold every year. You may think they all just sit all the time, but to me that claim requires more evidence than “I never see anyone towing”.
Are they storing the boat/camper in their basement?
Not sure what other evidence I can submit that something doesn’t generally happen beyond the fact that I rarely see anyone tow anything in town.
I can’t attest to what people may do elsewhere, but one would assume they’d be towing it (whatever “it” is) in their hometown at some point of the journey. They also generally have to park said camper or boat somewhere and this isn’t a region where each person has tons of land, this is the burbs. You’d see the camper/boat in the driveway. There is 1 singular (camper) in my immediate neighborhood. Plenty of boats but (again) they mostly live at the marinas nearby.
We have the odd boat here and there (jetskis too) that get towed seasonally but most pickups here are pavement princesses or at best do some home depot runs.
For a while, the hitch was most used as a location to display truck nuts, luckily that seems to have faded in these parts.
Being held hostage by high gas prices is one thing.
Being held hostage by the weather and charging issues is another.
Tell me once again why I need an EV please.
I live in a hurricane prone area. Trust me when I say weather can make gas pretty scarce too.
Easier to borrow some gas from a neighbor.
Same here. Since 1976. Never had an issue with that.
And having gas also means I can leave, or help others.
Which allows freedom of being mobile.
And it’s hard to get anywhere when there is no electricity to be had in an EV.
YMMV
After the last hurricane I was able to fill my truck bed with a shit ton of gas cans, and go buy gas for everyone on my street.
Been thru more hurricanes than I can count. Never had an issue.
And I wonder how long it takes to charge an EV with a portable generator, if it’s even possible.
“And I wonder how long it takes to charge an EV with a portable generator, if it’s even possible.”
How big is your generator?
The limiting factor on a portable generator is the 30A plug. This would take 21 hours to fully charge a F-150 lightning extended range as long as the generator is rated to deliver 7200 running watts.
If the generator is a whole house Generac Guardian® 24kW Standby Generator System, and there is a hard wired charger in the garage which can deliver 80A on a dedicated 100A breaker, the same F-150 could be charged in 9 hours. The plug on the portable generator is a big limitation.
Really appreciate this info.
This is exactly why I keep wondering why manufacturers don’t offer PHEV/REXEVs that can act as extremely powerful, extremely efficient mobile generators and heat sources. I’m talking 100KW levels of power, enough to run an entire electrified house as if the power was still on; the electric oven, HVAC, the vacuum cleaner, hair dryers and all the lights, the tropical fish tank and the reptile terranium, EVERYTHING!
ICE engines can be run on gasoline, alcohol, propane, natural gas and diesel. Given the advances in engine tech (e.g. Mazda’s low compression diesel and compression ignition gasoline engines that have similar compression ratios, pilot diesel ignition engines, flex fuel, etc) I wonder if it’s possible to make an ICE that can run hyper efficiently on any and all of those fuels, so as to have the flexiblity to utilize whatever fuel is available. Make it a cogen system that harnesses as much as possible of the waste heat for home heating and hot water during extended power outages or stays in remote areas. If the house is plumbed for natural gas you could run this thing in perpetuity.
It would be the ultimate prepper rig. Why the military and national guard doesn’t have these already I dunno.
Of course there’s no reason one couldn’t just make a separate generator to do all that. Such a generator would be even better since then the truck could charge up, then be used while the generator stayed home to keep the lights on.
I don’t know, my car does over 600 miles on a full tank, pretty sure that’s going to be enough to drive somewhere that still has working gas stations (and also hotel rooms) in any disaster short of the Yellowstone supervolcano
Because of very real and very serious climate issues that EVs contribute less to than ICE cars. (I guess you missed the memo? Or, actually — decades of urgent memos?) There are only a handful of ways that consumers can significantly reduce their climate impact, and cars with less CO2 emissions are an important option among drivers. Now, if you can do without a car altogether, that is is definitely a reason not to consider an EV.
Glad you are not being a smart ass about climate issues. /s
But that is not the discussion here. But thanks for the input?
And the jury is still out on the pollution issues to build EVs as well as dispose of them efficiently. And don’t tell me that electricity is something that is produced with no effect on the environment please.
And being an old, I grew up in a time when you could not see in LA or NY for the smog, let alone breath. Shit has changed.
But you do you…
Now go away before I taunt you a second time.
You seem perfectly okay with being a smart ass, yourselfl. So I’ll feel no shame about my smart-assery.
The jury is not still out. Making EVs does come with a greater carbon detriment initially — but that is negated within the first two years of (most drivers’) use. And most people own their cars more then two years.
