Also - if you arrive at your friend's place in the winter and park overnight, you won't lose a ton overnight if the car's just parked there.
The 30 different requirements for EVs to work in cold weather are too complex and prohibitively expensive. That 2035 deadline is never not going to be pushed back unless the EV industry pulls a rabbit out of a hat.
It's also not something you can expect to find anywhere other than at another EV owner's place. Admittedly over time that will become less of an issue but for now it's going to be pretty rare.
Maybe not if you're lucky and the existing dryer connection is already in your garage but it's not going to be that simple for most people. Again dryer connections get installed at build time and have for the last couple decades so most people already have them.
And if you're talking about extremes - then there's a reason why block heaters with external power connections are very common in certain places - even the best ICE struggles to start in -40C or less.
Conversely. Sailboats get more efficient in cold temperatures because more energy is imparted on the sail.
Huh? I've been cycling for 15 years, many of those years doing 15k km a year, all year round. Mountain biking on mountains at -15C, down to urban cycling in 38-40C scorching summer heat. I've never noticed speed, effort, stamina changing with temperature as you suggest.
And I've done lots of road cycling at constant 35-40km/h, descents of up to 70+km/h.
Scorching heat with high humidity has an opposite effect. H2O drops the density of air and you can go measurably faster than in drier air.
With N=15 years of gps data and 40-70 of those days per year below zero very few below -10°C. I can say that I ride slower on cold days on avarage.
I am not fit and do not track that at all. I can barely keep my avarage above 25km/h in city traffic for 15km, very few conflict points maybe twenty but not comparable to road cycling. So a km/h decrease of avarage speed during winter is common but not a given. I do not count bad road conditions, but Stockholm has really good maintanance during winter, ice free asphalt all year.
That seems to be born out by using better (read more expensive) winter riding gear. I naturally run a bit cold so spending on low temperature tights, base layer and jersey/jacket has made a massive difference for me.
Obviously there could be many reasons for this: less aerodynamic clothing, more cautious cornering etc etc, but the effect is very noticeable to me.
Winter fuel efficiency is worse because of a winter fuel mix, not because of air density.
ICE mpg tends to drop in cold weather, but this isn’t why. It’s usually because it takes longer to reach optimal operating temp or due to changes in fuel composition. Cold air can produce more drag but that problem exists irrespective of ICE or EV.
The pumping efficiency is unaffected as any losses on the exhaust side will be offset by increased pressure on the intake side.
This is why performance cars sport cold air intakes. This is also why your car won’t hit its quoted 0-60 time in a warmer environment — those tests are normally performed or normalized to cold air conditions + 0% humidity. Just what counts as cold depends on manufacturer / reviewer.
Anecdotally, I track efficiency and drive consistent routes, and don’t notice a diff.
Not likely, as an increase in air is going to be accompanied by a corresponding increase in fuel. Unless your fuel mapping is all messed up, it will give you more power, but not likely better fuel economy.
Increased rolling resistance from displacing snow is a far bigger cause of winter driving inefficiency.
That makes absolutely no difference at all.
That would be very surprising if it were true, given the very large effect density altitude has on airplane performance (engine and wing).
Note that it's 3% per 10°C delta so, for a 40°C swing (say 30°C/86°F summer to -10°C/14°F winter), that's a 12% difference in aero drag force.
Opening your window makes far more of a difference.
It's just about observable with very light and very aerodynamic aircraft at ground level if you can get them cold enough.
At -10°C/14°F, with no other adjustments, in the hands of a test pilot, that aircraft will have a ground roll of around 1000' and clear a 50' obstacle and come to a stop in around 1500'.
At 30°C/86°F, with no other adjustments, in the hands of a test pilot, that aircraft will have a ground roll of around 1150' and clear a 50' obstacle and come to a stop in around 1750'.
Flying in and out of 2000'-2500' strips with trees, it's impossible to not notice the performance difference with temperature. Perhaps the pilots who can't notice those differences don't fly into anything other than very long runways, but I don't think very many pilots miss the differences.
Dropping from 18 mpg to 10 mpg would increase your cost of fuel by 80%. It'd be hard to be oblivious to it.
Idling combustion vehicles is bad, but sometimes it's a necessary evil to ensure visibility so the driver can avoid harming other road users.
Not really, you're spending a fraction of the fuel you'd use per minute if you were driving.
So, in terms of pollution it's no worse than taking a short detour to wherever you were going.
