Heat and cold effects on EV

People could just as easily have a low tank of fuel. Odds are you were just as close or closer to an electrical source as you were a gas station. Please don't turn this into another one of your ICEr's-are-the-best threads.

 

Considering the traffic and road conditions in some of the recent snow storms, running out of energy was a possibility for any car. People had to spend the night in their cars for at least one, and this isn't the wide open spaces of the Midwest

 

Correct, but conventional, hybrid and PHEV cars can run on a fuel that tends to be readily available nearly everywhere, they can refuel in minutes, and they typically have 50-100% more range than the best EVs (my two cars have total ranges of 460 miles and 640 miles, for example). Combined, that makes running out of energy far less likely when faced with unplanned circumstances and a very major reason I wouldn't take an EV very far from home. If I can't go far from home, that reduces the value of the car to me by at least half.

Now, if EV range improves, especially in the cold, and if charging infrastructure becomes far more ubiquitous than it is, I'd love to switch. But they just aren't ready for that yet, especially given that my two vehicles cost $17.5k and $23.4k, and I'm not willing to spend much more than that. So, when charging infrastructure is terrific and I can get a 450 mile minimum range EV for under $30k, I'll consider it. Until then, I consider them an over-priced safety hazard and I'm not willing to either spend the money or take the risk.

 

How is that different than running out of gas? After something happens to people four times, most have learned how to plan ahead by then.

 

Electricity is more readily available than gasoline.

That's because people plan ahead, whether it is with an ICEV or BEV. I would NEVER head out into a snowstorm with 10% range left whether it be in an ICEV or BEV.

If you can't go far from home because of personal health issues caused by global warming and pollution, that reduces the value of any car by 100%,

Spend your money on an electric car or medical bills, your choice.

More BEV FUD.

 

I didn't run out of gas any of those times. Three of the four, I had sufficient range because the car's range was 450 miles in the cold, and on the other one I stopped for gas on the side road on which I was forced to divert.

 

Charging stations are not. Just because there are houses or stores around doesn't mean you can charge.

Yeah, you would have in this case. I had gone skiing. It was 90 miles each way, and the diversion happened on the way home after about 60 miles of driving on the way back. There are no charging stations, even now, up where I was or where I was parked and don't forget it was about 10 degrees out which will shorten your electric range quite a lot.

Fortunately, my Prime is exceptionally clean and I can drive 99% of the time in-town on electricity. But when I leave town, I'm glad I can fill up anywhere in a few minutes, and drive over 600 miles on a tank. This came in handy on my last trip when I drove 60 miles toward my destination before being turned around by an officer who had just closed the highway due to a forest fire. I ended up driving about 640 miles between supercharger stations.

No, that's a false-dichotomy. Pollution from cars like my Prime isn't a long-term health risk. In fact, the pollution from the coal used to generate over half of my electricity is likely worse.

I'm hoping we'll get to an electrified future, but what we have now is just not nearly good enough to do the job when you leave the well-worn paths.

 

And you wouldn't run out of electricity if you plan ahead.

An ICEV has reduced range in cold weather too, but most people don't plan ahead. Question: how many people have frozen to death in a BEV? Ans: Zero. How many people have frozen to death in ab ICEV? Ans: A whole bunch, but it is not headline news like it would be in a BEV!

 

Blizzard here a few days ago. No amount of planning ahead could have dealt with the surprise road closures.

 

Places to charge are plentiful if you need to charge in -20F temperatures. People aren't going to turn you away in those kinds of conditions.

In your hypothetical case cited above, I wouldn't run out of electricity either. My car has 264 mile range (currently the shortest range car Tesla makes). In your case, at +10F, I would charge to 100% during the night before I left. I would drive the 90 miles and then spend the day skiing while charging my car again to 100% at the ski resort (every location has some means of electricity). I would then have 264 miles of range to get home while your PHEV would have 230 miles (460/2) to get home. Yes, those ranges are in perfect conditions, but both your PHEV and my BEV will suffer some range loss in those conditions. Your Prime has about a 10g. gas tank. You are not going to get 46 mpg at +10F in a mountainous area. Anecdotal evidence by current Tesla owners in Northern climes who have driven their cars for thousands of miles in 0 F conditions ( rather than 10 minutes like AAA did) have reported range loses of as much as 20% unlike AAA reported 40%.

