I'm in my third winter of driving EVs in northeast USA (near Quebec border). I shake my head when I hear stories of EVs not working in the cold, likely told by people with no EV experience. Range is definitely lower in the cold but that is the only disadvantage. Norway supposedly has one of the highest percentages of EVs. That should tell people all they need to know about how well EVs operate in cold environments.
Hahahahaha... My ICE is from 2008 and NP. What we hear here is that people do not take care of their battery very well. Then low charge in cold and no crank. I do not have to think about nor starting .. it just does. Cold is cold for every car.
I live in Norway and i can tell you that the range on my Nissan Leaf 2016 sucks in the winter -5 to -14 celcius. It drops from 80-90 km to i have low battery and you really need to charge warning after driving uphill 1-2 km when using my heater.. so yeah the range really sucks on Nissan leaf 2016 in winter.
@@jamesmatthew2677 it tells me that Norway had incredibly generous incentives to encourage EV ownership, however impractical they were. No import duty, no VAT (sales tax), free charging, low company car tax, no road tax, free parking, free tolls, free ferries, use of bus lanes etc. So there’s that.
And charging might be slower than expected. It depends on the car. Some are better at delivering specified rates, others require near ideal conditions and it's more of a marketing gimmick. While a battery gets heated as it's used (due to internal resistance), it's actually possible for it to get cooled as you drive instead of heated. It might then take some time to warm up for charging again. You notice it on long trips. You leave one charger with warm battery and arrive at the next with cold battery that can't take full rate unless you have a trip planned and the car can use that information to preheat the battery for you for optimum charging. And yes, if temperatures get really, really low, it won't produce much power (chemical reactions will be just too slow); lower still and it might get permanently damaged. That's just a fact of physics. And cell manufacturers do specify temperature limits for both discharge and storage. Li-ions are pretty good at tolerating low temperatures. I think some can go to something like -40 °C. You'd expect a car to try to prevent this by heating the battery. But eventually, it would run out of energy and it would die. For most people, that's just hypothetical discussion.
Newer EVs with a heat pump have a loss of range of about 20%. ICE cars have a loss of miliage in cold weather of about 15%. The difference is shrinking yearly. The new solid state batteries on the horizon will solve the range and weight problem along with reducing charge times by 50%. EVs are untouchable now, at least the ones that have NACS and heat pumps, but they will run away with the market in five years. Maybe less.
@@jameswinburn6843 In general, I prefer electric motors over combustion engines for things that need motors, so I hope batteries will get better. There are other concerns, however, such as higher tire wear (you' be surprised how much tire erosion contributes to air pollution on the roads); safety (I am concerned about battery fires); cost (I hear damaged batteries cannot be repaired, so damaged batteries are a right-off in an accident = higher insurance premiums). Thes are just a few concerns. But perhaps they are getting sorted out. All thiings being equal, I'd much prefer an EV over an ICE but all things are not yet equal. As a side note: battery backup for home electricity makes no economic sense at this point; battery tech still has a ways to go.
@@jameswinburn6843 Even with the heat completely off I lose more than 20% of my range at 30F compared to at 70F. Heat pumps help, especially for short trips, but they don't help *that* much.
I drove from Hearst, Ontario, when it was also -30 degrees Celsius in my 2016 Honda Accord. Got in, started it then drove over 500 km before stopping to fill up the at took 5 minutes, then completed my trip back to Toronto. My gas tank was full when I went to bed and was the same when I woke up to start my trip back.
@@robertwarner-ev7wp Propaganda tells us that they are the future and we must adopt at all costs there are no downsides. Reality tells us different. If it works for you then great but I will bet that you have a large diesel 4x4 ready to help you when you need serious power and duration. Don't expect us all to adopt his obviously inferior system and don't mandate that manufacturers must do this or that. I can't believe they are willingly partaking in their own demise. This whole net 0 thing is so obviously Stalinist or Maoist dictate people don't know history or the human mindset.
It’s not that EVs don’t work in the cold. It’s the fact that the range takes a hit. You lost 1/5th of your range just by turning the heater on. Plus, when you went to charge it, you were there for 40 minutes and it had charged up around 10%. EVs need to perform better or equal to an ICE vehicle before any ‘regular’ buyer is going to purchase one. The time will come, but it isn’t here yet.
If you live in the English speaking world in a home with a driveway, range and charge time is not an issue. I wake up every morning with a range of 400 km. About 6 times a year I take a longer trip, and I time it so around lunch time, I stop somewhere and my car charges up while I eat, seated in a restaurant. In 30-45 minutes, I have another 350 km range added on. If I need more than that, then I would repeat the process around dinner time. Not sure if I ever want to drive more than 1000 km in a single day, but technically I could. I guess that makes me not a "regular buyer".
Purchase a Hyundai / Kia platform!! Other than the drop range you can recharge their wonderful vehicles in usually 18 min. back up to an 80% range. Better charging and longer ranges are around the corner!! With the Hyundai and Kia you are getting some of the best built EV vehicles on the road!!!
So you're ok with subsidizing oil industry and gas prices, just not EVs? Oddly, when EVs are sold, the owner still pays subsidies to oil and gas industry. Weird how that works huh. And forcing to buy EV. Come on! Aren't we forced to buy gas cars instead? See how that works? 😅😅😅
Subsidies for oil and gas help to heat homes and most buildings and provide the money for transfer payments most of which comes from Alberta. EVs are personal transportation
@@Ratboy2004 BYD and other Chinese car manufacturers will kill all the legacy car makers, not Tesla. Tesla is constantly innovating and improving: the only key to thrive in a competitive market. Japanese are gone, Europeans are gone, Americans are gone. Few will survive.... Nobody is understanding that
@@jasondoust4935, you get the opposite end of the spectrum, except for the mountains of New South Wales. How much battery does the air con chew up? Can you keep the battery cool enough? Elevated battery electrolyte temperatures of >80°F (27°C) will reduce operating life, while lower battery electrolyte temperatures of
I've got a Leaf and I can confirm that the range is definitely crap when it's cold. I'm a die-hard petrolhead and got the car for short trips (60 miles per week) because I thought it would be cheaper to run. Well, it is cheaper but only just. I pay zero tax (for the moment) and I can park for free in the city. Not to mention very little if any servicing or mechanical things to break. So, yeah EVs are good to a point, but they aren't going to get you 300 miles in the depths of winter as an ICE will. That's my take.
I'm curious if the leaf, like the Tesla, will eat through tires more from the extra weight and/or increased acceleration even if being light on the pedal. Teslas need new tires every 35k miles or so which is half of what a typical small ICE car's tires will last. Easily to 50-60k.
No thanks; I would NEVER consider waiting 1+ hour in the cold to fill up. I'd rather pull up to a gas station, fill up my diesel truck and get another 500 miles of range in about 5 minutes. Until EV charging can match that, NO EV's for me.
I'm sure he probably has a charger at his house.I think he was just using the rapid charger as an example of how the cold effects charging.I just charge mine at home with a 3 pin socket charger which means that when your going to get your fuel for your "Truck" i'm enjoying a nice cup of tea with a good old crumpet with a bit of British butter on top.
Exactly. I charge at home 99.98% of the time unless I am on a road trip. And, yes, this was a test to see how a car like this would behave if I were to start it cold and drive to the charger. This was just a test not real life.
@@jjgermancarsdontsignal7746 Perhaps you should use that time to brush up on your English grammar instead. :) You missed my point entirely, I was referring to being on the road, like on long trips and having to refuel in order to continue on your way. If he has a charger at home, why would anyone drive to get to a fast charger; that's just silly.
What is silly is you not understanding the video and my explanation above. Don’t tell people to brush up on their English skills when quite clearly your reading comprehension is lacking.
Fine. Just pay for all the CO2 issues your ICE car produces when running. At 20 lbs per gallon, about $20 in carbon taxes per gallon of gas would be a good place to START. So with a 33 mpg combined ICE, is 60 cents a mile in EXTRA costs just for CO2 tax WORTH it? That's $60K in 100,000 miles, BTW. Thinking that the earth is flat doesn't make it flat...
Those are so extremely low temperatures! I have never seen a better go this low below zero! Glad to know that everything works as intended. Thanks for doing this video.
Looking at this from Ireland. What absolutely amazed me was the lack of ice covering your car's windows. We rarely get temperatures below -6/-8°c in winter, sometimes not at all although there have been about 6 so far this winter (and that was an official "weather event"). We can get lower but that's exceptional. But if there is just a little frost at 0° or slightly lower, everything is always covered in thick ice because of the amount of moisture and humidity in the air. I have always heard from European or North American continentals that -20° in their home countries feels much less cold in reality than a wet and windy 4° here or even just a dry 0° and they actually wear heavier clothing here for non freezing temperatures. Quite apart from the car, I just thought that difference was amazing from my perspective. Range should rarely be an issue with ev's because in reality very few people actually need more than moderate range for the vast majority of their driving. And for the occasional long distance drives you just need to plan your journey around one or more stops.p If you have a cheap rate charger at your house or access to similar public chargers then EV's are very economical and convenient when used correctly and appropriately. All this from someone who is driving a 12 year old 2.0 litre diesel saloon.
