Electric Vehicles are better than gas-powered cars in winter–here's why | Hacker News Reader

Electric Vehicles are better than gas-powered cars in winter–here's why

arstechnica.com

12 pointsPaulHoule19 comments

EVs also eliminate carbon monoxide deaths while cars are on the road in a snowstorm.

> At least six people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the wake of a massive blizzard that pounded the Eastern U.S. The deaths have many fire departments -- including some in the D.C. area --reminding residents to clear their home and car exhausts of snow.

> Many of the deaths happened as the victims worked to clear snow from a vehicle.

> In New Jersey, 23-year-old Sashalynn Rosa, of Passaic, and her 1-year-old son, Messiah Bonilla, died of carbon monoxide poisoning while sitting in a running car that had its tailpipe covered in snow. Rosa's 3-year-old daughter, Saniyah Bonilla, was hospitalized in critical condition and died on Jan. 27. The father of the children was just steps away shoveling snow from around the car.

> Angel Ginel of New York died in a similar way Monday afternoon. Police say Ginel was found inside his running, plowed-in car in Brooklyn. His relatives believe he got inside the car to warm up Sunday, and the car got buried.

> The Fairfax County Fire Department says a car's exhaust pipe should be cleared before starting the vehicle. And while sitting inside to stay warm is tempting, you should not sit in a running car with the windows closed.

https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/carbon-monoxide-poi...

Surprised that the article doesn't mention between summer and winter gasoline blend (https://living.acg.aaa.com/auto/what-to-know-about-gasoline-...) and the difference in milage.

This article is odd. It dismisses up to 30% range loss (250mi to 150mi) by hand-wavingly saying "well, ICEs run less efficiently" (which for modern vehicles means a drop of about 3mpg, so somewhere in the order of 10%).

And then comments that pre-warming requires the engine to idle (on my large SUV that means 0.3g/h, according to the computer) to get the cabin warm, ignoring that in the process of doing so, it warms the engine, thus negating a lot of the efficiency impact of the cold start.

One thing I like about my Audi in winter, if I'm going somewhere briefly? "Residual heat". Tap a button on the climate console, and it uses residual engine/coolant heat and a fan to keep warming the cabin for about 15 minutes with everything turned off, just a fan running (perhaps a small pump?).

"up to 30%"

But it can be as low at 16%, for example the Audi e-tron.

Also, battery tech is improving many times faster than gasoline tech so EVs will likely have less range loss in winter than ICEVs within 10 years.

Many things will happen within 10 years. I think the article refers to current times.

Yes, and thats when i will consider buying them. I am hoping we jave a much cheaper, possibly sodium, chemistry by then that is less toxic to the environment to dispose of as well. I will be running the power to charge them this uear when i replace my busted garage though, because there is nowhere near enough capacity for the whole neighboirhood to have fast charging and thats the actual bottleneck to easy adoption.

This is such an oddly bad and unsupported article for ars it makes me, and the rest of the ars forum users wonder if "Robin Warner" was an AI or something: https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/electric-vehicles-are-... . So bad they even put a disclaimer "promoted comment" up explaining he was a real person.

Arstechnica hasn't been all that great for a long time now, largely since Conde Nast bought it over. In my opinion anyway its glory days are long behind it now. I dropped it from my reading list several years ago. This article is especially egregious.

The era of writers like co-founder Jon Stokes on the site is long gone; his last contribution was in 2011, No more Siracusa articles since 2014, etc etc.

> https://www.condenast.com/brands/ars-technica

Yes, it's got so bad that I have canceled my sub and subscribed to Wired instead. That bad.

I've been reading Ars for the better part of a decade now. Always a lurker, but I contemplated creating an account just to complain about how bad that article is.

In Canada, EV owners experience a very real 30 to 50% drop in range in winter. You see Teslas driving around with the windows all frosted from the inside because they don't want to use the heaters.

I'm very much pro EV, but it would be lying to pretend they don't have their flaws.

Here's real world ranges of various EV's in just about any weather: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V6ucyFGKWuSQzvI8lMzv...

I assume the temps are celsius?

Nothing under -25...

"Speaking of comfort, why even wait to start your BEV to warm it up? If you charge at home, just tell it when you plan to leave and let it preheat the cabin for you, all while still plugged into the charger. You need not worry about tailpipe emissions poisoning you in your garage because there is no tailpipe."

If you need to warm your car, it's probably outside. If it's inside, it's probably warm. Obvious exception: unheated barn/garage.

Yeah, even the most poorly insulated attached garage is not going to be particularly horrible. Mine isn't great and has never got below 37, even when it's been single digits outside.

Fire departments use a system called Plymovent - magnetic rings around the engine exhaust, hooked to a big hose and fan to exhaust emissions outside of the apparatus bay, so rig checks, testing, maintenance can be conducted indoors with engines running. The hoses are also on runner rails so that they can move with the engine, and magnetically disconnect when the engine is on its way out of the bay.

In these parts, if you're fortunate enough to have a heated garage, you're keeping it just above freezing to keep the costs down. Still quite a difference between that and how warm you want your car to be.

The biggest problem with EVs in winter is if I'm traveling somewhere with poor charger access, like an AirBNB in Tahoe. Especially during extreme weather conditions, I'm not sure how easy it would be to get my vehicle charged. Whereas you can be pretty sure that society will reopen gas stations as soon as possible.

As a new owner of a pre-owned PHEV, the "pre-warm" functionality is gold. Love it.

Charts I've seen on cold-weather winter performance of EVs, stopped at freezing.

Last winter, it got up to freezing only 5 days around here.

So I have no idea what to expect.

The first half is pure cherry picked nonsense. Sure the facts are true, but they completely forgot about magnitude of those effects. Cold are is denser, but not that much. ICEs may lose a little range, but not as much as a BEV will lose running those heaters needed to make it comfortable - ICEs have plenty of waste heat to keep you warm. Yes the BEV warms you faster, which is nice, but this shouldn't be mentioned in the range section as it just makes you think that BEVs somehow are better in cold because of how they warm the car. The better for a BEV is true for human comfort but worse for range.

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