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Autoweek (and other car news outlets) summarize some independent testing: https://autoweek.com/article/green-cars/how-much-does-cold-weather-cut-electric-vehicle-range-quite-bit-aaa-study-finds
AAA partnered with the Automotive Club of Southern California's Automotive Research Center for its tests, which allowed it to run drive-simulating dynamometer tests in 20-, 75- and 95-degree Fahrenheit temperatures in a controlled laboratory setting. This is way more scientific than anything we'd be able to achieve toodling around in an EV in Detroit the next time a polar vortex hits.
A handful of key points pulled from the report:
- The increased use of HVAC systems in extreme temperatures has a bigger impact on EV range than decreases in battery pack efficiency caused by the temperatures themselves.
- Moreover, while both extremely hot and extremely cold temperatures affect range, you'll incur a significantly larger penalty when heating up a cabin than you will cooling one down. Compare that 41 percent decrease at 20 F to a mere 17 percent decrease at 95 F.
- The BMW i3s saw the biggest reductions in range in both hot and cold conditions, losing 50 and 21 percent of range in cold and hot conditions, respectively.
- The Nissan Leaf was the most versatile, losing 31 and 11 percent of range in cold and hot conditions, respectively.
The other test cars, Tesla S, eGolf and Chevy Bolt fell between these extremes. The article includes a link (pdf) to the original report with many more details. Worth reading if you live outside southern CA and are considering an electric car.
This AC is considering an electric car, and I'm fortunate enough to have an attached garage to keep it warm-ish, probably above freezing, even if the outside temp gets down to 0F (-18C) which is a typical low for my location. That means that any trip will start with a cool (not cold) battery & cabin...but after parking outdoors at my destination(s), I'll have a reduced range for the trip home.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 16 2019, @06:03PM (7 children)
An electric car as 1 of 2 cars is a great idea. The interesting question though is ... if you can manage on a single (ICE) car, is it more eco to buy an electric car for the short runs and keep the ice car, or just use the existing ice car all the time? It's certainly *cheaper* to only have the 1 car.
(Score: 2) by Snow on Thursday May 16 2019, @06:44PM (1 child)
One of the cars is my wife's. We need (well not NEED, but...) 2 cars.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 16 2019, @10:46PM
Your wife is a car that put your open marriage in perspective
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Thursday May 16 2019, @06:52PM
That math is a good point and the answer is almost definitely no. It mostly only matters to single people though. My wife and I need 2 cars anyway due to work schedules and location. Both of them don't need to be able to do long range trips though. We considered it heavily when we replaced her car 2 years ago but every option was too expensive for our budget or too small for her needs.
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Thursday May 16 2019, @07:40PM
I can't imagine that the lifecycle costs (both $$ and, for example, CO2) would ever favor the second car. There's a lot of energy involved in building a car.
That said, choosing the right EV means you don't need the second car. Tesla is the only manufacturer who provides that right now, but companies like VW are likely to get there in a few years. I own a Tesla Model 3, and it's great in town. I wake up every morning with a full "tank", and have no issues doing all the driving I need to do in a day before plugging in again at night. That would apply to a number of other attractive EVs today also - the Bolt, i3, Leaf (with the big battery), etc. However, it's also great when I want to drive 350 miles to SoCal or Page from Phoenix; I'd also have no problem if I needed to drive to Orlando tomorrow. Tesla is the only manufacturer who has solved the long distance travel issue with it's network of Superchargers - for everyone else, charging is seen as "Someone Else's Problem". Even if the manufacturer builds fast charging capabilities into the car, they certainly haven't done any work to assure that you can use that capability on a road trip.
As a point of reference, the Cannonball Run (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannonball_Baker_Sea-To-Shining-Sea_Memorial_Trophy_Dash) takes about 30 hours in a prepared car (60 gallons of fuel, radar detectors and jammers, relief drivers, etc) (https://jalopnik.com/meet-the-guy-who-drove-across-the-u-s-in-a-record-28-h-1454092837), about 40 hours in a stock ICE vehicle, and about 50 hours in a stock Tesla Model 3 (https://www.thedrive.com/new-cars/17312/tesla-model-3-sets-new-ev-cannonball-run-record-of-50-hours-16-minutes). So, there's a time penalty to be paid for using an EV currently, but it's not nearly as bad as people believe. I'm still waiting for someone in a Chevy or BMW or Jaguar or Audi or VW EV to even be able to make the run.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 16 2019, @11:10PM (2 children)
One option if you only _need_ one car, but rarely go very far, is to rent a car for those long trips.
I save about $3 for every 30 miles I drive my Leaf compared to the gas car. If I drive 30 miles per day, 5 days per week, that's $15/wk in gas savings, or about $780/year. I looked at budget and an intermediate size SUV is about $50/day. I'm sure there are other costs involved -- insurance, gas, whatever BS they tack on, hassle factor -- call it $75 bucks/day. Using my 30 mpg ICEcar as baseline for the cost breakdown, I would break if I had to rent a car 10x per year and lose money if I needed to rent more often than that. In my case, I do need an ICEcar more than 10x year, so that's why both cars aren't electrics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @07:30AM (1 child)
Good point - although car rental is *much* cheaper in the USA than Europe. It's also really inconvenient to hire a car when you only own one car and have to drive to get a rental. If it was once/twice a year that would work, but I need 400 miles for a weekend about 8 times a year, so the balance is off.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Friday May 17 2019, @03:15PM
That depends on where in Europe. I've had some shockingly cheap rentals in the Netherlands and Germany.