Much of the anti-EV movement is not so much against EVs but against forcing EVs by governments in various ways. There are pros and cons of every type of technology and I believe people should be free to choose what suits them best. I would not choose an EV myself because I need the long range occasionally. But the free market should be progressing with whatever people find suitable. Great video, BTW!
A few things things about that. 1. The government nowhere is forcing EVs on anyone. The few mandates that exist are requirements that car companies stop producing ICEs by some far off date (2035), but these dates keep getting pushed back. You probably won't ever have to buy an EV. Imagine you buy your last ICE car in 2035, it will be good for about 10 years, so we are into 2045 before you would have to get another vehicle. If by some amazing foresight on your part, you are right and the world is off in the wrong direction on EVs, then long before that time, we would have realized the error of our ways and ditched the whole technology. 2. EVs are passing the tipping point (price wise) this year (2025). Several car companies have announced that their EVs are now the same cost to build as ICEs. That has taken only 10 years to achieve, whereas ICE vehicle technology has been around for 150 years being improved and refined. There is absolutely no question that before you need to replace your existing vehicle, EV options will be available that will out-compete ICE versions on the price front, and they already out compete on every other front. 3. Even if governments dropped their mandates, at this point (see 2), car companies themselves will find that ICE vehicles, being more expensive to make, will gradually become less competitive. On the other hand, if you take religious joy in burning hydrocarbons, standing outside at gas pumps in all weather, getting oil changes, coolant top ups, "routine servicing every 10,000", then you will have to pay more for the privilege of paying more to the oil and car companies year round. 4. When a sea-change technology is introduced, governments always act to incentivize industry to avoid the country being left behind. The US and UK (and everyone else) did that with railways. They did it with automobiles (by building massive road systems). No country wants to be stuck making buggy whips in a motorized world. 5. When a new technology is introduced, in a "free market", the incumbent will always try to forestall new technologies. The oil and gas companies have spent a fortune creating an endless torrent of misleading and misinformation designed to slow down the adoptions of alternative technologies. Such articles as "revolutionary new hydrogen engine developed" and "new battery chemistry promises to double range and halve charging times" are designed to sow doubt, as well as the more obvious stories about battery fires, low range, impossible to afford replacement batteries etc etc., which are all funded by legacy industry in an effort to sow "fear , uncertainty and doubt" (FUD) in would be buyer's minds. 6. In the face of (5.), the "anti-EV movement" is just uninformed people getting their "information" from biased industry sources, or other people who have also been taken in. Once the obvious superiority of EVs sinks in, over the next 5-10 years, most of the people in this "movement" will be like, oh, I always knew EVs were going to win, I was just waiting for the right time to get one, and the remainder will become anachronisms clinging to the past.
And that's FINE, but you should pay the COST of all that CO2 produced from burning gasoline. The economics would make an efficient HEV or PHEV a MUCH better choice, and you could still have high range and convenience for your trips. I drive so little, next car I'll go with like a Camry HEV, 50 MPG or more, and so use only about 60 gallons of gas a year. I'd do that even with a high fuel tax, which we should have. Choice is great, but responsibility and reality matter.
EVs being forced everywhere doesn't mean that all regular gasoline/diesel vehicles will disappear overnight. They will still co-exist way into the future, but with some mitigation Like ICE car manufacturers are now making the hybrid cars as they're more efficient and has more range in the same fuel capacity than regular engine
Same car as you (Soul EV), but I don't have a garage. -15 to - 20 isn't unusual here in NS. I live it plugged to my 20 amp Level2, it has a schedule set to be ready to go at 7.40am (time to drive the kids to school). When I get in it is automatically defrosted, the steering wheel is warm, the battery is barely below 0, and it has 240km to 290km of range with 80% battery. During drives at colder than -10 it usually uses 30% of the energy for the hvac (which you can check in the car ev screen). We use the warmed seats (front and rear!) a lot.. The kids love them.
Oh yeah preconditioning is key to owning an EV. In my normal day to day I park in the garage or if it is outside then, yes, will be preconditioning before driving anywhere especially in winter. My son is the same, he loves having the heated seats in the back especially during our Alberta winters! I will need to visit NS soon and do some videos there and check out the EV infrastructure.
I'm not sure EV haters are thinking the EV will just plain quit working in the cold. The concerns are drastically reduced range, and possibly slow charging. Which apparently is the case. That said....although I'm not an EV fan myself (not the "nobody should buy one" type... just I do go on longer trips, and enjoy my 640 mile fuel range + fast fuelups too much to want to have to plan around charger availability and spend all that time charging), I must point out two points that gas fans generally overlook: 1) If you don't keep your 12V battery in good condition, your gas car won't start in cold weather, these videos of EVs going dead in cold weather, one could make the exact same video of gas cars dead in the water because of dead car batteries if they wished too. 2) EVs do get a range reduction in the cold, but so do gas engines! We got some cold weather here in eastern Iowa and it dropped to a bit below -40 (-40F or -40C? -40 is actually the same in both!) as I was driving in from New Orleans. My Chevy Cruze (which usually gets 40MPG highway, or 35MPG if I drive the piss out of it), as I drove through the -40 to -45 temps was getting 18MPG!
I'd just like to mention that a lot of the issues that EV owners experience with cold weather is due to poor education. What I mean by this is that just allowing your EV to preheat makes a world of difference to both available range, and how fast it can charge. Just giving your EV 10 to 15 minutes to warm up the battery before you start driving is plenty to not only be able to get into a warm car. The battery should be at a reasonable temperature to not suffer massive range loss.
There's a place for ev's and suit certain people, as well as them being unviable, or less suitable for certain areas or lines of work. The backlash is mostly due to the governments manipulating the market through mandates, it reeks of corruption. Sure there are EVangilists as well as haters as there are for everything, the average person I think can realise the propaganda from both sides and the truth sits in the middle somewhere.
@@ProXcaliber it doesnt really helps unfortunately! the ICE for example is able to compensate by using the extra heat to not suffer range reduction by long marge! just look at russia with those very frozen places with even older vehicles.
@@hwertz10 I think you and I are opposite sides of the same coin. I’m an EV fan but not the “everyone should have an EV” kind. I think if you can charge at home or work EVs are vastly superior in simplest all cases. If you need a truck to tow stuff those aren’t great yet. The Chevy truck does a good job with its huge battery. Honestly the biggest issue there is that most fast chargers would require you to unhook your trailer to be able to charge. This is changing though as both Loves and Pilot/Flying J are installing pull through chargers at lots of truck stops. As for road trips yes they take a little longer, but if you get a car with a good charging curve it’s not that bad. With my Hyundai I can drive for about 3 hours then so to charge. Most of the time the car is ready to go by the time I go inside and use the restroom and grab a drink or some snacks. I just took a trip recently that would have taken a little over 10 hours in an ICE vehicle that took me about 11 in my EV.
@ Finally! Someone with a healthy perspective! Thank you! I agree entirely. I'd like to mention, as a side note, that another downside to the massive battery in the Chevy EV truck. Is that, even at a fast charger, it can take a long while for it to get back up to even 80%. Not that it's a bad thing if you are towing, but it would be something to consider. I also love road tripping my 2024 Model 3 LR. Thing is an excellent road trip car.
I got my Mach e LFP 2023 in winter and never had a problem. Parked outside but plugged in like any ice car and it works much better that any other car I’ve ever had. And on gas bill.
Mine works fine but even at -5C has half the range it gets in the summer. And takes longer to charge, especially DCFC. Not a big deal for day to day use but it really slows me down on road trips.
Now I haven't read the info talked about here. The things I have heard was been that the range they can drive when really cold is a lot lower. And the tests I have seen done has supported this. The start and drive, but the batter capacity fall fast and the total range is a lot lower than when it's warm. It will be interesting to see what the results is for this car.
It looks like you're in the Park? I'm a Bolt owner in Edmonton and 100% see and hear the same about the cold. The Bolt has performed perfectly at these temps.
I never had any issued with my EV during our winters. Glad to hear your Bolt is also running well at these temps. I actually live in Leduc. Thanks for watching!
@LeftCoastEV We bought the Bolt as the family runabout. It willingly handles all our daily commuting and evening/weekend kid ferrying. The older kids argue about who gets to drive it. :-)
EVs can't charge easily in the cold but can easily start up and drive. ICEs can refuel easily in the cold but can't easily start and drive... Basically opposites! Not sure why so many ICE drivers are so disdainful of EVs when they need block heaters to even drive off in the morning.
Starting is definitely a problem, lubrication is a problem. Otherwise, driving isn't a problem. Heating the oil up is kind of equivalent to heating the battery up. If you push an engine when oil is cold, you risk damaging it. The same is true for a battery, except BMS shouldn't let you. The difference is that ICE produces heaps of waste heat due to its lower efficiency. Especially the big petrol engines. And it's easier to heat up a few litres of oil than a battery.
would it be quicker/cheaper to drive a bit to warm the battery before charging, so the recharge is not heating the battery, or it is cheaper to use the charger to do that work?
