Hacker News Reader

Comment by eksith | Hacker News Reader

Except you're comparing apples to oranges.

Cold weather pilots never let their aircraft sit outside for too long if they intend to fly within the hour since the fuel starts to gel. They plug in to the hanger if a power source is available or keep the engines running (although that's rather expensive these days). That doesn't mean those aircraft are in any way inferior to their warm weather counterparts.

The system is fundamentally different. Different is not inferior. Different means it can't be treated the same way as a fossil fueled vehicle.

FYI... The batteries do have heaters to improve efficiency, however that too drains power so a glance at the manual (and some common sense) would have told him to leave it plugged in. A bit like having to run a diesel engine a bit to make sure the fuel won't turn to gel in the lines.

I'm not sure if deliberately sabotaged the test drive, but I do think there's some driver naivety (negligence?) at play.

View on HN

He is comparing apples to oranges because the readers of NYT are orange buyers. All the NYT article says is that this is an apple... not orange.

There is a huge difference though - when your engine is cold, an ICE still has as much fuel in the tank as last night, but an EV has 'lost fuel'. That's something new.

That's very true, but both ultimately have the same end effect: "Lost range". But can be mitigated by caring for them differently.

In the case of the EV, it's leaving it plugged in and in the case of ice, it's adding de-icer to the fuel. You just care for it differently. Arguably the EV still is a slight advantage since traditional engines still need to be warmed first whereas the EV can just start and go as long as it was plugged in overnight since the heater pads on the batteries will make sure it won't drain too quickly. Can't keep a fossile fuel engine running all night like that.

> Except you're comparing apples to oranges.

So a Tesla can fly, eh?

Nice straw man. No.

Look, I'm getting tired of explaining this over and over to people who are deliberately being obtuse, but the whole point of bringing up aircraft was to illustrate that different types of fuel require different care, especially in cold weather. And with that care, those engines are able to function in cold weather just fine. This was the refutation of the ridiculous assertion made above that "EVs don't work in cold weather".

Regardless of fossil fuel or electric, cold weather requires additional preparation and planning to get to a destination in whatever type of vehicle you choose... As many people who've had trouble starting their ordinary gasoline car after a frosty morning would attest to.

I wish I never made the original post.

That's it. I'm done.

A car is not a jet aircraft, and comparing the two does absolutely nothing to help electric cars.

I'm not talking about jet aircraft. I'm talking about Pipers, Cessnas, Aerostars and countless other piston engine aircraft used in general aviation by hundreds of thousands of people.

The same people also go through a pre-flight checklist that covers all major safety aspects of the plane. When was the last time you saw someone walking around a car with a clipboard before they commute to work in the morning?

Last month in Minnesota.

My point is that EVs take a different type of preparation than fossil fuel engines and it's neither fair nor productive to expect them to behave 100% identically. But it seems a lot of people are deliberately missing that point for some reason and focusing on the fact I brought up aircraft.

A clipboard, really?

We are not talking about small differences in use, what is not being disputed is the large drop in range from parking overnight in cold weather. This is a big deal to northern climate folks. This is not a characteristic of gas or diesel.

Going further, I fully charge at home, leave for work, work a longer than average day, then get in my car to go home. Cold isn't only at night. I can see problems and I'm only commuting 40 miles to work (almost all highway).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com