EV's and Cold Weather

[HangOutdoors]

Just read this article. Definitely sheds some light on EV challenges.

Winter weather presenting EV owners with ‘frustrating’ challenges | Fox Business

 

[zipper]

We charge a Rav 4 Prime on a self installed level 2 charger in our mildly heated 50 degree garage. No issues yet as the gas backup kicks in when battery runs out. She will get 50 miles on EV before switching over, which covers most of her daily driving. Never had to use a charging station outside of the garage. It would suck to be in that situation and can’t get a charge.

 

[zpaul]

takes twice as long to charge EV at Supercharger and consumption increases significantly since EV is trying to warm up battery pack.
Charging at home - no issues.

 

[zpaul]

More then 1 million miles on Tesla

 

[Coult45]

There are definitely a ton of variables that make an EV range from useless to perfect for each end user, just like boat choices. I charge at home, was able to install my own level 2 charger, have a garage that stays above 40 even in sub zero weather, live in a state with a very high percentage of clean or renewable energy sources, and 95% of our daily usage is well under 100 miles a day. So when our Mach E range falls from 220 miles in the summer to 165 miles in the winter, it doesn’t affect us. If we’re traveling long distances in the winter, we’re taking the truck.

For someone without my setup, an EV could be a huge frustration - especially if they’re expecting traditional ICE performance.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

The other big draw on the battery is to keep you warm inside the car. This takes a lot of KWhs to keep you comfortable. As I have stated in my battery upgrade thread I needed heated batteries because of the cold temps during the shoulder seasons, you cannot charge a Li battery at full tilt if the battery is less than 32*, typically Li batteries can charge at .5C or 50% of the Ah rating above 32*F, it can only accept a charge rate of .1C between 15-32* F safely, and cannot be charged below 15° without destroying the battery. So it makes sense that the battery has to be heated up to allow the charge rate to be at a “super” rate, which takes a fair amount of time given the size of the battery in a car. Li batteries do not perform at their rated output at temps below 32*F, if you watch the Morton’s on the move vid in my battery upgrade thread I believe he talks about how the BB batteries internal heaters while using the batteries’ own power to heat themselves actually help the battery produce more energy on a given charge.

I have personal experience with a Tesla wherein a 40 mile round trip took the battery from 96% to 42% of the battery in the winter, and not the brutal kind, we’re talking 20* weather not 0° or sun zero. I expect the same would hold true for extreme heat and trying to stay cool, it’s going to take a lot of KWh‘s to keep the occupant(s) comfortable, and on that end of the spectrum, a supercharger is not going to work on a car in Phoenix AZ when it is 120*F, because the batteries get hot when charging, so there will be a limit on charge rate when it is too hot as well, if the batteries get too hot the BMS will interrupt the connection until the battery cools off.

Hmmm, I wonder if an electric cars environmental control system functions while the cars battery is being charged? If it does then however much power it takes to run the heater or the AC will not be going be going towards charging the battery which will extend the charge time. If it doesn’t that means the occupants will either get very cold or very hot.

 

[BigN8]

The countries EV situation would have been much better off if the damn politicians had just stayed out of it. If the EV market would have grown organically based on consumer demand and infrastructure capabilities then we would not see and hear about the struggles of the manufacturers and the consumers. One of these days the politicians will learn, just because California does it, doesn't make it the right choice.

 

[HangOutdoors]

Just read this. Honestly I liked the Truck when I drove one. But it was too expensive, and didn't fit really our usage needs.

Ford cuts production of F-150 Lightning pickup on weaker-than-expected electric vehicle sales growth (clickondetroit.com)

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

I did a little research looking to see if the Tesla has mitigation strategies for cold weather ops, and not surprisingly Tesla does, especially for charging, they call it pre conditioning, this requires energy from the battery to heat the battery up to minimal temperature for charging and it is recommended 30-45 mins before reaching a charging station. This pre condition is also recommended before driving to keep the ECU if you will from limiting how much current flows out of the battery during acceleration, E.G. reduced performance if you don’t precondition the battery, which also warms the cabin but I’m not sure how much it warms the cabin as I can find no information on the precondition warming level in the cabin. There is a smart preconditioning setting in the car but Tesla states in the owners manual this has proven unreliable and suggests a third party app be used.

Enlightening but not at all surprisingly there are additional supercharging fees known as idle and congestion. Meaning, there are increased charging fees and financial disincentives to using a supercharger station during times of high usage. In other words it’s going to cost you to charge when everyone needs it-shocker.



Another revelation, and not surprisingly at all, is that Tesla recommends leaving the car plugged in whenever not in use, this flies in the face of many electric car advocates saying the range is good enough on electric cars that you don’t need to charge everyday. Tesla recommends leaving plugged in to keep the maximum range, and during preconditioning the power to heat the battery and the inside of the car will be drawn from the charger, again not clear on what that means exactly for the level of cabin heating during charging. This is also true during hot weather, as the ac system will draw power from the charger instead of the battery. Apparently there are other systems drawing power from the battery while parked.