2020 niro EV owner - it gets cold but not that cold in my area. Good test. For sure, things are slower and range is worse in the cold, but EVs still work. Battery preconditioning makes a huge difference of course.
@@LeftCoastEV I am more surprised that it put anything into battery at such temps though. My old VW e-up! did not. It would not put anything into battery until non freezing temps were achieved. It heated battery faster though, around 10-15 mins from -20c. I now drive a Polestar 2 and if I am going on a long trip I leave the car plugged in on level 2 power point and notify the car of planned departure. It then spends 30-40 minutes before departure heating the battery to prepare. Result is no power drop in acceleration upon departure, and no loss of capacity even here on the frozen planes of Hoth (which it appears I live on half the year). I've driven EV's only for over 10 years now, and not once have I gotten stuck because of cold, but twice have I been delayed over 40 minutes due to charging stops with frozen battery. Not too bad in such long time. Bonus is I have not put diesel in the gas tank or vice versa in this period either.
@ the way that EV tech is advancing even my car, which is a 2021 Kia Soul EV, already feels old to the brand new ones on the roads today. I also wanted to know if it would charge and I was happy that it did, even at these temps. Good to know that modern EVs are not as susceptible to the cold as the older ones were.
@@LeftCoastEV They may use a chemical moderator in the battery to reduce plating and dendritic formation when charging at sub zero temps, or they may be simply a bit permissive about it and taking a risk. Depending on your battery warranty they may shift the risk on you though. Generally we say (I've worked with EV charging systems) that charging at sub freezing is simply to be avoided and better to put all energy into heating until temp is ok, but Kia may have done things to mitigate this, or found a suitable level of compromise. I was surprised as well, that it charged that much to begin with. It also shows it's battery heater is only 2-3kW. Tesla is known to spend energy in the motor(s) in a locked up state and then harvesting this energy to heat battery faster. I am not sure if other manufacturers can do this, or even if they are allowed due to the stupidity of patents possibly blocking them. To engineers this is pretty obvious, but to lawyers it is not.
They predicted 0 F for several days. I stopped at a AE charging station. I charged to 80% on a Thursday. I had a doctor appointment at 08:00 Tuesday. The temperature was at 0F everyday. I stayed in the whole time. Tuesday I went to my car to go to the doctor. MY car showed 5% charge 5 miles on the predictor meter. Wednesday the temperature reach 32F. My car showed 15%, 20 miles predicted. I went to the AE station. It cost me $30. To charge back up to 80%.
It's really totally up to the 12V. Anyone that can't go anywhere at low temperature, the problem isn't the EV, it's the lead-acid starter battery. Just like an ICE car. Even my lowly 10yo Leaf has a battery heater.
My Kia e-Niro throws an error when the outside temp is +5c it's been to a dealer and returned with no fault found. It's just happened again yesterday and this time the infotainment screen has gone as well. Maybe I should get a Soul?
An interesting test would be to driv the car so it's warm and working well then park it with perhaps a 10% charge and see how it handles when it's that cold. How far can you drive on a pretty low charge when the battery has cooled down that much? How long time does it take for the battery to warm up enough to be able to fast charge? This is a situation that can be tough for a EV as I see it. An ICE has the energy that's in the tank, and the temperature doesn't really change that. water in the tank is however something that can be a killer for ICE, as is frozen coolant and oil. But with the right coolant, oil and some alcohol in the gas that shouldn't be a problem. Still, an ice engine can get damaged if it's real cold so that's not a perfectly safe option either.
Gap between getting in the car and then you are driving down the road thought the idea was to show starting the car and driving off how long did it take to clear windscreen and heat the car?
Of course. Check 4:25 of the video and you will see the heat is on. In the Kia it is a separate button called "heat" which you can see in that part of the video.
I did a cold soak a couple months back on a 2022 Mini Cooper SE. Outside temp -27, battery temp hit -14. The car limited power to 30%, which you could tell, but otherwise behaved pretty normal. I didn’t test fast charging. I’m also in Edmonton.
This isn’t a charging test. If you want costs and charging times you can explore my many other videos as prices vary between Canada and the USA as well as the many charging providers. I mostly charge at home on my Level 2 charger overnight and it costs me about $6 for a full battery.
I visited Canada some years ago and the motel I stayed at had cables to plug in engine block heaters. If ice cars were so good in sub-zero conditions, why did these things exist?
Exactly! The plugs are still around and the perfect way to trickle charge your EV at night staying in a hotel on a road trip in Canada. What I do is I fast charge to around 80% before arriving at the hotel and then plus into one of those plugs with a Level 1 charger and have 100% the next morning. Thanks ICE drivers!
Yes, decades ago (especially 1970's even employee parking lots in Quebec had an outlet at practically every spot). This is because it WAS much harder to start a car that had a carburetor, thick oil, low engine compression and batteries that would easily drop in voltage to 9V while cranking. My dad was told by a mechanic to turn on the headlights for a second, in order to "wake up the battery." Block heaters would heat up the engine oil and many had warming blankets over the battery as well. At home, you'd plug in your car at night, but have a timer that would turn on the current two hours before you left. Some also had auxiliary heaters in the car to warm up the cabin, but these were often removed because they could be a fire hazard. For winter driving, you'd place a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator to block about 50% of the surface area. EVs have none of these problems because there's no combustion reaction needed to start.
I'm into the 6th year of owning a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV and have never been happier with my car. In fact, I am more concerned with that salty winter slush on the roads than with the EV performance. Winter or not, my Bolt gives me all I need.
Exactly. You don't need to have the latest, greatest technology to have a good EV experience. Yeah, I'd love a new Model X, but my Bolt does everything I need at a fraction of the cost.
My new Kona 2025 electric performs very well at the same at this temperature. I charge on my level 2 charger all the time, just use the app to start it and warm up the car, then I go like any normal car, The range goes down to 230km (summer range is 420 km), and this is normal. My Volt did the same. I didn't see any difference with both cars. With my previous ICE cars, there was always an anxiety when starting the car at these temperatures. WIll it start? WIth EVs, I never had this anxiety. Thanks for the video. But you have to make sure you are always full.
Thanks for sharing your experience! When I drive ICE and it was very cold for a few days in a row I also wondered if it would start or not. Now with the EV anxiety is gone. Thanks again!
@Tschacki_Quacki who would do that? That's a strange response. I would just like to know. I used the word love, my mistake , and you jumped to a judgement. Nice.
12:43 Ofcourse it will work. I had an EV (yes HAD) the real problem is the range. 550km turns into 100-250km. My current gas car can go 800 - 1200km doesn't matter if its winter or summer.
Interesting test ! Here in Germany we do not have those minus peaks. But around 10 years ago had our E320CDI outside at a very cold winter with -20 degr Celsius. It dit not start, had to be towed. HPpump burst, 3000EUR gone. All of my 7 E-classes had problems in winter temperatures (-10 is very cold here....) and it´s not common here to preheat your car. So, the last 3 cars before our EV were no diesels (plug-in gazoline). Now, with our EX40 no more problems with Turbos, injection valves, pumps (and finally a cracked head in the E320cdi). Just be careful in start phases even with EVs (as you said), it still has a gearbox with oil like honey. Still cannot understand, why we have so few EVs here, we still have discussions which are nonsens (can it run 1000 kms as my Diesel ?).
Back in my younger days I also drove a diesel and no thanks, not going back. So I understand all the problems you had, I was in a similar situation more than once. Exactly, even with an EV you need to be careful during a cold start and don't do it too often. There are still fluids there that need to warm up. This is why preconditioning on cold winter days is key. Looking at other European countries, not sure why the adoption rate of EVs is lower in Germany. And like you said people saying they can drive 1000km on a diesel is nonsense indeed...they don't need to stop to stretch legs, go to toilet or eat? I have to and when I stop I charge my car and when I am done I am ready to go so I never wait for it to be charged. People who hate EVs make pretty silly comments!
@@LeftCoastEV Germany hasn't been as generous with its EV incentives as other European companies, probably why the adoption rate is lower. Got my first EV this month (MG5, not something you can likely get in Canada as it's a Chinese brand, but they build to European standards, design is done in London) and don't think I'll be going back to ICE. It isn't the longest range car, around 240 miles/386 km, but I'm currently not doing long trips, so it is fine for me. Hoping by the time I replace it we'll be fully into semi or full solid state batteries with ranges up to 1000 miles, then the range anxienty will be gone (I must admit I do have it now, even if it isn't warranted) and probably that will also be when I start going on some longer road trips to see some of the corners of the country. I must agree though, even if I'm driving long distances, I aim to stop every 3-4 hours to stretch my legs, have a coffee and maybe something to eat and already fast chargers are prevalent everywhere near UK motorways, so nothing stopping us from doing this. We just need some regulations on prices charged, as some are stupidly expensive.
