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
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.
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