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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday May 16 2019, @04:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the your-mileage-may-vary dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 16 2019, @11:10PM (2 children)

    by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday May 16 2019, @11:10PM (#844502) Journal

    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.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @07:30AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @07:30AM (#844634)

    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

      by aclarke (2049) on Friday May 17 2019, @03:15PM (#844731) Homepage

      That depends on where in Europe. I've had some shockingly cheap rentals in the Netherlands and Germany.