Let's hope that with the new tariffs introduced by US government against Canada will be a wake up call for our government to not be dependent on the US for pretty much everything. The only reason we don't get Chinese EVs is that our government plays ball and does not want any US auto manufacturing competition since we have a few plants in Ontario that manufacture US vehicles. They could easily do a deal with Chinese brands like BYD to take over manufacturing and still keep Canadian jobs, but the US wouldn't like it. With the new trade climate being what it is, maybe things will change. As for as your choice of vehicle, I really like the MG. Enjoy it! Also, thanks for the info on why Germany is lagging behind other European countries in terms of EV adoption.
When I lived in the Catskills New York, I had my 82 Mazda GLC with a manual transmission. When it got down around zero or -10°F, the gear oil and the motor oil were so thick that the car wouldn’t start, even in neutral, unless you push the clutch into get the engine started. Once the engine started, you could let the clutch out, even in neutral and it would bog the engine down a little bit, but after a while, it would drive fine.
the reason the taxi drivers in Chicago had problems last year i think ... was they all ran there cars to low state of charge and did not preheat the batteries.. also when the station was full they did not go to another station if you look where they had issues there were 4 more tesla charger stations within a 10 mile range also there were many level 2 chargers that they could have plugged in and gotten some recovery instead of Turing everything off and freezing the battery while waiting at the station. Most the issue were they all bought used Tesla's single motor cars and did not RTFM and did not realize you need to navigate to charger even if you know where it is.
Ever had tears freeze your eyelashes together when you blinked? Yeah, that’s cold.. needing to unglove a hand so you could melt the eyelash ice and see again.
Great video. It may be superstitious, but I hold the evse nozzle into the car until the handshake happens. Where I am on Vancouver Island it seldom gets below 10C (14F), so I have zero problem with my Bolt euv in the cold, but Bolts don't have heat pumps, so range is lost, and I deal with it. I do notice that if I'm plugged in at home - in the winter -- and the battery has reached target charge, I see a spike in electricity usage every four hours or so, which I assume is the BMS.
You are correct. The BMS has one job and one job only: to make sure the battery is functioning properly. If it needs to warm it up, it will do so. If it needs to check individual cells for posterity, it will do so. Most EVs will use the grid power when plugged in when the BMS or other systems are running thus not depleting the high voltage battery. Glad you like the video...wish I was living on Vancouver Island, it's one of my favourite places in Canada!
Interesting video but really, REALLY hilarious is that you live near me! 😝 I’m watching and thinking HEY that looks like Blackgold Ave and the LRC! 2 km away? 🤔 you’ve got to be near me, I live in Aspen Creek. ❤️
There is really nothing to worry about. Even if you cold start you are still fine. But most EV owners will precondition their cars beforehand anyway. Sure there is range loss but ICE cars also burn more gas during winter.
@@adriaanvantulpenbaard1740 Dense air also produces more drag which impacts efficiency. Something that also happens to EVs. I’m sure that there are also other factors like combustion (harder when it’s colder), oil viscosity and so forth.
you should definetly have a heated garage or insulate your 12v battery very well thats the problem on older cars mostly! or cars that werent made for the cold climates!
@@LeftCoastEV If you extrapolate your power consumption of 5% for 2.4 miles driven, you get a range of 48 miles, and that would be completely depleting the battery. I believe that is what ICE drivers are talking about, a ridiculously short driving range.
Let the haters know that EVs are very stable in the snow too. Our Kia EV6 has snow mode, where all 4 wheels are driven, and it's heavy. Our miles per KWH drops from 3.2 to 2.9 (at 70 mph) when we get below 25F, but we can still go anywhere we need to. The battery warming software has not been downloaded yet, so charging starts out slow (25 KW) but since we charge at home mostly we haven't bothered with the download. Glad it doesn't get that cold on the coast of Maine.
Yes absolutely spot on, I drive my car hundreds of miles and I certainly don't sit around waiting for it to charge up every hundred miles if your lucky
I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But there are plenty of cases where what you are stating is not the reality. Plenty of people don't have homes with garages, or if they do, they often use it as storage and don't park their vehicles inside. Yet they manage to own EVs without issues in cold weather. The reality is that this test essentially demonstrates a worst case scenario, where you have no parking garage, you aren't able to plug in at home, and you start driving from a completely cold car without preheating. In most cases, you would not do all of those things, or at the very least the one thing you would have to worry about, is not being able to plug in at home. But simply doing the smart thing and allowing the vehicle to preheat before driving makes a world of difference, even if you cannot plug in at home. If you can plug in, then you basically have nothing to worry about, whether you park inside a garage or leave it out in the elements.
Huh? I believe this video gave exactly the opposite answer to your "big question." He parked outside (not inside) in the cold, and even though he started out with only 40% state of charge, he still had at least 100km range left (not "10km"), even with the heaters going flat out. And had he driven, say, 80km down the road, then stopped at a DC fast charger (as you do when you road trip) the battery would then have been warm and ready to accept a charge at a normal rate. And for a shorter commute, the ability to DC fast charge with a cold battery doesn't matter. He could just have plugged in when he got home. An EV can charge normally on a level 1 or 2 AC charger even with a frozen battery.
@@cousinluigi I read a study on EV ownership in Norway and basically it is rich families buying a second car when their first car is usually a petrol car. Very few people buying EV as their first car. AS usual huge government incentives to buy an EV produced a distortion in the market. In Quebec, with subsidies it was cheaper to by an EV than a hybrid Prius! How crazy is this?!
@@dimdim3490 A single study? Was it peer reviewed? Does it have sources and other supporting information? How many people were asked? There are a lot of things that matter when discussing studies.
This test could have been done in northern Finland aka Lapland :) At the moment about the same temperatures there. Thanks for good information and yes, it's a little bit slow with charging now. The good point is the motor will always work and heating the inside of the car to decent temperature is pretty quick. Sounds crazy that not all CVs have battery preheating even today. Must have!
Glad you liked the video. I would really like to travel to Finland one day to do some videos there. My Kia is a 2021 model and does not have preconditioning unfortunately. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this interesting video showing an EV working at the extremes. I am 6 years into Kia e-Niro ownership here in France and of course we never get anything like the temperatures you get....So far this year in Southwest France -3c was out lowest. The Soul has same battery and BMS as the Niro and ours is now on 115,000 km with no problems and no discernible loss of range.
Glad you like the video! My Kia Soul EV is also going strong and just passed 100,000km a few days ago. I have not done a proper battery degradation test, but so far, like you, have not noticed any range loss.
why dou you fail to mention its an old diesel first?! thats the problem on internet! always the inacurrate informations been divulged everywhere! diesels have a glow plug for a reason! and with a good 12v battery insulation you have no problems! alot of modern ICE vehicles for example the 12v battery located inside the car or at the rear less susceptible to climate conditions.
"So, it's now talking to the car". - Hey, power station. - Hey, car. How are you? - Oh. -30C all night. - Same here. Would charge me? - Yeah, off course. Pay money through app. Or RFID. What a nice Canadian talk.
Not a hater but physics dictates that batteries are less efficient in the cold no matter what. EV's are great in the right place but they are in no shape or form reducing carbon emissions as more carbon is emitted from the power stations every time you charge them up unless you believe in free energy.
To be fair, ICE vehicles also have issues in the cold. There is a reason I don't like to let my fuel gauge get below half during Winter. I remember the stories about EV charging troubles in Chicago, and I believe it was mostly new owners who underestimated the range hit they would take in the winter and waited a bit long before hitting the fast chargers. From what I've heard, even with the environmental cost of creating the battery pack, most EVs environmentally break even by about 50,000 miles. A major part of that is that renewables are making up a growing part of the electrical grid. This is happening even in red states.
"EVs ... are in no shape or form reducing carbon emissions as more carbon is emitted from the power stations every time you charge them up unless you believe in free energy." - Except where grids are partially (or nearly completely, in some cases) powered by renewables, where some of those electrons are as good as carbon-free. Meanwhile, the petrol/diesel an ICE vehicle uses has to be pumped up (using electricity generated by burning fuel if it's an offshore rig), pumped ashore if nearby, more often pumped into a ship, which then burns lots of fuel getting it to a refinery, where even more electricity (some of it green, now, as the refinery is likely connected to the grid) where even more energy is used to fraction it into its various fuels, then even more fuel is burned transporting the finished product in lorries to the various fuel stations where - finally! - after just a little more electricity is used to pump it into your vehicle, you burn it once & throw away the residue (carbon + various other nasties)..... what do you reckon the overall percentage efficiency of that process is, bearing in mind that your vehicle is at MOST 40% efficient? One thing that really does highlight, though, is just how energy dense oil is: The fact we can use all of that energy and STILL get useful amounts of work done with the remaining fuel is quite mind-bending.
@@darwinskeeper421the Chicago drivers were pretending they were driving ICE and treating Superchargers as if they were gas stations. Only went to the “gas station” when battery was low. The correct way to operate an EV is to have an L2 connection at night so the car is “full” (typically 80% is enough) every morning. This uses power when the utility has a generating capacity surplus, proving revenue they would not otherwise receive, that can help keep daytime rates down and/or pay for expansion and line maintenance.
