I’ve always heard that EVs are not a great option if you live in really cold areas due to them not being very efficient in the cold. Why is that? And do gas powered vehicles have the same issue?
In: Engineering
The problem is heating. Electric vehicles are so efficent in converting the energy source they have into movement that there isnt a lot of heat that you can use for heating the inside of your car, so you basicly need to use the battery you use for movement also to heat up your car. Gas powered vehicles dont have this problem because they produce a lot of heat anyway that you can use to heat up the car.
Batteries do worse in the cold. With gas cars the battery required to start the car can struggle to turn over in cold enough weather. With an electric car you mostly see reduction in range as they usually have enough juice to start up and with diesel you need to preheat the fuel because it gets more viscous as the temperature drops.
For the record when they say “really cold” they don’t mean like 32F 0C but instead closer to 0F -18C.
It’s a general thing for a lot of chemical reactions that they run more slowly in the cold. For an electric car, the chemical reaction we want is how the batteries make their electricity. Very cold temperatures may also damage the batteries as their internals are meant to be goo-like, and can freeze. The cars should burn some electricity from the batteries to run a heater to keep them out of the danger zone, but of course that’s just wasting power in the batteries. Storing the car somewhere warmer, like a garage, helps a lot.
And of course, if you want heat in the interior/cabin, that comes from the batteries as well. Gas engines just get hot since they’re literally burning gas, giving an obvious solution to how to heat the interior in the winter, but electric cars don’t really have that kind of heat production without burning power from the batteries. (They produce some heat, but not nearly enough to do that)
Gas cars have different problems in the cold. Their battery is also sensitive to the cold, but normally you only really notice when starting the car as it sounds like the car is struggling to turn the engine over and start. Also the engine depends on the smooth flow of oil and at extreme cold temperatures the oil can start to become thick. Using a different type of oil that tolerates lower temperatures can help, but that only works to a point. Finally the engine is built to some really tight tolerances and since cold things shrink and hot things expand, it could get cold enough that the engine is just seized, though that would be hella cold… you probably shouldn’t even be outside.
In both cases, plugging in the car is a possible solution. Gas cars meant for cold environments may have a “block heater”. They have a short power cable under the hood you can plug in and it runs a small engine heater just to keep it out of that danger zone. Unplug it just before starting the car and it should go without much hassle.
Range is impacted as extremely cold batteries can’t output full power. Owners not expecting this will see summer range estimates of, let’s say 260mi fall to 200mi or less in the winter. This is largely expected due to battery chemistry. It’ll go back up when the season changes.
If you can charge at home, this can be largely mitigated by following “ABC” or “Always Be Charging/Connected”. Most EVs will maintain their battery temps automatically as needed. They can also be set to warm up prior to departure.
Cabin heat is the biggest use of energy outside motivation, but many EVs have heat pumps that will use significantly less energy (above like -20°) than resistive heaters.
Almost all EVs have heated seats, many with front and rear heated seats, and heated steering wheels to help offset heater usage.
Cold reduces battery capacity, which reduces range, and you need to run an indoor heater, which uses battery, reducing range, and roads are slippery causing wheelspin, reducing range, brakes lock up on ice, regenerative braking doesn’t work if the wheel isn’t spinning, reducing range, traffic is slower which means heater must run longer for the same distance trip, reducing range and on and on. Add that to extremely poor charging infrastructure, and EVs become less practical in colder climates than ICE or plug-in hybrids.
Where I am currently, it’s -32°C before windchill, I’m not sure an EV would even make it to the next city with charging stations on a full charge. Admittedly im extra skeptical after people I know had so many issues with their tesla in the heat this summer reducing the battery life with A/C.
Internal combustion cars are heated by waste heat. Electric cars have much, much less of that, so they need to run a heater, and that costs range.
Internal combustion cars do lose range in the cold too – basically everything about a car works better at +10C than -10C.
But the electric car’s battery also loses efficiency in the cold – there are a chemical reactions inside that doesn’t work as well in very cold conditions.
Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of new car sales in Norway are fully electric. Norway gets cold.
A better way of thinking about it, which is outlined in many of the responses to your post, is, “What are the different things you need to consider when operating different kinds of cars in extreme cold – electric, gasoline and Diesel?” They all have their pluses and minuses. Extreme cold is hard on everything. Today it’s -30F where I live, and my son parks his gasoline car outdoors. He should not try to start it until the weather warms up in a couple of days.
There are a lot of wannabe journalists, it seems, who like to bash electric cars. Like – Pulling a trailer decreases your range in an electric car!!! OMG!!! As if the same doesn’t happen in an internal combustion engine car. Electric cars catch on fire!!! Less often, per mile driven, it turns out, than gasoline cars. Electric cars can’t charge in the cold!!! Apparently, they do in Norway.
Naysayers gotta say nay.
There are three aspects to it:
(A) Heat
Batteries can discharge less energy when they are cold. So to get all the energy out, you have to heat them. You also have to heat the inside of the car because people are a bit whimsical about freezing solid.
Combustion engines throw away 3/4 of their energy as waste heat, so heating themselves up, heating the cabin, or even heating the fuel so it doesn’t freeze (a real issue with diesel) is of no concern. But for EVs, every Joule spent on heat is one that cannot be used for movement.
(B) Efficiency
Moving on a wet road costs more energy than moving on a dry road. Same for snowy and icy conditions. Moving through cold air costs more energy than moving through warm air. You even need more energy for the headlights because it’s darker on average in winter.
This causes a higher energy usage in all cars. However, Combustion engines throw away 3/4 of their energy as waste heat, so needing more energy for movement doesn’t have such a big effect on overall energy usage. EVs don’t do that, so every bit more energy needed equates 1:1 to more “battery content” (energy) used.
(C) Energy Storage
Fuel tanks are quite oversized for daily use and tank needles are not very precise. You simply won’t notice a 10 or 20% higher fuel usage unless you look closely. And even then you may not be sure, as people rarely count how many miles they have driving since the last fill-up.
EVs, on the other hand, are already tight on energy storage. Batteries are heavy and expensive, so you won’t get an overabundance. They also are very good at keeping track of energy usage, showing very precise numbers, and accurately estimating remaining range. Even if not paying attention you will see a 10% higher consumption on the screen.
Weird. I just got done reading multiple posts by people in Saskatchewan, Canada that are finding their EVs to be a much better vehicle for the extreme cold. Currently tow trucks are backed up with enough calls the wait time is stretching into days in order to boost ICE vehicles just to get them running. Meanwhile, the EVs start with zero issues. They also produce instant heat meaning your cabin starts warming immediately. You don’t need to get all the way to work in order for the engine to get warm enough to start heating the cab.
The only downside is going from about 500km of range to about 300km on the coldest of days. Regardless, for most people, that’s still enough to drive back and forth to work for at least a week without charging.
They are fantastic in the cold! They just have reduced range, sometimes as much as half. I’ve got an Ariya AWD with 205 miles of range. It’s projecting about 130 miles in -5 F weather. This doesn’t affect my ability to take a 70 mile round trip with range to spare.
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