Comment on Heat pumps can't take the cold? Nordics debunk the myth

tmjaea@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

• mazelado@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  EVs work fine in cold weather. I live in Minnesota and drive an EV. It loses about 10-20% of the total range in the winter, but most of that appears to be from generating heat for the passengers.

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  • tmjaea@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I was being sarcastic. I’m from Germany and most “car people” constantly talk about EVs being not reliable, especially during winter …

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    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Ah yes, that time of year when cars are known to just start right up every time they’re cranked over, and gas cars totally aren’t still subject to a battery getting cold …

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      • NightAuthor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Gas cars don’t have a battery, they run on… gas ::: spoiler /s :::

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    • Orygin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      In their defense, my German EV lost a good 40% range on the winter

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      • tmjaea@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        That’s really bad. What brand/model?

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  • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    “Fine” is subjective. It’s fine for most people. Not so for others.

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• dojan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The problem isn’t that EVs don’t work in the winter, it’s that their range gets significantly reduced. We had issues with people literally up and abandoning their vehicles because their batteries ran flat.

  In these cases the issue is less that the range is lost, and more that with snowy and cold weather traffic gets unpredictable. You can end up in long queues and that’s where the issues start.

  When I went on a work trip up in the far north I never saw a single EV. Asked my colleagues about it and none of them thought EVs particularly feasible as a primary vehicle.

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  • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We had issues with people literally up and abandoning their vehicles because their batteries ran flat.

    Do gas cars have infinite fuel tanks in your area?

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    • unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Based on context, I’d assume that the loss of efficiency of the batteries in the cold led the vehicle to over-estimate the range of the vehicle. If the car says it has 50 miles of range and the next DC charger is 40 miles away, I could imagine a situation where I’d get 30 miles down the road before the range estimate shows that there’s actually only 35 miles of range because you wanted cabin heat.

      EVs are weird in lots of ways when compared to ICE, and we’re still figuring out lots of the problems that need solving.

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      • QueriesQueried@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        And the people driving them are still learning the quirks for specific circumstances. Many drivers know you need to let a fuel car warm up more or to give it extra gas in XYZ scenario, but those same people won’t always know what to do when switching to electric. Or they might instead do something that helped on a fuel vehicle, but actively harms on an electric, especially with the many manufacturer specific options that have no consistent naming. Hopefully we get some naming consistency soon, if for nothing else than ease of use.

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      • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Again, are you under the impression that gas cars don’t have the same problem?

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    • dojan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      No, I believe it’s the heating that does it. In petrol cars the heating is a side effect of the engine running. Using it to heat the car in a way improves the fuel efficiency. In an EV the heat doesn’t come from the engine, so the battery needs to feed both the engine and the heater.

      You can have the engine on and not driving and your petrol will last quite long, not so much with an EV, unfortunately.

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      • helenslunch@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        Using it to heat the car in a way improves the fuel efficiency

        Normally, yes, but in this case it’s being used purely for heat, with probably 10% efficiency, where the EV is operating at 300% efficiency so no, definitely not.

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