There is also this little nugget. Some, (??? no idea how much? i know how far my truck goes on any level of fuel in the tank) of the stored energy is not available when the battery is too cold, and regenerative braking is disabled reducing range even further.




Tesla also recommends using the seat heaters to stay warm instead of the heat pump to conserve energy, if I remember correctly Tesla suggests bundling up to stay warm and reduce battery consumption, not for me at all.

Since the Tesla uses a heat pump to heat the car, that means in cold temperatures the heat pump becomes rather ineffectual / inefficient as the Delta T is dramatically reduced which means more power is required to heat the cabin. This same heat pump is reversed to provide cooling for the cabin, and is used to keep the battery cool in hot conditions. Driving your Tesla to Palm Springs in the summer? The AC system is going to be working very hard, consuming a lot of power, to keep the cabin cool and keep the battery cool enough for normal operation. And all of that has a an impact on range.

So after a bit of research I’m convinced that a lot of these electric cars in the cold were a victim of their owners not RTFM, (read the fucking manual) these cars need to be managed carefully (be uncomfortable while operating them in cold weather) in non optimal conditions to get them to function normally. I’m betting that had the owners RTFM, they would have preconditioned their batteries they could have used the supercharger stations as intended, but that requires planning ahead at least a hour in advance of charging their cars, provided there was enough charge in the vehicles battery to precondition the battery for charging. Who knows? Maybe there was sufficient charge in the battery when they stopped but after cold soaking the battery power was dramatically reduced and that caused a death spiral. I’m also betting that these cars left with a completely discharged battery, in those cold temperatures caused further discharge to the battery and now those batteries will either be junk or have greatly reduced capacity.

Edit: At 10° or colder weather it’s very tough to scavenge heat for the heating systems via the heat pump. So looks like you’re pretty screwed in those temps.

Either way, the cold temperatures have ; eliminated regenerative braking reducing range, the battery’s inability to use all the stored energy, the batteries surprise reduction in stored energy after it is left parked in cold temps, the environmental control systems inefficiency results in dramatically increased KWh usage to keep you warm in the car, the complexity of operating the car, and the need to use what I’m assuming is a good amount of KWh’s to precondition the battery for charging results in a big fuck you to your electric car.

Tesla Extreme Weather Considerations - How To Optimize Your Tesla Driving For Winter Months

INTRODUCTION As a Tesla owner, you may have already experienced that charging and driving your Tesla in temperatures around 32

engage.tesla.com

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-4F3599A1-20D9-4A49-B4A0-5261F957C096.html

https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-F907200E-A619-4A95-A0CF-94E0D03BEBEF.html

I used the search function on Tesla’s website to see if the heater can be used while charging and got these results.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

The countries EV situation would have been much better off if the damn politicians had just stayed out of it. If the EV market would have grown organically based on consumer demand and infrastructure capabilities then we would not see and hear about the struggles of the manufacturers and the consumers. One of these days the politicians will learn, just because California does it, doesn't make it the right choice.

I agree, it wouldn’t have grown because only a very small portion of people would buy these cars, which is how it should be, based on demand. As more consumers figure out that the promises of electric vehicles are very….conditional consumers will eschew them based on performance. And until such time that the politicians embrace the only feasible lower carbon electrical generation, nuclear, as well as a four fold rebuild of the electrical generation, transmission and distribution system none of this will be possible.

California got force fed a big dose of humble pie after shuttering 20% of its generation facilities, mostly gas fired boilers and one 2400 megawatt nuclear station, the CAISO has been in an almost constant state of crisis during the six months of the year due to their reliance on solar and wind. The ca state record for one hours worth of usage in the summer was set a year ago at 51,292 MW’s for one hour, ( the previous record was 50,205 MW set in 2005) just one hour, and during that whole day the CAISO said not to charge electric vehicles which represent 1.8% of the cars on the road. If half of the registered vehicles in ca were electric and all plugged in at roughly the same time, the demand for electric car charging alone would be 59,500 MW’s. 17M cars X 3500 watts / 1,000,000 =59,500 MW.

 

[buckbuck]

A number of those stations in Chicago are near O'Hare airport. I wonder if they had been sitting in a lot for a week in those temperatures and people assumed they could just go hit a supercharger.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

A number of those stations in Chicago are near O'Hare airport. I wonder if they had been sitting in a lot for a week in those temperatures and people assumed they could just go hit a supercharger.

RTFM.

They could have used the app and got their cars preconditioned, warmed up and ready to go.

 

[djetok]

The countries EV situation would have been much better off if the damn politicians had just stayed out of it. If the EV market would have grown organically based on consumer demand and infrastructure capabilities then we would not see and hear about the struggles of the manufacturers and the consumers. One of these days the politicians will learn, just because California does it, doesn't make it the right choice.

