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
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.
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