> Not really
Yes it is, it’s bad on the engine.
Defrosting and toasting the cabin to 92F in freezing conditions usually burns about 1.2kWh to 3kWh while plugged in, but that is just a few tens of cents (or free depending on the charger) to get nearly instantly toasty and ready to drive.
$10 to $30 a month in power use to keep your battery toasty in the dead of winter isn't too bad a price IMO
Also, electricity supply isn't prone to supply shocks when Russia invades Ukraine, or the Saudis want to flex their muscles.
Even back when I owned a mid 80s Nissan around 2000 I was getting 25mpg (us gallon).
Why is US mileage so awful?
Having all wheel drive or 4 wheel drive, high ground clearance, a poor aerodynamic design (driving 70mph or 80mph sounds bad in many of these cars) also hurts efficiency.
No idea why: speed limits are often higher in EU and often with more hills.
I actually just looked at my economy graph, and I can't tell how much winter affects it. The variance is less than the variance of my driving habits. So less than 20%.
Your car must be faulty.
That sounds like nonsense. What were you driving that had such a reduced mileage?
Doesn't matter whether it's Level 1 charging at 1.5kW (120v) or Level 2 at 6.8kW, or if it's -11F out, just plug it in and give it time to charge.
Leaving your car unplugged in a frigid environment will cold soak the pack and cause your pack to spend an hour or two worth of energy heating up to temp on Level 1 charging, or 10 to 15 minutes on Level 2 charging. This is normal and you just need to leave the car plugged in.
With an ICE car your heating generally takes minutes to heat up, versus I can have my car ready in a minute or two with just turning on the heat to melt off the quarter inch of ice build up on my windshield and windows.
I’ve seen new developments advertising electric car chargers already.
Are those common? I know they exist, but I thought they were unusual. I've certainly never seen an actual one.
Luckily for those people they will have millions of older ICE cars to choose from.
This will be hopefully mitigated when all PHEVs only run the gas engine as a generator and get rid of the transmission, but I don't think we're there yet.
If it's cheaper then they'll do it.
More generally, you can remove a chunk of the transmission in a hybrid and use a simpler engine even if it's not a generator. The complexity isn't a big deal. And the moderate cost gets offset by significant fuel savings.
On the other hand, I have driven a 2018 Bolt EV for 4 years, 48k miles, and never once had an issue with the car being unplugged and returning to a car with less range than I left it.
Sometimes we forget that we have 100 years of infrastructure behind our internal combustion engines and about 10 behind the electric vehicles.
In the first 10 years of internal combustion engines, you bought benzene at the local apothecary and used that to fuel your car.
Three years of EV in a more or less unheated garage and I'm still just charging off my 15A 120V outlet. It's fine. I plug in every other day or so. But you know what I don't do? Freeze my ass off standing in a gas station in subzero temperatures and howling winds! Not missing that at all.
You’re right but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s not the right time for people in certain areas or with certain lifestyles to have an EV.
"Trucks don't belong in cities for personal transportation."
"I need a truck for my farm."
"Vehicle transportation is a huge chunk of global warming contributing fuel consumption, so we need to reduce car usage in cities towards more and better public transport, and EVs when possible."
"I don't live in a city and the bus only comes twice every day and I have to drive 30 miles to work."
These are not mutually exclusive statements!
EVs aren't great for long distance transportation. Particularly ill suited for long haul trucking in winter. But that's not what most people do. Most vehicles drive short distances in fair weather. Many American families have more than one car. That second car doesn't need to be able to drive cross country in the winter. I don't complain that my sneakers are not snow shoes so they are useless to me and anyone else. No one is talking about making ICE vehicles illegal. At most there might be restrictions on usage in cities, no different to how some european cities keep private cars outside of historical city centers.
Certainly in Europe. Not directly but via a back door:
Must not enter the city center in a diesel car
No new ICE cars after 2035
Diesel cars are an issue due to dust emissions. Most modern, read Euro 6 temp, and above, engines should be more or less fine. How the latter will be controlled and enforced so, excluding older cars from certain places, is trickey.
I have to point out so, this will be a social issue. Well off people will most switch to EVs, one of the reasons I guess why VW and others are diverting marketing budgets from EVs (read Diesel) to EVs. Those that cannot afford EVs will face issues, since it either used petrol cars, with higher consumption, or used diesels, with issues going to some places due to emissions.
Apparently some truck models over there have a built-in metal tray for this purpose.