@@N4HHE Interesting, but it raises a question. What should EV drivers who don't have access to a level 2 charger do in the winter? Is there a winter safe amount of charge they should never go below before they head for Supercharger? Should they set up their vehicle to precondition the battery on the way to the charger? Inquiring minds want to know.
@ they should do the same thing those who own horses do, you don’t own a horse unless you gave the facilities to support it. You are begging the question in presuming everyone is entitled to an EV. If you live in an apartment then you have elected to do without things homeowners get. Just as when you chose to drive a sedan vs pickup truck, you do without the capacity to bring an 80” tv home from Costco.
Here in the UK we never get temps that low. However, I had a problem actually getting into my EV6 as the doors were frozen at -7c. This would happen to any car, EV or ICE. Used the app to heat up the inside a few minutes before I went outside and then no problem.
Good! And it should be noticed that for a LARGE percentage of owners, charging at home (L2) almost exclusively, this is a non issue even at minus a million. I've used fast chargers (L3) four times in two years. Another (less) fun detail... my VW ID.4 is terribly misbehaving at temps below minus 20 C. The computer goes nuts, half the assist systems are gone, my dashboard looks like a Christmas tree (warning lights). Apparently, this is a VW thing, your Kia seems responsive.
I've heard of the same from a few VW ID.4 owners here in Alberta. When the temps drop, the car systems go a bit wonky. So far my Kia has been driving without issue.
The only thing I do different when heating car is to press the recirculate button. Then you heat up air that already is heated and de-ice goes quite a lot faster. Remembering to switch it off before I get moisture on the windows is harder to remember
And of course, he has the classic Alberta cracked windshield… Also in those temps I would have plugged in and preconditioned before moving off. Good video tho! And our Polestar 2 is an absolute champ in winter weather, central Ontario.
Hey it’s not my fault that they put rocks on our roads in winter! Yeah I always precondition but the point of this video was to see a cold start and charging session. Glad you liked the video!
90% of new car sales was EV's in Norway last year. Would have been really stupid if EV's didn't work in cold winter 😀 We had -20C and below in three weeks last winter and my Jaguar I-pace had no issues - except high consumption.
We who drive EVs all know that they have no issues running in the cold...this video is more for those folks still on the fence about EVs and who are worried about driving them in cold temps. Conclusion: there is nothing to worry about except, like you said, higher consumption.
@ press start, and the same way an EV will leave your ICE vehicle in the dust, the heat is juiced by the battery and is boosted by heat pump, radiant heaters, heated seats and steering wheel. The top of range on the thermostats in mine is 29.5 and it certainly goes for it I have tried it. You do not need to take my word for it. The next -30 or -40 day pick a dealer and ask for a demo.
@@daviddawkins2829 I live in Northern Canada, its 24 below right now. There's NO way any electric heater is going to heat my truck like my gas engine will . And if you did route all the electric to heat whatever it could, you'd be stuck 20 miles down some logging road dead in the water.. If I ever decide to move to a warm climate, I'll consider an electric something to get me around town..
Unfortunately where I am living now, ex-Pat Canadian, winters are not nearly that cold(5-10c) but I did grow up with winters as cold as yours. Thing is though ICE vehicles can't be left out either in extreme cold I remember everyone having their cars plugged in even if they were at work to keep the engine/12V warm enough so it would start when finished for the day. I remember my Dad wrapping the 12V battery in a warming blanket that the plug stuck through the front grill and plugged it in overnight or if it was going to be parked for say a day somewhere and it was cold temps.
This is still a thing here in Alberta. Many parking lots have plugs so ICE drivers can keep their vehicles warm so they can start. Which is also nice for us EV drivers as we can also plug in and Level 1 charge off a normal wall plug if needed. Thanks for sharing your story and I am jealous you no longer have to experience such winters haha! Enjoy the warm weather!
@@LeftCoastEV Funnily enough I grew up literally 3hrs west of Calgary in the Columbia Valley so really not that far from where you are now. But yeah well today is weather I don't really like, forecast for 33 luckily only one day tomorrow cooling down to 27 luckily I'm not on mainland Australia WAY too hot for me.
Tip if you have no optional battery preconditioning mode: Speed up and regen-brake like an idiot to make the battery warm up on your way to the fast charger.
Other drivers are going to love YOU ! Driving without due consideration for other road users is an offence in Britain and will result in a fine and 3 points on your licence as a minimum. Also note that at 10 p.m. the previous night, he had 128 kms range. By the time he moved, he was down to 98 kms. He didn't show how the range dropped when he was driving to the fast charger. In Britain, that overnight loss would cost you £18 at a public charger. Where I live, we don't get -30°C but we do get -10°C. Just couldn't afford to drive an EV. I'm not made of money. It appears that Sunshine, other than for this video, habitually parks his Kia in his garage. I and my two adjacent neighbours have shared private parking for 20 cars and double garages, BUT, over half of households in Britain do not have private parking and many who do, do not have an electricity supply to their private parking. With threats that household insurance at reasonable cost will, in the future, forbid the parking of EVs in garages adjoining houses and suggestion that such insurance will require an EV-free zone of at least 20 feet from the house, for most British people, home charging will be impossible and therefore, ownership of EVs will be completely impractical. This is becoming more and more of a class divide. The rich will be able to drive their EVs but the majority of existing drivers priced off of the road. I habitually park my Kia Sedona diesel outside because I can't be bothered to open the garage. A cover over the windscreen when frost threatens keeps it clear. The car starts every time and the heat to keep it clear and make driving warm and cosy is free
Did you just call me Sunshine? Thank you for the compliment. As for my range loss driving to the charging station…that’s shown in the video in % as this is how most EV owners calculate range (not based on what the GOM says).
@@LeftCoastEV Does your range indicator take into account the fact that your battery loses range AND consumes far more electricity in cold weather, I would be interested to know the reduction in range on the journey compared to the actual mileage. Yes, I know you use stupid kilometres but in Britain we still correctly have distances in miles hence mileage, and speeds in miles per hour. Despite the Bolsheviks who run our Country behind the scenes having imposed the metric system upon us for many food stuffs and the purchasing of fuel, we still buy milk and beer in pints. Things like vinegar are sold in metric, but the bottles are 1.14 litres .... that is right .... a quart ... and cans of beans etc are frequently 454 gms ... that's right ... a pound
@ Yes it does, but it is not as accurate as I want it to be. It's an old EV from 2021 so technology and range projection have improved since then. This is why I don't rely on the projected range in KM but on battery %.
Picky, and not strictly correct. Starting an ICE means priming fuel, running initial checks and engaging electrics first so that the crankshaft can be rotated. With a battery EV starting involves engaging electrics and running checks, to prepare the engine/motor for rotation. Semantics, I know, but maybe think it through first.
My Audi A3 from 2000 got a really rough idle when it's under 5°C or just shuts off. The check engine light turns on and I got error codes like mixture too lean and even cylinder misfiring detected. If I had an EV none of these problems would occur. At least it runs fine after 10min ride.
@@Anton-pu3jz They do exist (Peugeot 106 from 1993-2003 for example). However in that time you probably replaced the batteries couple of times. Time will tell how good new battery tech is. And also you could replace modules over time. My Audi A3 is from a time when Audi still built pretty reliable vehicles and has seen service on a regular basis, that's why it got so old. There is no way a new A3 will last 25 years.
My 4th winter of driving my id.3. Yes the range drops but it’s great getting into a defrosted warm car in the morning all managed from my app. Would never go back to ICE unless I had to. We never get temperatures like that in the Uk. Thanks to the Gulf Stream. Take care.
A chap in the Prairies tested overnight minus alot in a Tesla 3, he found leaving the car on was best, battery stayed warm with very low consumption. You have to realize that an electric motor & systems consume little while running, it's the start up that consumes.
That was a good test, but most folks wouldn't be running their car at night. This test is to show people that if, for example, you stay overnight at a hotel or friends place without the ability to charge or leave your car running, that you can wake up and know for sure your car will start and take you where you want to go. On a day to day basis I keep my car in the garage and if it is outside I precondition before setting off.
The greatest energy consumption occurs upon acceleration (e.g. stop and go) because of the inertia you have to overcome to get the thing up to speed. This is true regardless of the power source.
@@citizeng7959 I didn’t test the exact figures but in many instances it helps with lowering consumption and extending range. This system is also quite useful when I drive through the Rocky Mountains here in Canada and steep declines put in quite a bit of juice into the battery. I might do a video on this in the future. Hybrid vehicles use the same technology to top off their batteries.
And no hat, go team Canada! But seriously, the air is so dry you can take it for a few minutes unless there is some wind. Just be careful with touching some metal, like door handles.
So your next door neighbor had an extra hour in bed. Started his ICE vehicle, cleared his windows and heated the inside, with the free heat. And is now sitting at work nice and warm, while you are paying good money to heat your battery, as you slowly freeze to death. What a wonderful future.
