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Comment by castratikron | Hacker News Reader

A lot of ICE cars won't even start at 40 below. Those cases should count as zero mile range

Those can be warmed up with a g̶a̶s̶o̶l̶i̶n̶e blowtorch. Or you can fit your car with an alarm system that auto starts the engine throughout the night to keep it warm. That's what pretty much everyone is doing where I'm from (-25°C is a pretty typical winter temperature here, with drops down to -40-45°C for a couple weeks each winter).

After that you get tolerable gas mileage. I don't drive much, but from my friends' description it sounds like you get around 30-40% more gas usage compared to warmer months.

What is a gasoline torch? Would blowtorching a vehicle be detrimental and destructive to it?

Yeah, I probably should have looked in the dictionary before posting that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowtorch

It's pretty dangerous, burns down quite a few cars each year, but people don't care or have no other options. I think during the last couple of years there were two fires near my house alone.

Do people run the open-flame torch it in the room where the vehicle is (to hear the air)? What about a plug-in solution such as a space heater?

I thought electric block heaters were common in cold climates. Is the blow torch a last resort if you cannot park your car in range of an outlet?

Maybe in Norway or Canada or other 'rich' countries.

Most people have no place to park their cars, they just leave them wherever in the open (since most live in apartments and there are few garages available).

Those who have enough money to afford an alarm system and pay the increased gasoline bill (because it adds about an hour of idling your engine each day) rarely revert to such measures, but many do. I see them every morning when temperature drops below -30°C or so.

That makes EVs look even worse.

They seem much less common than they used to be. More people have garages, and modern vehicles will easily start down to - 15F maybe.

I would much rather have a battery jump pack since a weak battery is the most likely problem. Though those are weak in the cold too...

Well, if that garage has electricity, the electric car could charge and pre-heat there easily. Which would largely eliminate range-loss.

My old vehicle gets really grumpy at -10F. I use an oil pan heater, a battery maintainer 1.5 amps, 2 heat-lamps above the engine and fuel additives heat, seafoam that keep it running. The only downside is that I feed all the local birds and they discovered my heat lamps.

> My old vehicle gets really grumpy at -10F. I use an oil pan heater, a battery maintainer 1.5 amps, 2 heat-lamps above the engine and fuel additives heat, seafoam that keep it running. The only downside is that I feed all the local birds and they discovered my heat lamps.

The only downside? The entire comment constitutes a list of down sides...

Perhaps. Not for me really. I would be using seafoam anyway as the heads on my engine have a manufacturer defect that causes sludge so I have to change the oil often. I use seafoam in both the fuel and oil. Electricity here is 11 cents per KwH so I am ok with the heating devices as that is significantly less power than an EV even if I factor in fuel costs. Once I finish my solar setup the power becomes moot.

The only thing that bothers me is that when I lift the hood to remove the heat lamps, a bird may fly out and when they go from 80F to -10F they can go into shock. They stand next to me for a minute or two and then fly away probably out of sheer boredom of listening to me.

Anyone who is trying to start an ICE at -40 (C or F, they are the same at that temp), will have it plugged in with a block heater. Or if in Russia they’ll have an insulated jacket for the car.

To be fair, it typically costs about $50 for a block heater which allows you to start below 40 degrees in an ICE.

Whats the solution for EV?

I believe they “just work.” Electric motors don’t stop working at low temps. I think it’s mostly just range that’s impacted since EVs can’t use the inefficient part of an ICE (e.g. energy produced by gas not captured by the powertrain) for heat, so they have to run heat pumps. (Along with battery chemistry not working as well in low temps)

Depending on the EV you you void the battery warranty keeping it in extreme temperatures like 40 below. And it affects the range.

EVs could (and some do) self-heat the battery when temps are low enough for damage

EVs will maintain the battery temperature if plugged in, usually at 0C.

Even if not plugged-in they'll try to keep the battery above temperatures that may be damaging, e.g. -30C. This only works for a sufficiently charged battery.

Every modern gasoline vehicle should be fine at those temps even without a block heater. It's just a question of can your 12v battery deliver enough power to start it, but that's a problem you can solve in 30min if you encounter it (bring your battery inside).

cold batts always get worse range got to plug it in and have a batt warmer (like Tesla).

not such a foreign idea when you have to do that for Diesel to get them to start in the cold.

Heating block

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