If you perused the manual, you found out why - it suggested you light a small fire under it to serve as an outback engine heater.
The Niva was, uh, an interesting car to own, but was amazing whenever conditions turned to shite. Nothing short of an anti tank mine would stop it.
It didn't like starting in the cold, and it didn't have battery enough to crank it for long. And failure-to-start was, um, not good.
The solution was a built-in electric heater and charger. Basically it was permanently plugged in so the battery was 100%,and the engine block was "not freezing cold" (I wouldn't go as far as "warm").
Had a push button start that fired up instantly, at the cost of an extra 3 seconds unplugging it it an emergency.
My point I guess is that you don't really have to heat the garage, you just need to warm the battery up a little.
Right! And I suspect by 2035, not having a 220v outlet in the garage will be like not having a microwave in your kitchen in the mid 90's.
Regardless, my cheap LEAF turned 8 just a bit ago and I’ve driven it in New England year-round for 8 years without issue, even with only level 1 charging at home. It’s fine for an around-town daily driver (which is what the LEAF is well-matched to).
I only have 220V in an indoor laundry room, not the garage. Adding it would only be a small one-time expense.
The breaker panel is in the garage so it'd be easy to add, but my only 220V devices, the dryer and stove (along with their outlets), are inside the house.
I've never heard of a dryer in the garage before. It isn't heated, and in winter months, it's cold enough that snow doesn't melt. Would that have an effect on drying my clothes?
Funny enough my internal dryer can cause my clothes to be damp, as the exhaust runs to the attic instead of directly outside, and the moisture can come back into the dryer. (can be overcome by installing an active exhaust fan)
my brother does a lot of stuff with power tools, and whenever he moves he has to have extra lines brought in by the power company. While houses frequently have 220 coming in, they don't have 3-phase.
Common contracts - at least here (Italy) - are for 3 or 4.5kW, a few are 6 kW, 10 kW or more are rare, and you probably need to get to 15kW to be able to have those 10kW available for charging.
This discussion is assuming that the amperage is the same. The common "default" AC socket in the USA is AFAIK the NEMA 5-15, which is a 15A socket; the common "default" AC socket in other countries is AFAIK usually either 16A, 15A, or 10A, so at most you'd have one extra ampere.
Of course, if you're adding a dedicated socket where you'd expect to plug a car (or other high-power devices like a large air conditioner), you'd put a higher-power socket like a 20A one. But this discussion is, as far as I understand, about what you could find on a random garage; I believe it would be unexpected to not have at least one common "default" AC socket on am enclosed garage, but finding a higher-power AC socket would be less likely.
Here in Australia it's possible, though not very common. ~400v is useful for some larger sized machinery.
As an example, a charger in some EVs is 87% efficient when charging from 120v and the same charger is 94% efficient when charging from 240v.
Compared to a normal 220V 10A outlet where your max is 2kW.
Higher voltage also means you get more power for less current, less heat loss in the cables.
If you have an electric car, the example above should explain why you want to get a proper charger with proper wiring installed. Don’t use the ones which plug straight into a shuko.
What about the millions of people who live in apartments and rowhouses?
If they have cars, they have a place to park them, and this place can host a charger. Outdoor parking without access controls may have security issues, but that's true without a charging point, too.
You've got to break that circle at some point.
But this is not it.
Wealthy neighborhoods in the US are going to get these on the streets eventually. Places where poor folks live don't have the ROI needed to justify it. Wealthier folks tend to be older and have more time on their hands to do things like go complain at city council meetings.
You're going to get these chargers in the richest neighborhoods first (of course), and eventually to the decent middle class neighborhoods. The poorer areas where blue collar workers live (apartment complexes) will get it approximately never - the city won't invest in those areas because fuck them, and the apartment complexes won't invest in them, because fuck them.
There are a significant proportion of residential developments where it wouldn’t even be possible to install such infrastructure due to the legal framework around how the properties are owned and maintained.
Legislative changes are needed here to make this happen, but alas our government has had its mind on “other things” for quite a few years now and doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it.
By 2035 those streets must be refitted with chargers, one per parking slot and somehow replace the energy distributed as gasoline and diesel with electrical energy. If that doesn't happen people will have to leave their car at a charging station for far more time than what it takes to fill a tank with gas. And that doesn't solve the problem of the energy.
Or having a car will get so expensive that only a few people will afford it and that will solve all those problems, but create others.