You realize if you plug it in at home, you are spouting nonsense. Give it a few minutes at -30C and it is toasty. By the way mine is parked outdoors and it was -30 not last night but the two previous nights.
Thank you for illustrating how the car responds when the owner makes virtually every possible mistake. 😉 From my understanding, fast-charging a battery at extremely low temperatures is highly detrimental to its long-term health.
I'm in Northamptonshire in the UK, fortunately it doesn't get anywhere near that cold here, a cold winter night here would be about -5° with a possible -10 Celsius on a really cold night. I have a Renault Zoe ZE50, I guess the manufacturers likely change how the BMS behaves related to the region it's sold in. Having worked in the automotive industry for years I know manufacturers will make tweaks depending on conditions, ie extra dust protection for cars in Australia, or extra corrosion resistance for UK vehicles because of the damp and use of rock salt to de-ice roads. As far as I know my Zoe doesn't do any extra battery heating until you plug it in, then if it's sub zero it does a battery warm up cycle before charging for about 2 mins. Other than that no issues apart from around 20% range loss.
I think you are correct that different markets get slightly different variations of the same vehicle. Due to our cold winters, EVs sold in Canada need to have at least some tweaks to the BMS in order to make sure that the battery is being managed properly when temps drop to extremes. When I charge and precondition the car before heading out even in very cold temperatures I also experience 20% range loss like you mentioned. Which is fine for me and expected. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience!
20% sounds about right, my MG5 went down from 240 miles to just over 200 miles when the temperature hit just under freezing a few weeks back (greetings from Wales, used to live in Northampton a decade ago). Don't think we need to fear temperatures far below that in Sunny Blighty anytime soon... I just use the app to preheat my car, takes it through a 10 minute cycle before you even get in and doesn't even seem to eat that much battery. So nice getting into a car that's a crispy 19-20 C with defrosted windows.
@michaeldendulk2230 I actually have some Welsh ancestry, my Great Grandmother was a Pugh and came from Cardiff. She moved to Kettering in Northamptonshire to work in the Shoe industry.
Right what? I've been an electrician for 50 years. We're still mostly burning fuel to generate electricity. EVs are nothing more than a choice. Drive whatever you want. The 2030 agenda will have most people taking the buss.
Great advice and something I tell brand new EV owners all the time. If you are doing a long road trip and staying at a hotel for the night, rapid charge before you check in (unless the hotel has Level 2 charging on site).
Got -25c here a week ago and my wife's ford cmax battery was done. Car could not start. Boosted it and took it to a local garage. The mechanic says, we cannot get a new battery today there is none in town. Small town 10k people with a wallmart Canadian tire ,NAPA and a Benson in town. All batteries were taken. Luckely we had our trusty Hyundai Kona EV to go on our 900 km trip we had planned. No problem.
I'm in my third winter of driving EVs in northeast USA (near Quebec border). I shake my head when I hear stories of EVs not working in the cold, likely told by people with no EV experience. Range is definitely lower in the cold but that is the only disadvantage.
Norway supposedly has one of the highest percentages of EVs. That should tell people all they need to know about how well EVs operate in cold environments.
Exactly. Norway is the runaway leader in EV adoption and also one of the coldest coldest countries.
Hahahahaha... My ICE is from 2008 and NP. What we hear here is that people do not take care of their battery very well. Then low charge in cold and no crank.
I do not have to think about nor starting .. it just does.
Cold is cold for every car.
I live in Norway and i can tell you that the range on my Nissan Leaf 2016 sucks in the winter -5 to -14 celcius. It drops from 80-90 km to i have low battery and you really need to charge warning after driving uphill 1-2 km when using my heater.. so yeah the range really sucks on Nissan leaf 2016 in winter.
@@familienandresen5293 at last I’ve found an EV owner that tells the truth.
@@jamesmatthew2677 it tells me that Norway had incredibly generous incentives to encourage EV ownership, however impractical they were. No import duty, no VAT (sales tax), free charging, low company car tax, no road tax, free parking, free tolls, free ferries, use of bus lanes etc. So there’s that.
I’ve never heard anyone anywhere say EVs don’t work in cold weather. Only that the driving range is much lower.
And charging might be slower than expected. It depends on the car. Some are better at delivering specified rates, others require near ideal conditions and it's more of a marketing gimmick. While a battery gets heated as it's used (due to internal resistance), it's actually possible for it to get cooled as you drive instead of heated. It might then take some time to warm up for charging again. You notice it on long trips. You leave one charger with warm battery and arrive at the next with cold battery that can't take full rate unless you have a trip planned and the car can use that information to preheat the battery for you for optimum charging.
And yes, if temperatures get really, really low, it won't produce much power (chemical reactions will be just too slow); lower still and it might get permanently damaged. That's just a fact of physics. And cell manufacturers do specify temperature limits for both discharge and storage. Li-ions are pretty good at tolerating low temperatures. I think some can go to something like -40 °C. You'd expect a car to try to prevent this by heating the battery. But eventually, it would run out of energy and it would die. For most people, that's just hypothetical discussion.
Newer EVs with a heat pump have a loss of range of about 20%. ICE cars have a loss of miliage in cold weather of about 15%. The difference is shrinking yearly. The new solid state batteries on the horizon will solve the range and weight problem along with reducing charge times by 50%. EVs are untouchable now, at least the ones that have NACS and heat pumps, but they will run away with the market in five years. Maybe less.
@@jameswinburn6843 In general, I prefer electric motors over combustion engines for things that need motors, so I hope batteries will get better. There are other concerns, however, such as higher tire wear (you' be surprised how much tire erosion contributes to air pollution on the roads); safety (I am concerned about battery fires); cost (I hear damaged batteries cannot be repaired, so damaged batteries are a right-off in an accident = higher insurance premiums). Thes are just a few concerns. But perhaps they are getting sorted out. All thiings being equal, I'd much prefer an EV over an ICE but all things are not yet equal. As a side note: battery backup for home electricity makes no economic sense at this point; battery tech still has a ways to go.
@@jameswinburn6843 Even with the heat completely off I lose more than 20% of my range at 30F compared to at 70F. Heat pumps help, especially for short trips, but they don't help *that* much.
And with the range lower you run into problems with the heater.
I drove from Hearst, Ontario, when it was also -30 degrees Celsius in my 2016 Honda Accord. Got in, started it then drove over 500 km before stopping to fill up the at took 5 minutes, then completed my trip back to Toronto. My gas tank was full when I went to bed and was the same when I woke up to start my trip back.
and? i take a sh*t everyday and have no need to write it to videos that are about something else
Yeah, this dude is pushing some serious copium.
Aren't you funny. My truck is the same but I get 900 km on a tank.
But EVs work in -30, isn't that the point?
@@robertwarner-ev7wp Propaganda tells us that they are the future and we must adopt at all costs there are no downsides.
Reality tells us different.
If it works for you then great but I will bet that you have a large diesel 4x4 ready to help you when you need serious power and duration.
Don't expect us all to adopt his obviously inferior system and don't mandate that manufacturers must do this or that.
I can't believe they are willingly partaking in their own demise.
This whole net 0 thing is so obviously Stalinist or Maoist dictate people don't know history or the human mindset.
It’s not that EVs don’t work in the cold. It’s the fact that the range takes a hit. You lost 1/5th of your range just by turning the heater on. Plus, when you went to charge it, you were there for 40 minutes and it had charged up around 10%. EVs need to perform better or equal to an ICE vehicle before any ‘regular’ buyer is going to purchase one. The time will come, but it isn’t here yet.
If you live in the English speaking world in a home with a driveway, range and charge time is not an issue. I wake up every morning with a range of 400 km. About 6 times a year I take a longer trip, and I time it so around lunch time, I stop somewhere and my car charges up while I eat, seated in a restaurant. In 30-45 minutes, I have another 350 km range added on. If I need more than that, then I would repeat the process around dinner time. Not sure if I ever want to drive more than 1000 km in a single day, but technically I could.
I guess that makes me not a "regular buyer".
@@little_britain glad it works for you. Enjoy 👍
They don't need to perform better because their advantages will make up for lack of range.
Every gas car I've ever owned loses 20% of range or so in the winter. Same as my EV.
Purchase a Hyundai / Kia platform!! Other than the drop range you can recharge their wonderful vehicles in usually 18 min. back up to an 80% range. Better charging and longer ranges are around the corner!! With the Hyundai and Kia you are getting some of the best built EV vehicles on the road!!!
No one hates EVs. People don't want to subsidize someone else's vehicle purchase and they don't want to be forced to buy an EV
Not true! A lot of people hate Tesla EV. Probably because they know that everything else is a cra*.
So you're ok with subsidizing oil industry and gas prices, just not EVs? Oddly, when EVs are sold, the owner still pays subsidies to oil and gas industry. Weird how that works huh.
And forcing to buy EV. Come on! Aren't we forced to buy gas cars instead? See how that works? 😅😅😅
@@1968matrixthe BYD terrifies Tesla, half the price better car.
