Electric vehicles lose efficiency in cold weather, motor club warns drivers
And not just by a little.
(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- With a winter storm bearing down on the Midwest, Triple A has some advice for motorists, including drivers of electric vehicles.
It’s common sense to a lot of drivers in the Chicago area, but it bears repeating: If you must venture out during a winter storm, keep an emergency kit in your car. It should include items like your cell phone, jumper cables, food, water, blankets, hats and kitty litter or sand in case you get stuck in snow and need traction.
And for owners of electric vehicles, says Molly Hart, spokesperson for AAA, the auto club group, be advised that cold weather decreases your driving range almost by half.
“When it dips to 20 degrees and the HVAC system is being used to heat the inside of the vehicle, the average driving range is decreased by 41 percent,” Hart says.
That means instead of getting 100 miles of combined urban and highway driving, the range at 20 degrees would be reduced to 59 miles.
OK. We’re expecting a high of 2 degrees fahrenheit on Friday, with a 25 mph wind—yes, I’ve always believed that wind chill affects cars, so why not EVs too? I wonder what the efficiency will be like in that weather?
I got a kick out of Mark's "subsidies work!" reply below, as it illustrates the absurdities that result when subsidized hyper-financialization severs any link between investment and value creation. EVs are a classic example--incentivize Big Finance to throw money at desired public-policy result, consequences and questions like "will this sh!t actually work?" be damned.
Having spent the first (roughly) 15 years of my practice advising sponsors and developers of large infrastructure (mostly fossil-fueled power) projects, the precision of the start-to-finish analysis among the lenders, engineers, builders, lawyers, accountants and energy providers from generation to offtake was impeccable. Every projected penny and kWh was scrutinized into a predictable, self-sustaining, 25-year business model before any loans or investments were funded. So, the bankers and developers all got paid AND communities got reliable energy.
Flip to the hard push to subsidized/tax-incentivized renewables projects starting (in earnest, at least) in 2008 or so, and the entire model changed. Banks and developers were in it for the tax credits, so output and offtake became less critical, and projects got funded almost entirely without regard to analysis of results. I am all for renewals that work, but only to the extent that money invested tracks value created. That's just not happening in our hyper-financialized world.
Don't forget that USPS is going to an all EV fleet. That should be a blast to watch during the future Christmas mailing seasons. What a great idea for this already struggling but essential government entity. Just think of all those Amazon deliveries that will be late or parked alongside an ice-covered highway.