I personally think urban development should be more expensive to cover its externalities (i.e. forcing people to buy cars because of landowner-enriching sprawl).
Get your politicians to call my politicians.
When the majority of Americans dislike and/or are unhappy with 100° Thanksgiving, beepocalypse, aging out of being able to drive, or whatever else “cars” wreck, then they will start voting to push the externalities off to heavier users.
Eventually, the resulting ghost sprawl of empty suburban neighborhoods will provide enough recyclable building materials to rehome us all nicely in subterranean hive cities. Our eyes will evolve larger to gather the dim light. Our ears will shrink to muffle the incessant hum. Our useless teeth will disappear after a few centuries of microbial food paste consumption. Clothing will become an affectation.
Alternatives are important here since while most Americans drive that doesn’t mean that they love everything about it and won’t consider alternatives. There are a ton of people who would love not to pay thousands of dollars to sit in traffic and make their health worse, but they don’t see a good alternative. The activists getting bike infrastructure, improved buses, and density are giving them that option and climate change is causing a lot of younger people to realize that the timing has to be stepped a lot since even EVs produce more CO2 than any other form of ground transportation.
There’s big generational component here, too. Most drivers aren’t old enough to think of roads without traffic as normal, and economic trends mean that a lot of younger people are faced with even longer commutes in cars, not to mention that transit is more appealing when you have smartphones.
1. In addition ti the obvious one of pollution, housing & retail prices are high due to requirements to provide subsidized parking to drivers. Removing that allows owners to make different decisions.
It's fair to say that people hogging chargers even when they're done charging is a problem, there's a public charger on my street that is near 100% utilization. However this seems pretty solvable- companies can just charge per minute as long as the spot is occupied and let the free market sort it out.
Adding public chargers is also a great way for places like malls, grocery stores, offices, etc to stay relevant, since my weekly shopping trips would probably be enough to keep a car topped off
Makes sense to charge a penalty every minute a charger is connected but not drawing power (full battery).
I don’t have an EV or a car at all, but if I did my charging regimen would be “plug it in at the fast charger at the grocery store and charge it while I shop”. It’s just not a big deal.
We certainly don’t need to make our residential streets more ugly than having a bunch of cars parked on it already does by stringing up charging infrastructure all over it.
We all charge our EVs on those same outlets, and I never heard of anybody not having a full charge the next morning.
The main reason why we have so many EVs here -> they are more reliable in the cold. People stopped freezing to death in their Diesels that got stranded on the roadside.
Rolling power outages in many states last couple of days. Many forms of energy are being retired faster then wind solar are being brought online.
People wildly overestimate advances. Look at how much has changed in the last 20 years. Not much.
Now compare that to the seemingly endless number of evangelists who think that 10 years from now is a good time to impose a mandate to kill all new ICE vehicle manufacturing, in spite of EV tech being only 80 years (or 30 years of "modern tech hard push") behind ICE infra.
This is how every conversation about EV goes.
Person A: "look how awesome EV is!"
Person B: "yeah, but it won't work for me based on where I live and the needs I have from a car. It seems foolish to push a mandate for a technology that can't be proven to work how the vast majority of people need it to work."
Person A: "you are being unfair in your comparison!" or "no, you are only imagining those problems!"
Literally any location in the northern US, especially the more rural and more dense urban, and doubly true if you make under 30k per household person and don't already have a circuit in your garage for an electric oven or electric clothes dryer. I suspect the same is true for other locations in the world.
Well, FWiW the Australian (and New Zealand) standard across the entire country is 240v with (most) internal circuits rated for 10 A .. but a call to an electrician gets you a { 15 | 20 | 25 | 32 } amp circuit pulled from the household breaker box (if high amp circuits weren't added at build time) [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AS/NZS_3112
In other EV news an Australian state (South Australia) had a net 104.1 per cent wind and solar over seven days (ie produced more renewable energy than total energy used and exported the excess) [2], and in my state "Renewables reach 84 pct share of world’s biggest isolated grid" [3]
[2] https://reneweconomy.com.au/south-australias-incredible-week...
[3] https://reneweconomy.com.au/epic-stuff-renewables-reach-84-p...
So, uhh, we have the infrastructure to charge EV's in isolated rural parts of the country and have had for decades .. increased generation is an issue but we have plans to significantly increase global green hydrogen production and export excess over local demand.
