Hacker News Reader

Comment by dv_dt | Hacker News Reader

You must mean in very cold conditions, where gas vehicles also often have engine block heaters plugged in so you can start them?

View on HN

Those are a 'nice to have' but not a 'have to have' until it gets below -15 to -20f, which is unusual, at least in continental US.

They're near, if not actually, universal in places like Canada and Scandinavia. Not exactly tiny markets.

Canada has roughly 40 million inhabitants, Scandinavia (if you include Finland) less than 30 million.

Even combined, that is pretty much exactly the population of France alone, or about 15 million less than Germany alone - and neither of those is exactly a huge country.

Canada and Scandinavia, on the global scale, are small markets.

Canada is 0.481% of the world population.

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=canada+population+%2F+w...

And how much of the world's purchasing power?

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=Canada+GDP+%28PPP%29+%2...

1.385%

Now add Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The parts of Russia where the rich people live, too.

> Now add Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

How about you do it? I'm getting bored of recreating the character of Sigourney Weaver > Gwen DeMarco > Lieutenant Tawny Madison in Galaxy Quest.

Hint: less than Canada even when combined, both population and GDP.

> The parts of Russia where the rich people live

Central London?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Lebedev

>> The parts of Russia where the rich people live

>Central London?

Just voting for this wasn't enough.

Same small fraction of the world where thermoregulating the battery during charging is a concern for EVs.

There was a lovely commenter claiming that they are not needed even at -40 here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39074333

Certainly more of a problem for diesel cars (diesel starts to gel not much below freezing). However, if there's any level of condensation in your gasoline tank you do have to worry about the fuel lines developing ice crystals... I wouldn't like to bet my life on starting an off-the-shelf car without any preheaters in -40 degrees

I went down a small youtube rabbit hole one night. There are some youtube channels showing guys getting up at the crack of dawn and starting their cold engine diesel engines without block heaters.

It seems if you are sufficiently prepared they are not needed.

It's true that just about any modern vehicle with a quality battery will start in -40°F , but oil distribution will be suboptimal and you'll put strain in cold, brittle places it shouldn't be. I guess 'need' is a strong word, but every time you start a vehicle in that kind of cold you do a tiny bit of damage to it. Keeping it a little warm during startup is really important for long term health.

A lot of cars also have remote starters that people use to precondition (warm up or cool down) their cars.

Or just as is often the case a garage.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com