Subsidies for oil and gas help to heat homes and most buildings and provide the money for transfer payments most of which comes from Alberta. EVs are personal transportation
@@Ratboy2004 BYD and other Chinese car manufacturers will kill all the legacy car makers, not Tesla. Tesla is constantly innovating and improving: the only key to thrive in a competitive market. Japanese are gone, Europeans are gone, Americans are gone. Few will survive.... Nobody is understanding that
G'day from Australia! So glad that this will never be a problem for us!
That's one for Oz but you can keep your snakes.
@@jameswinburn6843 Snakes will get out of your way, I know this from experience. I'd hate to try that with your bears!
Never heard of the Snowy Mountains or Tasmania hey?
@@jasondoust4935, you get the opposite end of the spectrum, except for the mountains of New South Wales. How much battery does the air con chew up? Can you keep the battery cool enough?
Elevated battery electrolyte temperatures of >80°F (27°C) will reduce operating life, while lower battery electrolyte temperatures of
I'm seriously considering moving to Australia for that reason. No worries, I'm Canadian, not a Yank. 😅
I've got a Leaf and I can confirm that the range is definitely crap when it's cold. I'm a die-hard petrolhead and got the car for short trips (60 miles per week) because I thought it would be cheaper to run. Well, it is cheaper but only just. I pay zero tax (for the moment) and I can park for free in the city. Not to mention very little if any servicing or mechanical things to break. So, yeah EVs are good to a point, but they aren't going to get you 300 miles in the depths of winter as an ICE will. That's my take.
I'm curious if the leaf, like the Tesla, will eat through tires more from the extra weight and/or increased acceleration even if being light on the pedal. Teslas need new tires every 35k miles or so which is half of what a typical small ICE car's tires will last. Easily to 50-60k.
No thanks; I would NEVER consider waiting 1+ hour in the cold to fill up. I'd rather pull up to a gas station, fill up my diesel truck and get another 500 miles of range in about 5 minutes. Until EV charging can match that, NO EV's for me.
They make a nice summer toy in the sub $10,000 range.
I'm sure he probably has a charger at his house.I think he was just using the rapid charger as an example of how the cold effects charging.I just charge mine at home with a 3 pin socket charger which means that when your going to get your fuel for your "Truck" i'm enjoying a nice cup of tea with a good old crumpet with a bit of British butter on top.
Exactly. I charge at home 99.98% of the time unless I am on a road trip. And, yes, this was a test to see how a car like this would behave if I were to start it cold and drive to the charger. This was just a test not real life.
@@jjgermancarsdontsignal7746 Perhaps you should use that time to brush up on your English grammar instead. :) You missed my point entirely, I was referring to being on the road, like on long trips and having to refuel in order to continue on your way. If he has a charger at home, why would anyone drive to get to a fast charger; that's just silly.
What is silly is you not understanding the video and my explanation above. Don’t tell people to brush up on their English skills when quite clearly your reading comprehension is lacking.
Finish the video! How long to charge from 10% to 80% at minus 30? 7-8, 22 KW per hour! How long and at that temperature, how far on a charge?
We don't mind your EVs, we do not hate EVs, we don't want to be involved in your madness we just want the opportunity to buy a petrol car
Madness? lol. People wanting cheap running costs are mad?
Feel free.
@daviddawkins2829 i wish i was
Since when have you been banned from buying an ICE car?
Fine. Just pay for all the CO2 issues your ICE car produces when running. At 20 lbs per gallon, about $20 in carbon taxes per gallon of gas would be a good place to START.
So with a 33 mpg combined ICE, is 60 cents a mile in EXTRA costs just for CO2 tax WORTH it?
That's $60K in 100,000 miles, BTW.
Thinking that the earth is flat doesn't make it flat...
Those are so extremely low temperatures! I have never seen a better go this low below zero! Glad to know that everything works as intended. Thanks for doing this video.
Haha our whole week next week is going to be very cold so we are used to seeing temps like this. Glad you liked the video!
talking about low temperatures thats not considered low at all! ever heard of Yakutsk? they get down to the -60 degres
Looking at this from Ireland.
What absolutely amazed me was the lack of ice covering your car's windows.
We rarely get temperatures below -6/-8°c in winter, sometimes not at all although there have been about 6 so far this winter (and that was an official "weather event"). We can get lower but that's exceptional.
But if there is just a little frost at 0° or slightly lower, everything is always covered in thick ice because of the amount of moisture and humidity in the air.
I have always heard from European or North American continentals that -20° in their home countries feels much less cold in reality than a wet and windy 4° here or even just a dry 0° and they actually wear heavier clothing here for non freezing temperatures.
Quite apart from the car, I just thought that difference was amazing from my perspective.
Range should rarely be an issue with ev's because in reality very few people actually need more than moderate range for the vast majority of their driving. And for the occasional long distance drives you just need to plan your journey around one or more stops.p
If you have a cheap rate charger at your house or access to similar public chargers then EV's are very economical and convenient when used correctly and appropriately.
All this from someone who is driving a 12 year old 2.0 litre diesel saloon.
@tconnolly9820 our winters are very dry with little moisture so less ice accumulation.
Meh, they're not nice Temps but not bad.
Much of the anti-EV movement is not so much against EVs but against forcing EVs by governments in various ways. There are pros and cons of every type of technology and I believe people should be free to choose what suits them best. I would not choose an EV myself because I need the long range occasionally. But the free market should be progressing with whatever people find suitable. Great video, BTW!
Great comment. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
A few things things about that.
1. The government nowhere is forcing EVs on anyone. The few mandates that exist are requirements that car companies stop producing ICEs by some far off date (2035), but these dates keep getting pushed back. You probably won't ever have to buy an EV. Imagine you buy your last ICE car in 2035, it will be good for about 10 years, so we are into 2045 before you would have to get another vehicle. If by some amazing foresight on your part, you are right and the world is off in the wrong direction on EVs, then long before that time, we would have realized the error of our ways and ditched the whole technology.
2. EVs are passing the tipping point (price wise) this year (2025). Several car companies have announced that their EVs are now the same cost to build as ICEs. That has taken only 10 years to achieve, whereas ICE vehicle technology has been around for 150 years being improved and refined. There is absolutely no question that before you need to replace your existing vehicle, EV options will be available that will out-compete ICE versions on the price front, and they already out compete on every other front.
3. Even if governments dropped their mandates, at this point (see 2), car companies themselves will find that ICE vehicles, being more expensive to make, will gradually become less competitive. On the other hand, if you take religious joy in burning hydrocarbons, standing outside at gas pumps in all weather, getting oil changes, coolant top ups, "routine servicing every 10,000", then you will have to pay more for the privilege of paying more to the oil and car companies year round.
4. When a sea-change technology is introduced, governments always act to incentivize industry to avoid the country being left behind. The US and UK (and everyone else) did that with railways. They did it with automobiles (by building massive road systems). No country wants to be stuck making buggy whips in a motorized world.
5. When a new technology is introduced, in a "free market", the incumbent will always try to forestall new technologies. The oil and gas companies have spent a fortune creating an endless torrent of misleading and misinformation designed to slow down the adoptions of alternative technologies. Such articles as "revolutionary new hydrogen engine developed" and "new battery chemistry promises to double range and halve charging times" are designed to sow doubt, as well as the more obvious stories about battery fires, low range, impossible to afford replacement batteries etc etc., which are all funded by legacy industry in an effort to sow "fear , uncertainty and doubt" (FUD) in would be buyer's minds.
6. In the face of (5.), the "anti-EV movement" is just uninformed people getting their "information" from biased industry sources, or other people who have also been taken in. Once the obvious superiority of EVs sinks in, over the next 5-10 years, most of the people in this "movement" will be like, oh, I always knew EVs were going to win, I was just waiting for the right time to get one, and the remainder will become anachronisms clinging to the past.
And that's FINE, but you should pay the COST of all that CO2 produced from burning gasoline.
The economics would make an efficient HEV or PHEV a MUCH better choice, and you could still have high range and convenience for your trips.
I drive so little, next car I'll go with like a Camry HEV, 50 MPG or more, and so use only about 60 gallons of gas a year. I'd do that even with a high fuel tax, which we should have.
Choice is great, but responsibility and reality matter.
EVs being forced everywhere doesn't mean that all regular gasoline/diesel vehicles will disappear overnight. They will still co-exist way into the future, but with some mitigation
Like ICE car manufacturers are now making the hybrid cars as they're more efficient and has more range in the same fuel capacity than regular engine
I would have liked to see a 20 or 30 mile trip and see how the range changed. I missed if it showed interior temp. Pretty cold for any machines.
Check my channel for a -35 range test I did last year.
Same car as you (Soul EV), but I don't have a garage. -15 to - 20 isn't unusual here in NS.
I live it plugged to my 20 amp Level2, it has a schedule set to be ready to go at 7.40am (time to drive the kids to school).
When I get in it is automatically defrosted, the steering wheel is warm, the battery is barely below 0, and it has 240km to 290km of range with 80% battery.