My comment specifically mentioned a 2030 or 2035 mandate, which is a US mandate. Why would you argue against a US mandate by talking about Australia? You're not doing the EV group any favors by ignoring the problems people describe that prevent them from buying one, and there is currently no US legislation to enable a mandate in the timeframe it would be required.
No. How did arrive at that conclusion? Did you misread the user names and assume I made that comment?
> Why would you argue against a US mandate by talking about Australia?
You made a statement about other places in the world which was false, I gave an example of why it was false. You are now better informed, you're welcome.
But no, what I said was not false. I said that I suspect there are other locations in the world where this is true (meaning northern US isn't the only one), and the reply was that there are locations where it isn't true (Australia).
A few points of note;
* like or not Australia as a country is an interesting case study wrt "how do other countries fare?" .. we have charging capabilities .. but hellish distances between towns outside of cities. On the plus side the vast bulk of the population is urban | near urban .. so it's only the actual outback | rural | FiFo types that may be left with ICE down the timeline.
* Future mandates are aspiration and exert a pressure to change; come crunch day it may have come to pass that sufficient recharge capability has been pushed out to Backwater Dale in Banjo County .. or not. When the reality comes to pass there is the option to modify policy in the face of some areas being better suited for mandated EVs than others.
In the US, I also do not care much about whether cars are EV or not (my only actual hangup about EV as a technology is the raw material sourcing. It is perhaps as immoral as how we obtain oil, and we do not have a story on what to do with the waste). I may even buy one in a couple years (I run all my cars to the point where they need constant repair, and only buy used cars, so the average age of my cars when they are retired is about 12 years). But that is different than the fantasy that EV as a primary form of personal transportation will work for the vast majority of the northern US.
I think the opposite of the intended effect will actually happen. We are forcing a mandate without a means for it to work.
This is actually a larger problem in Canada than the US, and most of the political and policy discussion is in favour of this change.
I am discussing the mentality of the opposition in the US and the reasons they cite where the EV solution does not work for them. If your government is committed to making it work by 2035, that's a different matter. The US government has made no such commitment, they only discuss mandates. All of the pain, none of the gain.
Only North/Central America and Japan uses ~100V systems. The rest of the planet uses ~200V systems where more wattage in your outlets is standard.
Brazil (which is in South America) has many cities using 110V/115V/120V/127V (you can see at https://antigo.aneel.gov.br/tensoes-nominais which voltages are used for a given city). Note that a single city can have both ~110V and ~220V, and sometimes both can be found in the same building, or even in the same room.
This is where I'd hope a government looking to encourage EVs would step in and help, if they're trying to make things happen before 2035.
E.g., in my area, the regional council has a scheme where home owners can get a very low interest (or even no interest) loan to install good insulation, and you can also get another one to install a heat-pump.
They're run through banks, but backed by the regional (and maybe central?) government.
But, doing something like this will, initially, only subsidise the people who can already afford to buy an electric vehicle.
TL;DR - it used to be that you couldn't refuel your car unless the servants brought more on horses, as the only service stations focused on oats. But we invested in infrastructure.
https://www.fox29.com/news/pennsylvania-warned-of-rolling-bl...
This is not an artic circle problem. This is a problem that affects way more of the world than you seem to realize. Sorry that we don't all live in mild climates.
I'm unsure why wind-chill is relevant to a car being charged in a garage?
> This is a problem that affects way more of the world than you seem to realize.
The original commenter was stating that EVs were entirely unsuitable for a hypothetical person.
The only way that it I can envisage it being entirely unsuitable is if they had no access to grid electricity.
My comment about a hut in Siberia is based on that.
Yes, some Americans might need to upgrade certain circuits, but that's not an blocker, it's just an implementation detail.
I'm very well aware of how cold it can get in the USA, but that doesn't prevent EV use, it just requires investment in infrastructure, and that's an investment I'd hope a smart government would subsidise if it's serious about reducing emissions.
Public transport will also have to be EV based. Trains won‘t cut it in most areas outside cities.
And besides - what you‘re saying is insanely risky. You want to keep going with ICEs for 15 years? This would just push back the necessary transition another decade. We would loose the time we desperately need to make the necessary changes.
Sounds like it's time for you to vote for the prohibition of self-service gas stations!
If you have "summer diesel" in your tractor during a cold spell, it will gel. And a block heater won't help, since the fuel gels in the fuel lines and tank too. And trying to start the engine pulls in that gel into the fuel filter and sort of strains the chunks out, causing your fuel filter to need to be replaced even once it's warmed up.