Of course making electricity isn’t without environmental downsides. EVs don’t eliminate contributions to climate problems — but they reduce them. Best not to need a car at all, as mentioned.
Are you new around here?
No
Thanks for educating me.
Now how about backing up your assertions with actual factual evidence please.
And the article is about EV efficency issues, not climate change.
But yeah I am the supreme smart ass here.
Bite me.
You said “Tell me once again why I need an EV please” and I answered! The answer is climate-specific. (I’ll let you bite yourself.)
Good point. But real life, and the article has clearly shown WHY EVs are not always what they are claimed to be.
The world is full of bullshit artists. And deniers of reality.
And grumpy old men being a pain in the ass
Ha. Thanks for the grins.
Based purely on today’s electricity and manufacturing practices, EVs reduce lifecycle emissions by 55-60% [ANL][UCS][IEA][ICCT][BNEF][CB][MIT]. I also recommend MIT’s data visualizer because it gives granular data. Though the gap grows every year, these conclusions have remained consistent since 2012.
I don’t know who’s been telling you that the jury’s still out on this, but these days the world is full of corporate astroturfers and culture war profiteers. For high-stakes scientific issues, look to the scientific community and don’t trust the zeitgeist.
(He did request some sources, and those are excellent.)
Appreciate that.
We’re all dependent on infrastructure and its limits whether it’s EV or ICE. You don’t need an EV, but they’re gaining popularity and we’re learning about their limits just like ICE limits have been thoroughly explored since their mass adoption.
Agreed and thanks.
This is a very timely article, thank you. I’m currently wanting to get an EV to replace my Tacoma. My driving needs don’t seem very demanding from my point of view. I have very fixed routes, and it is not our only vehicle (no road trips). I do need to drive 80 miles each way (160 miles round trip) once a week all year round. I do not want to have to charge during this round trip. I do not want to have to sacrifice my time in order to switch to EV (which is what stopping to charge would mean).
The crazy thing is, in order to safely get that 160 miles during the winter months in the PNW (which is relatively mild), I’m looking at needing a 300+ range vehicle. Factor in charging only to 80%, cold weather (-25%), battery degradation with age (-10%), etc. and I you end up with needing double the advertised range to comfortably complete a trip in winter. This sucks.
160 miles in the winter is totally doable in many EVs. It’s true that for most you need to be mindful to have a full charge if you absolutely don’t want to need to stop. I have a 2019 Niro EV, mine doesn’t have the heat pump, but if you got one with a heat pump you’d be fine.
You don’t need to plan on charging only 80% for a trip like that. True for the best longevity you shouldn’t charge to full all the time, once a week shouldn’t be an issue at all.
How much time did you spend at work to pay for all that gas you burned in your Tacoma?
Honestly though, what I would do is rent an EV off Turo and test it out on your desired route. That should give you the confidence to make the right purchase decision, and it could be a real eye opener.
Heat pumps don’t work as well below freezing, they’re more of a ‘chilly’ day remedy than real cold, probably why the difference between the Teslas with and without was negligible.
So what does this do to MPGe? And comparing like a hybrid or PHEV with a big old thermal generator vs a full EV in the winter, do their efficiencies cross paths?
I will say my Volt’s heater was almost worse in the winter than my Bolt’s heater, yeah the Bolt takes a hit in mileage but it gets the cabin toasty, the Volt would fire up the engine below a certain temp, I’m not sure where the heat went but didn’t seem to make it to the cabin.
I own a Volt and I noticed that if you have the heat on Max or Eco, it will use the electric heater. Turn those off and it will switch to the engine heat, its way warmer.
In this 0F weather, the MPG dropped like a rock. Around 25mpg combined between electricity and gas.
I’m curious about this as well. Knowing how a car works when it’s freezing is cool but there’s a big difference between freezing and -20F. How will it work at -20F?
Not well I expect, but it should be usable. My hybrid gets about 28mpg in the snow at -20F (ouch!). That sucks, but it’s usable. How much range is left in a full EV at that point? Does a heat pump even still work?
In those temps, EVs with heat pumps and battery heaters work just fine. They take a range hit but if you can work it logistically where you can plug it at home and/or at work, it will warm the battery using wall power while charging so the range maintains for much longer,
Effectively, no. Even the better stationary variable-speed compressor systems really fall off hard by -20°F
—-caveat that I work on big commercial stuff, and know very little about car units. I do know that the inverter style is taking hold there, but no idea which ones have it
Heat pump technology is pretty good these days. Living in Texas, most homes (at least newish ones) don’t have furnaces but instead rely on heat pumps. In this week’s cold spell, our heat-pumped HVAC managed to maintain the 67F set on the thermostat even when temps dipped down into the teens. And our unit was installed in 2011. Supposedly the newest ones are even better, still functioning at sub-zero (F) temps.
