When I lived in Calgary, I sometimes had to spray a can of ether into the carburetor to get my car started.
I want EVs to be there too, but they just aren't.
The first is always true for at least a Tesla and you use the nav. A Tesla knows it's cold outside. If you punch a destination into your nav, it'll tell it what percentage will remain when you get there and it's always accurate.
The second is true if you charge the car while it's warm. We travelled from Ottawa to Quebec City in the cold, stopping to charge 3 times, and it always charged quickly. We knew enough to charge before parking the car rather than charging after the car has been parked.
The third is true if the car is plugged in and you tell it when you want to leave. It prewarms the cabin & battery.
It seems that fewer and fewer people actually have any plan at all for emergencies.
Why? A 275 mile drive should be easily done in any gas car without stopping.
Even my smallest tank car can do ~325 miles, my other cars can do ~425 and ~500 miles on one tank.
I started thinking maybe a sporty car (thus gas tank is not huge) with a huge engine (bad MPG) but couldn't find anything, even a Viper seems to get over 300 miles on the highway. Maybe some Ferrari with particularly bad MPG? Seems the worst is a 812GT, but that has a range of just under 300 miles. So I give up, what is it?
P.S. Most gasoline vehicles in my experience don't have 500 mile range, either. My Mazda 5 has a 375 mile range.
My ICE almost stranded me during the recent freeze. Conditions affect fuel economy for all vehicles.
> Did you have reliable, strong heat in the cabin?
This feels like an imagined problem. EVs heat their cabin more efficiently than ICEs. If you end up off the road during a storm (been there) an EV will last longer for the same fill level. They also tend to heat up faster due to not having to adjust the entire thermal mass of the engine block. I used to leave my heat off in my ol' minivan during most commutes. If there wasn't snow on the windshield for me to clean off while the car warmed up, it wouldn't heat up fast enough.
Citation needed. Are EVs using different cabin heating to ICEs? My Audi will recirculate waste engine and coolant heat to the cabin for up to 20 minutes (like if you're in a grocery store) with nothing but a fan.
> They also tend to heat up faster due to not having to adjust the entire thermal mass of the engine block.
An ICE doesn't heat the engine block? Modern ICEs also use auxiliary heating on cold starts. I can have warm air out of the cabin vents within ~30s even on a 20F day (not horribly cold, granted, but I'm talking properly warm air).
I'm not sure how to cite the fact that EVs do not have engines. Electric motors do generate waste heat, but via a significantly more efficient process, so an additional source of heat is needed.
> An ICE doesn't heat the engine block?
Yes they do. Where's your Audi recirculating waste heat from?
Auxiliary heating systems like you describe are the exact same design that EVs use as primaries, just driven electrically. Advantages are that the electricity to torque conversion is still significantly more efficient than chemical energy conversion, and you can run the system without powering the main drive.
I'm confused, what non-electrical method of generating cabin heat are EVs using, then?
But for the sake of argument - auxiliary heating in an ICE is similar to a floor heater, electrical resistance heating.
Beyond that, the argument is that on an ICE, the heat in the engine block is a byproduct of the combustion required to move the vehicle. That heat isn't "free", but is paid for by the primary purpose of moving the vehicle. The effort to push it into the cabin via fans is relatively minimal.
Heat pumps are the fancy way to do it that can be installed in both ICEs and EVs.
> the heat in the engine block is a byproduct of the combustion required to move the vehicle. That heat isn't "free", but is paid for by the primary purpose of moving the vehicle.
Agreed! It's free in the sense that it's already being generated, but it's still waste because it's generated regardless of need as a result of a suboptimal conversion process. We use it as heat because it's unusable for anything else, but it'd be nicer if it wasn't generated in the first place.
Given that ICEs take advantage of waste heat - which they will have in abundance as long as the engine is running - I disagree. Especially since many EVs still use resistive heating (the F150 Lightning and some Tesla models, for example).
And even vehicles with heat pumps will have to use backup resistive heating on really cold days, since they have a lower limit where they can operate.
Right, as long as the engine is running (and warm). It's still inefficient, however, as a significant portion of the heat still leaves with the exhaust. An EV can add a resistor inside the cabin for 100% conversion efficiency, and can power it for longer than a tank of gas will allow an ICE to idle.
Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. "Strong, reliable heat" is not a clear differentiator.