Comment by kkfx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kkfx | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I have three cars, two diesel, one electric and well... I do not live now in cold climate, minim hit here was -25℃ and all cars start without issue with a bit of gasoline added to the diesel for the ICEs BUT in the past I've experienced that modern cars can works only at temperature above -30℃. Old soviet UAZ works well also below, at least until a wheel freeze or something similar. It's not common of course in most parts of the inhabited world experiencing such low temps BUT that's is.

About point 4) well... My car suck 20A@400V to run the heating, definitively can't last even few days.

About 6) all BEVs I know do not offer real "keep the battery heated as long as it's cold enough" function, some decide randomly to try heating the battery, but not much is left in users hands. One of the many things those who design ALL modern software do have to learn and refuse: user control first, automation only at a subsequent level...

About 7) well, no. Electric motors spin brutally, witch MIGHT be useful under certain conditions but it's also useful to lose grip in many others, and it's also an issue when parking in tight places...

4) A seat heater typically uses about 50-100W, so yah, big difference.

6) Yah, it's pretty magical, which can be annoying all right. It's the "I want to leave at time X" function on ours.

7) Interesting; not my experience. I'm comparing a Tesla & a Mazda. Top spec winter tires on both. 510 N-m of torque so it'll easily spin if you push too hard on the accelerator, but I find it responds much better to the standard winter driving technique of not too much accelerator...

4) a seat heater ALONE is useless in frozen cold, you need much more, and much more means much more power...

6) some example: I have an EVC300400300 witch offer also a bad integration with my p.v. (bad, because badly designed by Victron), I do not count how many times my car refuse to charge or by EVC refuse to allow charge because of crappy communications between the two and ZERO control on my side. I have HA who handle as much as I can in the actual crappy state of crapIoT but nothing I can do with anything not made to be integrated. Cars actually are one not made to be integrated, even if they offer also V2L, crapplications for remote control and so on. The are just designed as a rolling data collection device, controlled by the OEM not the formal owner. To came back on topic I simply can't makes my car heat the battery when I want it heated to use it in the early morning, there is no way to do so. The car decide autonomously when to heat and the EVC decide autonomously if allow it or not, so the resulting behavior is NOT MUCH BASED ON ACTUAL TEMP but on random interaction behavior between two badly designed devices. That's is.

7) it's not a matter of mere horsepower or torque, with a mechanic gearbox I can dose the torque, with an EV I can not. It's the same when parking in tight places, arriving slowly to nearly kiss another vehicle bumper is easy with a mechanic gearbox, next to impossible with an electric motor. At least not if I can't both accelerate and break a little bit in absence of something better.

100W per person isn't enough to keep you comfortable, but it's more than enough to keep you alive, unless you're not wearing clothes or you have the window open or something. A candle is enough, and it's less than 100W, and warms the air rather than your body.

7. The torque an EV puts out is infinitely controllable. Give DC current to an AC motor and you get 0 torque. Give it full current with the appropriate waveforms and I get enough to spin the tires on dry pavement. And anything in between, fully controlled by the accelerator pedal.

Never once have I had to rock the EV back and forth to get it uphill out of my driveway when there's snow on top of ice, I just feather the accelerator. I have to do it quite regularly on my Mazda.

100W in a car at -30℃ i doubt can do something more than gives you extra minutes before freezing... An Webasto-alike with a 20l diesel tank might last a bit, if anything is inside, 12V included to keep the webasto on. But nothing more. At -1 well, that's another story.

About torque: no doubt that an electric motor can dose, actually the car pedal sensitivity do not allow the same, specially on slippery or steep roads, at least that's my experience with my modest MG ZS and few others EVs I've tried. Of course, someone might add a "parking mode" to help, but who have done that so far?

Chiming on 7). Not my experience at all on a Kia Niro EV (and an MG3) here in Europe with its tight urban parking spaces. On these particular models at least, torque can be dosed very well as long as tire grip is normal. Uncertain dosage is as good as on an ICE vehicle when grip is bad (mud…), but I don't have enough data points to compare.

ZS EV 2022 in my case, I have to switch to "eco mode" to do precise parking, otherwise, specially in a little steep roads it accelerate too much, no matter how soft I can be on the pedal...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com