What temperature does a heat pump stop working? | Sealed
The volt had a known issue where the resistance heater would fail. It happened on the one I owned. It was very noticeable after it got totaled into a snowbank and I had to wait 2 hours for the cops to show up.
Yes, generally. 😉 Though in practice I think it’s difficult to separate them – two sides of the same coin.
What I would like to see is a rational discussion over where BEVs are likely to work the best under most/all expected conditions, and then apply focus toward building out the charging infrastructure in those areas. (Thanks, Captain Obvious)
To that end, I wonder how long it took for petrol stations to reach the level of saturation that we currently enjoy. In the early days, how did station owners decide where to build? Some of that happened before the Eisenhauer highway system was built, and things certainly changed afterwards, but I’m wondering what a map of gas stations over time would look like and if there is anything useful we could glean from it.
I think it’s more “who” ev’s work best for than “where”. Ev’s a best for people who own or rent a home where they can L2 charge at night, who typically travel less than 100 miles a day, and don’t take road trips (or have a second vehicle for that use). For people in this group, an EV with a 200 mile range works as good in Alaska as in Florida, These people don’t even need public fast chargers.
Public charging needs to be improved, but I suspect the inability to charge at home is a bigger issue than a lack of pubic charging for a lot of people.
We did a ton of driving over the weekend in the ~20s most of the time and there was a difference but 0 practical effect. Being able to L1 charge while preheating makes a huge difference.
Charging is of course an issue, but the “where” was about very cold vs very hot vs temperate.
A very cold environment isn’t great, as we’ve seen.
A very hot environment is less bad but still not ideal.
An area that is temperate year-round would probably be the best for BEV range.
I’m not sure I agree with the overall range in miles, but the percentages check out. I used to own a Bolt, now a Model 3 and I would lose significantly more (around 35%) with the Bolt than the Tesla. Somehow the graph shows “ideal range” of a Tesla Model 3 Long Range being a smidge over 200 miles, thats not even close. I get over 220 miles of range in 30f temps (70mph+hills+heat) easily. Summer range is closer to 260-280 miles (EPA rated ~320), but its also @70k miles and a few years old. The percentage loss is legit, but the miles on their graph are off. I would say that graph is accurate with the -10f cold snap we recently had.. It was noticeably worse under 10f.. Just running around town, preheating, battery conditioning, etc made my battery drop from 80% to 38% driving in town, parking, driving, parking.
You probably think you’re joking, but after the deep freeze we’ve had this past week, the next time it hits freezing I will probably break out the Spring wardrobe.
I really want to know what EVs can do well below 0F. Even my ICE vehicles lose like 30% of their mileage in -20F weather (which is admittedly rare, but does consistently happen every year or two here). I do want to know how bad an EV would be in those conditions because I sometimes have to drive long-ish distances in those temps.
I drive a 2024 EV6 GT-line AWD, EPA range is around 400km (sorry in Canada). Was -38C all weekend and driving kids around to hockey mix of highway and city driving, I would get about 200km from 100-0%. But cranking the heater really affected the range it seemed, as well as the more speedy highway driving.
Do they do ‘winter blend’ gasoline in your area?
Yes, which is definitely a factor too. Until they switch back in the Spring you get lower mileage even if it’s 80 degrees out. -20 still has a noticeable impact versus 32 though.
If you’re departing from your garage, you can mitigate a lot of the range loss even in very cold weather by just remote-starting it to preheat while it’s still plugged in. Which also means the interior gets comfortable without the garage door sitting open.
After a couple years with a Volt in a moderately-cold climate, the ability to pre-condition the interior while plugged in and parked in the garage is really underrated.
Yeah, that would definitely be an interesting data point too. It may not always be possible, but preheating seems like a win-win if it makes you more comfortable and improves efficiency.
*Sigh*
32 degrees is positively balmy for a good portion of the country in winter. While this testing is not meaningless, I am once again asking for some tests to be done in places where subzero temps are a yearly occurrence.
agreed. testing at zero or 10 degrees would be more useful as ‘cold weather’
-40. -40 is cold. It will reliably be that cold where I am (as an overnight low) at least once a year. Are schools shut? No. Does public transit stop? No. Does most of your shit not want to work? Yes, but that’s the point of cold weather proving.
