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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

-50 is a different world compared to -5.

But now I’m curious how an EV would handle being an outdoor car in -50 windchill.

Hey signed up just to answer this. We have had an EV in Saskatchewan for 2+ years now. We live on a farm and have a daily commute of about 40km. Other vehicle is a gas F150. The EV has been far and away the better vehicle in our bitter winters. Have not had one single issue. Heats up super quick. Yes when it minus 50 we lose half our range but still leaves us with 200km or so on the worst days. As far as charging in the extreme cold it hasn’t been a noticeable difference whatsoever to charging in the summer. Just plug it in and forget about it. Truck averages 17 litres per 100km in the winter and car does about 25-30 kWh/100km on those absolute worst days and 14 kWh /100km in the summer. Electricity costs 15 cents a kWh and gas $1.40 a litre so even in the worst examples for the EV it is way way cheaper.

Thanks for taking the time to answer! This is both surprising and unsurprising. On paper, everything you say makes sense. But to see that it's true in practice is great news.

Windchill doesn't affect vehicles, since it's based on additional cooling caused by wind-driven evaporation. The base temperature would matter more.

Keg River was -50 without the wind chill. But none of this is the point. “Cold” isn’t a fixed concept. It really matters just how cold a kind of vehicle can get before there’s an issue. And at a certain level of coldness you’ve still got to plug in your ICE.

I'm not disputing that, just commenting on the specific reference to wind chill.

I have plenty of experience with plugging in block heaters. One nice thing is they don't have to be plugged in all night long, just for an hour or so in the morning. In fact, modern vehicles specifically call out not keeping them plugged in all night long.

Oh that’s on me! Didn’t realize I referenced it, and I think that’s in error.

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