Driving any kind of ICEV is like smoking filter cigarettes.........."but, but, but it's not as bad as smoking unfiltered cigarettes!" You are still addicted to nicotine and it is bad for your health and those around you.

Hey! Forest fire? I thought you were driving to go skiing in 10F weather. You are constantly moving the goalposts!

There are many places to plug-in rather than Superchargers. Check out Plugshare.com I have a friend who has a home in the mountains of Colorado. He is listed on Plugshare. He will let you charge at his house, day or night, for free if you have the need. There are many more like him on Plugshare. You can charge at my house here in Californation too. It's a great way to meet like minded people.

Keep digging that hole you're in! I see we have a climate denier here!

I agree that power from any kind of fossil fuel is bad, that's why Californation is committed to powering electricity with 100% renewable resources within about 10 years. What is your State's plan for renewable resources?

BEV's are out selling Hybrid cars in the US. So BEV's are "good enough" for more people than those who are purchasing Hybrid cars. The problem is too many people are addicted to treading on "well worn paths." America would have never been "discovered", we would not have put men on the moon, the BEV would never have been developed, etc., if people had stuck to "well worn paths."

 

A person who planned ahead wouldn't be driving 460 or 264 miles in a blizzard!

 

A simple commute can be disrupted. Think about where people work in rural areas.

 

264 mile commute in a blizzard? They close schools in those conditions! I would take a vacation day, sick day, or whatever in those conditions. Get real man! But keep digging that hole.

 

Where? I was on a rural road in the mountains in the middle of the night, along with everyone else who was diverted from I-70 to that same road.

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It wasn't hypothetical, it actually happened to me.

I was parked in a gravel lot on the outskirts of the resort. There was definitely no place to charge at all.

Probably more like 80 miles - 10F cold soak after driving 90 miles with a net vertical change of about 5,000 feet.

I'd start with 640 and lose about 110 on the way, including the vertical change in altitude for a remainder of about 530 miles of range.

11.3 gallons.

And yet, the last time I did this trip in my Prime, I got 56mpg round-trip.

That's because you are unable to read. From post 14: "I've now encountered four times in my life where the interstate was closed due to accident (3 times) or forest fire (1 time) and had to turn around and go back."

I have both the Plugshare and ChargePoint apps on my phone. I've found a place to charge near my destination about twice in the last two years.

Been there, done that. The mountains are huge and you're rarely near anyone. Besides, do you really think stopping for an L1 charge in the middle of the night when you've already been out for 16 hours is a good solution for getting home?

Quit being stupid. I've spent my career doing wind energy research.

Future plans are driven by the market, not the government.

Most of them use a conventional car to go on road-trips, and use their BEVs only in-town.

 

264 miles is a minimum capacity set by who ?

 

Funny, I didn't get stuck in any of them?!!?
I would suggest planning ahead works quite well.

If people are taking extreme edge cases and generalizing them, carbon monoxide is a great reason to avoid ICE vehicles. People have died, crashed, and gotten sick due to it.

 

If you want to generalize, gasoline fires are common and very hazardous.

Nevertheless, I'm not buying a car I can't use to go out-of-state, and all four of my out-of-state trips so far in my Prime have had at least one leg where a Model 3 ER couldn't have made it, at least without substantial (multi-hour or days) delays. I'm also not buying a car that's so outrageously expensive. $23.4k out-the-door for my Prime.

 

That has nothing to do with those road closures, random events each winter.

And to you too, what's with the arbitrary minimum? EV capacity is still quite expensive and we are far from any standard. For that matter, heater & motor efficiencies also vary a lot.

The point is to avoid generalizations. Don't call an example an extreme without detail.

This is a teaching/learning moment...

 

I've not run out of gas in my last 45 years of driving. Once before that when I took my wife's car for some reason.

I've run into a total road block twice recently. Once because I and all the other I95 drivers were caught between exits because of a major accident for several hours. My hybrid with its stop-start system kept the HVAC going while all the others were spewing pollutants or panicking. The other when I-95 was shut down for miles due to a hurricane and I had to do a multi-hundred mile detour. Again no worry, there was gas available, my tank was full, my range sufficient. This is a time I wouldn't have wanted to be in an EV.

Yes they are edge cases. Tell that to my wife.