-40 also does not require you to specify C or F because it doesn’t matter. 🙂
Kelvin or GTFO.
-40 Kelvin it is then! 😉
It has gotten nearly that cold in Michigan many times. Lowest I’ve experienced is-38f. I’ve had long stretches of -20f during polar vortices.
But public transit? Haha. Plowed roads? On good days. Since snow and wind almost always comes with brutal cold, how about a real world test? Add the extra resistance of pushing through a thick mass of snow that everyone has made a mess of. Yes I’ve experienced this for hours on freeways, not just back roads. A decent headwind, sustained 30 mph at minimum. Add 60 mph gusts. Cold air is denser so that wind is like a wall. And since most EVs rely on low rolling resistance tires to get their range numbers, swap those out for true winter tires which give the best margin of safety you’re gonna get for said weather.
I think by then, the range will be barely anything. Let’s see it. Let’s make an EV that people don’t have to worry about running out of range if circumstances are less than perfect.
And of course, if you run out of range in such weather and likewise have no heat, it’s not just an inconvenience. It can be a death sentence. It’s a big deal.
How did EVs do during the Arctic blast of last year’s holiday?
Plowed roads? That’s some kind of crazy fantasy land. They just send the bus drivers out in the same conditions as everyone else. On the one hand, it’s kind of hilarious, but on the other hand its a complete shit show.
Also no one uses the bus unless you know, you have zero other options.
The issues where cars were trapped in I-95 south of DC for a day or so weren’t directly due to cold, but due to snow. That said, Car and Driver (I think) did a test or reported on someone’s test a month or two afterwards and found that keeping an immobilized car heated consumed much less of a share of an electric’s battery capacity than a comparable ICE car’s fuel tank.
Of course, the answer to all of this is to move somewhere where such temperatures do not occur, or at least occur infrequently enough that you can stay indoors and ride it out for a day or two. If you can’t leave the northern states, abandon any sense of a work ethic and stay home between November and April. (Canada’s different, of course – the only reasonably habitable climate is in southwestern BC, and there isn’t enough housing or heroin for the people that already live there, let alone for the 40,000 other Canadians who would have to migrate. Their long-term solution is to complete the proposed merger and finally become the third island group of the Turks and Caicos.)
I mean, if the results look bad a 32, it’s just going to look worse. I don’t have to deal with single digit temps very often, but 20s and 30s are normal in the winter here. And I’m struggling to find an EV (that I want) that will do 160 miles comfortably in those “mild” winter temps.
Sure, but when 400-500 miles EVs become more common (god willing), I’m going to want to know their actual range at 0 F.
When living in Moscow as an exchange student in the late 1970’s my luxury accommodation overlooked a massive bus station. Before starting the buses in the depths of winter the drivers put blazing buckets of rags and old oil under them to thaw out the diesel. I wonder if this approach might work for EVs?
Really, yeah, maybe EVs could have optional cold weather packages with gasoline or kerosene heaters to warm the batteries and interior. Maybe a self contained modular unit that bolts into the trunk so it can be removed in the summer?
In a way – yes. You can precondition most EVs which will make the cabin warm, and importantly, bring the battery and motors up to temp. For short trips, this makes an -enormous- difference. For longer trips, it still makes a considerable difference. It consumes some energy when warming up, but it dramatically reduces range anxiety if you’ve got to set off in the cold.
Some electric busses still use combustible fuels to heat the cabin because that’s just a very efficient use of fuel, and there’s no reason they couldn’t use the same approach to warm up a heat exchanger. Since plain combustion like that doesn’t require high purity or large quantities, it would be a good application for biofuel.
So none of the figures take into account preconditioning the battery before driving? It’s really only beneficial if you are plugged in as it would use the battery to do that. Preconditioning our i3 before leaving while plugged in so still left with full battery used to help a ton.
2 observations.
Connecticut doesn’t have a single road with a speed limit of over 65… granted, 70 is pretty much what the slow lane travels at for the most part. If you ain’t doing 85 in the left lane, you ARE getting run over.
and, the best and worse car come from the same MFG?!?!? Interesting.
I wondered that, too, the Teslas are all in the ballpark with each other, but there’s a pretty noticeable difference between the two VAG products
As someone who is deeply experienced, no two VAGs are alike.
CT drivers must completely change their driving style when they cross the state’s northern border. The car causing a road clot by driving 3mph under the speed limit in the left lane of the Mass Pike will always be wearing CT plates.