I'm not sure at exactly what temperature it happens, but a Kansas winter will typically gel summer diesel at least a couple of times.
I don't know where you live, but here in Germany my diesel car had no big problems with -19°C around 10 years ago. Biggest problem was heating the interior that the windows remain ice free during driving. I want to see your new electric car driving in this circumstances the 100km I had to drive.
And please note, 2035 means 13 years in the future. I don't doubt that the infrastructure for electric cars can work in 100 years...but what's with 13?
I believe you that it's no problem for a diesel. But it's no problem for electric either.
But I also was in a good sized metro area with a couple Tesla superchargers not far off my route, so my backup plan was to stop at one for 15 minutes if it ever looked like I might not make it.
It depends on the formulation of your diesel. If you had a tank of "summer diesel" it would be gel at that temperature. Generally the supply chain starts changing the formulation as the weather gets colder and everything is good until you get to arctic temperatures. But if you fill up at a station that doesn't sell a lot of diesel and they still have summer diesel and its an early cold spell, or you are driving a vehicle you don't fill often, you can be in trouble. There are also additives you can add on your own if you know you have summer diesel.
It's literally as easy as having the right fuel additives on hand before it gets too cold. It's not even an infrastructure problem.
I will say that you left out the most fun part of a good winter driving a diesel, which is when you can't fill up even at a station with diesel on account of the fuel gelled in the pump hose. Luckily the gas station on the way home from work is a truck stop and the pumps for the tractor-trailers were still working.
On a related note, it's not unusual for us to lose power here for a couple hours to a couple days at a time either in the worst of winter, or during summer storm season. What do you do with an electric car when the electricity is out in the neighborhood?
Filling up the car is the least painful part of driving in the winter. You park up next to a fuel pump with the heated seats slow-roasting your ass (and the car is probably warm by the time you reach a station), you get out of the car for about 4 minutes, and then you go back in the car to continue the slow roast.
You have a garage. Those who don’t have a garage freeze their asses off in howling winds every second day while plugging the car into an outdoor charger.
Remember that a lot of people have to spend 10-15 minutes warming up their cars before they drive them in cold weather.
I do not want to go into details, better car mechanics than me should, but there is all kind of chaos that can happen if your engine freezes and you try to drive it immediately. And it is much more complex and can be much more expensive. Once you start getting cracks in various things and liquids flowing where they should not be you will wish for the simplicity of just plugging in your EV.
So lets not pretend that driving in the cold is some kind of new problem that EVs introduced.
People choose to do this. This isn’t required and it’s recommended against in modern vehicles.
> I do not want to go into details, better car mechanics than me should, but there is all kind of chaos that can happen if your engine freezes and you try to drive it immediately.
Engines do not freeze in the conditions common in most of the US, even with winter like we’re currently having. The engine coolant is a mixture of anti-freeze and water.
I’m curious about that recommendation, do you know why that is?
It's actually more importantly to have enough viscosity in ATF, but again, the sooner you would go the sooner it would warm.
I was always told (since the 90s, anyway) that it's better to drive off slowly with a cold engine and let all the components come up to operating temperature together than to drive off with a hot engine, and cold gearbox, driveshafts, tyres, etc.
I generally let a cold engine (i.e. overnight) idle for maybe 30s before driving off slowly, and it reaches operating temperature in about 5m or less.
In a 2022 car I have now even the cabin doesn’t get proper heating from the aircon until it’s driven.
Your electric car can fail randomly for an obscure reason too, and good luck getting anyone at all that can fix it.
> Remember that a lot of people have to spend 10-15 minutes warming up their cars before they drive them in cold weather.
Only because they're idiots. No-one needs to leave a vehicle for 10 minutes to "warm up", even in the coldest of weather. Drive gently until the temperature gauge is a bit off the end stop, and then drive a bit less gently until it's at its proper operating temperature.
Alternatively, start the engine from stone cold and immediately drive off at full throttle taking it up to 70mph before there's even a sniff of warm air from the heater. This is *still* better for it than letting it sit for a long time to "warm up".
Even if we ignore the "heard bad advice" versus "idiot" issue, that's still untrue because there are other reasons besides what's best for the machine.
Maybe they aren't in the car, and they're warming it up to be comfortable.
Maybe there is ice on the car they need to melt.
Or I'm an idiot if I would rather idle than pour alcohol on my windshield?
