Comment on Heat pumps can't take the cold? Nordics debunk the myth
dojan@lemmy.world 8 months agoThe 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.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 8 months ago
Do gas cars have infinite fuel tanks in your area?
unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 8 months 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.
QueriesQueried@sh.itjust.works 8 months 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.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 8 months ago
Again, are you under the impression that gas cars don’t have the same problem?
Sodis@feddit.de 8 months ago
If you are in a traffic jam, you lose range because of the heating. For gas cars, that doesn’t matter at all.
dojan@lemmy.world 8 months 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.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 8 months ago
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.