Organic growth, what a concept. Our society is one that we see this and want it now. It seems, nothing is organic anymore or maybe I'm just getting old.

 

[2kwik4u]

SO, I've been discussing this with a friend of mine all week. Interesting timing for this thread to be honest.

He say an increase in about 40mi of usage over a 137mi trip. He makes the trip every week, and it used ~180mi of range this week in the cold for the 137mi of actual distance travelled. OR about a 30-ish percent drop in efficiency. He claims the Tesla interface shows how much power went to preconditioning and seat warmers and such, but considering their range estimate is wrong most of the time, we're not putting much weight in that calculation. Also, we agreed that battery capacity in "miles" is stupid. Finally......He drives his like the car he replaced. 80mph on the interstate, heater set to 70deg, and the seat warmers on. He didn't buy the car to "bundle up" or otherwise not use the features he paid for. With that said, he did mention that his normal stop in OH for charging was fuller than usual, and it took him ~45min to charge as compared to the normal ~20min stop. He attributed the time addition for both "reserve cushion" (He charged deeper than normal), and the slowed rate. He said it was an inconvenience, but not the end of the world.

Here's a neat trip report from someone with a Model3 in cold weather from another source. Similar findings to what my friend has found.
https://www.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/197ctyg
Essentially a jump to ~2.7mi/kWh. As best I can recall, most M3's are in the 1.3mi/kWh range under "normal" conditions. so about a 50% increase in power consumption. I'm sure there is a mix of causes for that, and they likely range from keeping the seat heaters on, to the increased drag from cold bearings and fluids in the gearboxes. In general, you use more energy in extreme conditions, and the EV's are NOT immune to that. Anyone that things they are, well, is a little delusional.

Now, some of the charging woes are a new things to experience with an EV over an ICE. Fuel pumps don't slow down in cold weather, so replenishment of energy is the same rate/time. EV's on the other hand must slow the rate for a cold pack, or waste energy to heat a pack for quicker rates. Much to @FSH 210 Sport point, there is some RTFM problems here and with people complaining. Also, this isn't a one-size-fits-all problem either. Those that charge at home at night and park in a garage are going to have a VERY different experience than those that park on the street and charge away from the home, or even those on a road trip.

This is, IMO, almost the same argument we see on here all the time about "jet boats don't handle well"......Of course they don't, they're a different technology and need to be handled as such. The "EV's suck in the winter" is the same trope under different verbiage. Of course they don't, they're a different technology and need to be handled as such.

I both agree and disagree with the government keeping their nose out of the whole thing. That's a different set of discussions for a different forum though

 

[2kwik4u]

RTFM.

They could have used the app and got their cars preconditioned, warmed up and ready to go.

Not if they were rental cars.

I rented a Model 3 from Hertz awhile back, and it was not a great rental car experience. I wouldn't be surprised if people rented a Model 3 and needed to charge thinking it would work the same as the one they got a few months ago and had no manual to use to RTFM.

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Not if they were rental cars.

I rented a Model 3 from Hertz awhile back, and it was not a great rental car experience. I wouldn't be surprised if people rented a Model 3 and needed to charge thinking it would work the same as the one they got a few months ago and had no manual to use to RTFM.

Had not considered the rental car thing, excellent point. I guess this could be one reason Hertz is getting rid of them.

 

[2kwik4u]

Had not considered the rental car thing, excellent point. I guess this could be one reason Hertz is getting rid of them.

I think it's mostly logistics and repair parts cost/availability, but I'm certain customer satisfaction and take rate has something to do with it.

After that rental experience I haven't booked one since. However, every time I've booked since they've dropped the rate on them and damn near begged me to take one at the counter every time I've rented.

 

[zpaul]

Cybertruck tow 11,000 in freezing temps

 

[Coult45]

Not if they were rental cars.

I rented a Model 3 from Hertz awhile back, and it was not a great rental car experience. I wouldn't be surprised if people rented a Model 3 and needed to charge thinking it would work the same as the one they got a few months ago and had no manual to use to RTFM.

Agree. My main issue with Tesla is that they're difficult to use until you've read the manual. I can get in 95% of ICE vehicles, and operate them safely and effectively once I adjust my mirrors. RTFM is not a great formula for a rental fleet, and I'm a firm RTFM guy.

 

[CaptRedbeard]

The countries EV situation would have been much better off if the damn politicians had just stayed out of it. If the EV market would have grown organically based on consumer demand and infrastructure capabilities then we would not see and hear about the struggles of the manufacturers and the consumers. One of these days the politicians will learn, just because California does it, doesn't make it the right choice.

The US government still spends significantly more money subsidizing fossil fuels than it does subsidizing EVs. Maybe I'm missing what you're referring to when you say that politicians should stay out of it. Hasn't the government pretty consistently subsidized leading edge research and progress in many industries?