> If the weather is as cold as it gets here in Scotland in winter, the car will never warm up sitting idling.
Okay, then that person is an idiot, but it doesn't extend to the people actually warming up their car.
I live in an area that does get below freezing, and my car preheats the battery before I unplug it to go somewhere while the cabin warms.
If they're good enough for only most people, why are they mandating it for everyone?
It's call h2, and multiple cars on the road (kia, toyota, hyundia) work just fine.
One federal funding/grant program, and refuel stations will abound.
And h2 is every bit as green as electric, for both can be supplied via green methods.
Canadian BMWs will all have the “cold weather package”, which for me means heated seats and an H8 battery instead of a smaller H6.
For my mom’s old Corolla, it means a 1.6kw starter instead of the 1.4 in the US models (which became a sorta problem when I bought a refurb at a Canadian parts store…)
I'm guessing only FWD/4WD version of vehicles are also sold in Canada.
But you don't have a gas station at home, don't you? So you have to worry about gas stations and how far they are. And your car makes you and other people sick(i.e cancer and various diseases due polution)! That's so 2020!
On a more serious note you are comparing the shortcommings of an emerging technology with a mature technology. Saying that the old tech is better makes no sense to me.
ICE cars still need electricity to start
My first car? I had to constantly give it gas for a while even once it started. People gave me funny looks when I was essentially revving my engine like I was showing off in my ‘88 Grand Marquis at stop signs in the year 2005.
A gasoline powered car will struggle in the cold because:
- the battery used to spin the engine is going to have less capacity in the cold - the engine oil is thicker and requiring more energy to spin the engine - gasoline won't atomize as well when it's being sprayed into a cold environment (this is why your engine runs richer right after a cold start)
A diesel powered car will struggle because:
- the temperature of the engine may be too low to allow ignition - the battery used to spin the engine is going to have less capacity in the cold - the engine oil is thicker and requiring more energy to spin the engine - the devices used to heat the engine (glow plugs or intake heaters) require plenty of electricity - the fuel itself may turn into gel (although I think most places in the US only ever sell #2 diesel year-round) - the engine itself may not stay warm enough to run especially if you're also trying to pull heat out into the cabin
None of that's changed dramatically in the past 40 years although engine management has gotten better.
Although, if you're filling when it's hot, you're getting slightly less gas than when it's cold.
Disclaimer: I never owned a Tesla and only ever drove ICE.
I really hope that alternative energy storage like hydrogen make the race.
Present battery technology for cod winter Europe is not practical.
Cause it seems perfect to me. Run electric day-to-day when the weather affords. Run gas for long trips or bad conditions.
No need for a giant 300 mile battery made with minerals from a developing country. Nor a huge ICE, since you can shrink it to a very narrow power band and rely on the batteries for peak power like take-off.
I drove my mom's BMW 530e plug-in hybrid to the store and back (5 km in each direction). At the end, I think we had 5 km of range left. Granted, it did handle a grocery run just on battery and the heating system worked well, but that was about all that it had. The NEDC rating for the car is 50 km of electric range.
I'm really curious to see what Mazda will do with the MX-30 next year. It's an dismal failure as a pure EV, but apparently they're planning to add a rotary engine as a pure generator to it (i.e., not driving the wheels). If the car keeps the current version's 100 mile electric range that could be a very interesting combo.
As for EV's I am going to wait and see how the UPS trucks manage here. That should be some time in early 2023, hopefully before spring time.
I have an uncovered space and it’s fine. Yeah, the battery sucks in the cold, and it takes longer to charge, but realistically it’s not like you need to use your car 24/7. Leaving it for a few hours overnight charges it to full, and you can schedule defrosting or do it from the app so the car is warm when you get in.
It’s far from “a huge pain”.
In Sweden there were lot of reports of people being unable to charge with 230V 10A.
Sure, you'd make sure to install a more powerful charger if necessary. But that requires you and everywhere else to be adapted for EVs. Which is a pain.
(Funny thing, this is kind oversized for domestic applications and the driver behind it is that the law says you pay fee based on maximum amperage of your connection, so electricity companies refuse to install anything smaller than 25A and give everyone they can three-phase so they make more money.)
Also, how adapting to EVs is a huge pain but LITERALLY DESTROYING THE WORLD THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE is not, I don't get it.
