possible comparisons of EV's in cold.

[Geo]

It's the cold weather. There are two parts to that, heating the air in the cabin and cold batteries. My friends with Teslas see about a 30% drop in range in winter. The batteries need heat to run efferently, and at cold temps the regen braking conks out. Since heat pumps use about 1/3 the energy, I think the new Teslas will perform a lot better. If you store it in a garage and pre-heat it, it will do lot better. Heat pump+garage storage+pre-heat and I expect to lose around 10-15% range in my future CT. I lose at least that in my gas car in winter, and it has nothing to do with snow or slush on the ground.

" Range drops by 40% " in cold weather
" Range drops by 17% " in hot weather

Note : Other factors combine to drop the range significantly further.

Hence why its very easy to have EV's range reduce all the way down to 20% when towing a moderate load !

 

[ajdelange]

I'll say it again. It isn't the cold that is the major cause of range loss in the winter. It's the stuff on the road (which is, of course, more likely to be on the road in the winter). "Stuff" includes rain so don't be surprised if you see a 40% reduction in range during a heavy rainstorm in summer too.

Cold weather does have some range reducing effects beyond stuff on the road that cannot be totally ignored.
1)Colder, dry air is denser than warm, moist air so that drag will be increased. If you operate where drag is the major load (high speed) you may see noticeable reduction from increased drag.
2)The battery's ability to accept charge at high rate is limited so that regenerative braking is often diminished until the battery is sufficiently warmed. Loss of regen costs range
3)You are likely to run the heater when it is cold. Calculations in earlier posts show that range reduction due to heater are modest, especially in the newer cars with "heat pumps'.
4)You may have to run the defroster in cold weather. I put this as a separate item from the heater because you don't have to run the heater to be comfortable in cold weather but you do have to run the defroster to see if conditions warrant it.

So how much reduction in range should a buyer expect in winter? That depends of where you live and how you drive. In the CONUS I'd expect 10 - 15% on average. The major determinant is going to be whether they keep the roads clear in places where you drive. I've actually been getting slightly better mileage this winter than i did last summer (and it's been pretty cold so far) so it is entirely possible that you may see no range reduction at all.

 

[Crissa]

Very true!

For my first car was a Civic, and I had massive range losses in snow... I remember a few times using up my fuels unexpectedly fast. You put chains on and man, you'd be drinking.

Any vehicle that is efficient is going to show these losses more dramatically as just small things can show up. Even in my Mazda 3, driving in heavy rain will lose me one to six mpg! Having to push a thin layer of water out from under the tires shows up as additional resistance.

And so, winter driving is filled with things like that we don't think about but affect the range of our vehicles in winter already.

-Crissa