That's a very "you-centric" view of the world. Convenience is convenience, regardless of whether it destroys the world or not, and more money is expected to bring more convenience. So very few people say "I'll suffer this winter so the world is destroyed just a little bit less". That's why they have EVs but can still have a "factory sized" carbon footprint due to their huge houses, multiple cars, etc.
Case in point, you probably get how adapting to public transport is a huge pain but LITERALLY DESTROYING THE WORLD THROUGH CLIMATE CHANGE because you want a personal car is not.
Oh for sure. That is why people saying "what about people living in apartments? checkmate, EVs!" annoy me so much - if you live in an apartment you probably don't need a car.
But people are used to their comforts, so saying that doesn't win any favors or votes. Nor does saying "it's good that EVs are more expensive, since fewer people will be able to afford cars".
There are a ton of valid reasons for someone living in an apartment to still need a car. And rentals are not a solution. Rental companies are a nightmare and rental cars suck.
This is not true for anywhere outside a few city centers in the US.
10A circuits was the norm in houses years ago, but now the normal is changed to 16A and one 25A for the stove. We do not have any fee based on the maximum amperage of the circuit, the changes are only demand driven. If you want to put the kettle on and vacuum at the same time you need 16A
If you want to actually help environment, you need to live in cold through the winter by using heating at minimum, you need to use public transport, do adequate sustainable shopping of everything and so on and on. Which hits the general consumerism and comfort western society is so used to like a concrete wall of WWII bunker.
I get why prople want to feel they are not passive when global catastrophe is coming, but just buying EV and saying you have done your part is a fucking bad joke, sorry cant put it in milder terms. Kids in african cobalt, lithium etc mines would object, at least if they could.
> It’s far from “a huge pain”.
You name "a huge pain" and someone will disagree. Not having a car at all is far from a huge pain but you still have one, even at a significant price.
My car is always plugged in and therefore always at 80%. It takes a few hours after returning from a trip to charge it back up, regardless of the weather or other conditions, and the car is warmed up by the time I get into it using remote defrosting. In fact, during this snowstorm, my car always was consistently completely defrosted every time.
None of this sounds anywhere even remotely in the same ballpark as “a huge pain”.
But you need it anytime you need it - some rank reliability very highly, at "requirement" level.
> from the app
And this already is a loud warning bell.
Did you miss scheduled defrosting, where the car does it automatically so it’s ready in the morning? Does your car even have the ability to do that without you in the car? I didn’t think so.
Be realistic about what is a pain and what isn’t. None of your rebuttals are much of anything except “woe is me I have to take out an app to do something I couldn’t even dream of doing on my car and that’s scary”.
Yes, we need it reliable: always available in case of need.
> take out an app
I do not see any chance of ever using a car that requires a smartphone.
I am reading the words of former NATO supreme allied commander James Stavridis,
> Every year, the number of devices connected to the internet grows rapidly. By some estimates, the count is up to more than 50 billion devices, from around 7 million a decade ago. The benefits are real and obvious. (Hooray, I can close my garage door from a thousand miles away on my household Nest!) But so is the fact that each of those devices is a unique point of attack for hackers. We have created a vast, undefendable threat surface
You simply do not put unrequired attack surfaces on critical devices - it is cretinous -, and you do not encourage the practice - it is criminal.
That’s only a warm climate thing. Plumbing (of the associated washing machine) that’s prone to freezing is unlikely to be in the garage in cooler climates.
Uhhhh convenience? People prefer them right next to each other so that clothes washing isn’t a long journey. At least that’s why the plumbing and electrical/gas connections are usually built close to each other.
The rotary clothesline [0] was standard in Australia and New Zealand for decades, although with the move to smaller sections, people tend to install compact linear lines instead.
[0]: https://99percentinvisible.org/article/hills-hoist-iconic-ro...
"No person shall place or allow to remain exposed to the elements laundry, clothing, rags, or other cloth items hung or stored on a front porch or front or other street yard of a dwelling."
So, a given power can be obtained using any voltage, with the proper current. In practice, high currents are unsafe so we tend to avoid that in unprotected sockets. Different norms correspond to different tradeoffs.
This is also the same problem with electric kettles in the U.S. they boil much faster in the u.k. because almost double the power for a common outlet.
On a side note, I find it amusing when Brits try to brag about their superior electricity due to the progressive 240V. People living in the houses wired in a ring [1], which set themselves ablaze when they try to turn on AC, in my imagination would be more reserved ;)
(But, of course, that would require even better cooling for a battery on a summer +95F day. OTOH ICEs have a similar problem.)