During drives at colder than -10 it usually uses 30% of the energy for the hvac (which you can check in the car ev screen).
We use the warmed seats (front and rear!) a lot.. The kids love them.
Oh yeah preconditioning is key to owning an EV. In my normal day to day I park in the garage or if it is outside then, yes, will be preconditioning before driving anywhere especially in winter. My son is the same, he loves having the heated seats in the back especially during our Alberta winters! I will need to visit NS soon and do some videos there and check out the EV infrastructure.
@@LeftCoastEV what EV infrastructure? If you find any let me know
I heard from others that it’s bad so I would love to see it for myself.
@@LeftCoastEV surely worse than you expect. The entire Cape Breton has 2 single plug Flo 50kw.
Ok then you are right much worse than I expect. Why such slow infrastructure rollout?
I'm not sure EV haters are thinking the EV will just plain quit working in the cold. The concerns are drastically reduced range, and possibly slow charging. Which apparently is the case.
That said....although I'm not an EV fan myself (not the "nobody should buy one" type... just I do go on longer trips, and enjoy my 640 mile fuel range + fast fuelups too much to want to have to plan around charger availability and spend all that time charging), I must point out two points that gas fans generally overlook:
1) If you don't keep your 12V battery in good condition, your gas car won't start in cold weather, these videos of EVs going dead in cold weather, one could make the exact same video of gas cars dead in the water because of dead car batteries if they wished too.
2) EVs do get a range reduction in the cold, but so do gas engines! We got some cold weather here in eastern Iowa and it dropped to a bit below -40 (-40F or -40C? -40 is actually the same in both!) as I was driving in from New Orleans. My Chevy Cruze (which usually gets 40MPG highway, or 35MPG if I drive the piss out of it), as I drove through the -40 to -45 temps was getting 18MPG!
I'd just like to mention that a lot of the issues that EV owners experience with cold weather is due to poor education. What I mean by this is that just allowing your EV to preheat makes a world of difference to both available range, and how fast it can charge. Just giving your EV 10 to 15 minutes to warm up the battery before you start driving is plenty to not only be able to get into a warm car. The battery should be at a reasonable temperature to not suffer massive range loss.
There's a place for ev's and suit certain people, as well as them being unviable, or less suitable for certain areas or lines of work.
The backlash is mostly due to the governments manipulating the market through mandates, it reeks of corruption.
Sure there are EVangilists as well as haters as there are for everything, the average person I think can realise the propaganda from both sides and the truth sits in the middle somewhere.
@@ProXcaliber it doesnt really helps unfortunately! the ICE for example is able to compensate by using the extra heat to not suffer range reduction by long marge! just look at russia with those very frozen places with even older vehicles.
@@hwertz10 I think you and I are opposite sides of the same coin. I’m an EV fan but not the “everyone should have an EV” kind. I think if you can charge at home or work EVs are vastly superior in simplest all cases. If you need a truck to tow stuff those aren’t great yet. The Chevy truck does a good job with its huge battery. Honestly the biggest issue there is that most fast chargers would require you to unhook your trailer to be able to charge. This is changing though as both Loves and Pilot/Flying J are installing pull through chargers at lots of truck stops.
As for road trips yes they take a little longer, but if you get a car with a good charging curve it’s not that bad. With my Hyundai I can drive for about 3 hours then so to charge. Most of the time the car is ready to go by the time I go inside and use the restroom and grab a drink or some snacks. I just took a trip recently that would have taken a little over 10 hours in an ICE vehicle that took me about 11 in my EV.
@ Finally! Someone with a healthy perspective! Thank you! I agree entirely. I'd like to mention, as a side note, that another downside to the massive battery in the Chevy EV truck. Is that, even at a fast charger, it can take a long while for it to get back up to even 80%. Not that it's a bad thing if you are towing, but it would be something to consider. I also love road tripping my 2024 Model 3 LR. Thing is an excellent road trip car.
Which OBD program are you using/running
Helpful videos 👍👍 cheers
Car Scanner. Available for both Android and iOS. You will also need an OBD2 dongle. Glad you liked the video!
I got my Mach e LFP 2023 in winter and never had a problem. Parked outside but plugged in like any ice car and it works much better that any other car I’ve ever had. And on gas bill.
I’m in the same situation. If I cannot park in the garage I park outside without issue even on cold days and it always starts.
Dont start the heater when charging because you will be at the charging station till spring :0)
You’re lucky, at least you can build a snowman whilst you’re wasting your life charging an EV …
heat pump helps, right? Leafs etc don't hv
Heat pumps do help. You are right. Older cars have PTC heaters which are not as efficient. That is what the older Leafs use.
Mine works fine but even at -5C has half the range it gets in the summer. And takes longer to charge, especially DCFC.
Not a big deal for day to day use but it really slows me down on road trips.
Almost all post 2016 BEV's do NOT lose anywhere near half their range in the winter.
Now I haven't read the info talked about here. The things I have heard was been that the range they can drive when really cold is a lot lower. And the tests I have seen done has supported this. The start and drive, but the batter capacity fall fast and the total range is a lot lower than when it's warm. It will be interesting to see what the results is for this car.
It looks like you're in the Park? I'm a Bolt owner in Edmonton and 100% see and hear the same about the cold. The Bolt has performed perfectly at these temps.
I never had any issued with my EV during our winters. Glad to hear your Bolt is also running well at these temps. I actually live in Leduc. Thanks for watching!
@LeftCoastEV We bought the Bolt as the family runabout. It willingly handles all our daily commuting and evening/weekend kid ferrying. The older kids argue about who gets to drive it. :-)
I always found the Bolt as the perfect city car. Glad you enjoy it!
Some car model have an option to precondition the battery for this exact reason. It heat it up while you drive so it take the fast charge right away.
EVs can't charge easily in the cold but can easily start up and drive. ICEs can refuel easily in the cold but can't easily start and drive... Basically opposites! Not sure why so many ICE drivers are so disdainful of EVs when they need block heaters to even drive off in the morning.
Especially here in Alberta everyone plugs in their vehicle.
EV haters mostly have careers at the quickie oil change place or plan a career at catalytic converter thefts.
Starting is definitely a problem, lubrication is a problem. Otherwise, driving isn't a problem. Heating the oil up is kind of equivalent to heating the battery up. If you push an engine when oil is cold, you risk damaging it. The same is true for a battery, except BMS shouldn't let you. The difference is that ICE produces heaps of waste heat due to its lower efficiency. Especially the big petrol engines. And it's easier to heat up a few litres of oil than a battery.
would it be quicker/cheaper to drive a bit to warm the battery before charging, so the recharge is not heating the battery, or it is cheaper to use the charger to do that work?
2020 niro EV owner - it gets cold but not that cold in my area. Good test. For sure, things are slower and range is worse in the cold, but EVs still work. Battery preconditioning makes a huge difference of course.
For sure. In normal circumstances you would have preconditioned and then all is well. Glad you like the video!
yep as i said its always the latest EVs compared to much older ICE just wow!!! wow wow
5:30 "This is a cool test". I see what you did there - kudos.
You are the first one to catch this so thanks!
Have you driven or charged your EV in the extreme cold of winter? How was your experience? Share some stories in the comments!
A few weeks ago in my area of NY we had -22C to -24C weather. My '20 Niro did just fine. It powered on and off I went to work.
Thanks for sharing this! The older Kia EVs are still very capable even in winter. Mine is the 2021 Kia Soul EV.
@@LeftCoastEV I am more surprised that it put anything into battery at such temps though. My old VW e-up! did not. It would not put anything into battery until non freezing temps were achieved. It heated battery faster though, around 10-15 mins from -20c. I now drive a Polestar 2 and if I am going on a long trip I leave the car plugged in on level 2 power point and notify the car of planned departure. It then spends 30-40 minutes before departure heating the battery to prepare. Result is no power drop in acceleration upon departure, and no loss of capacity even here on the frozen planes of Hoth (which it appears I live on half the year). I've driven EV's only for over 10 years now, and not once have I gotten stuck because of cold, but twice have I been delayed over 40 minutes due to charging stops with frozen battery. Not too bad in such long time. Bonus is I have not put diesel in the gas tank or vice versa in this period either.
@ the way that EV tech is advancing even my car, which is a 2021 Kia Soul EV, already feels old to the brand new ones on the roads today. I also wanted to know if it would charge and I was happy that it did, even at these temps. Good to know that modern EVs are not as susceptible to the cold as the older ones were.
@@LeftCoastEV They may use a chemical moderator in the battery to reduce plating and dendritic formation when charging at sub zero temps, or they may be simply a bit permissive about it and taking a risk. Depending on your battery warranty they may shift the risk on you though.
Generally we say (I've worked with EV charging systems) that charging at sub freezing is simply to be avoided and better to put all energy into heating until temp is ok, but Kia may have done things to mitigate this, or found a suitable level of compromise. I was surprised as well, that it charged that much to begin with. It also shows it's battery heater is only 2-3kW. Tesla is known to spend energy in the motor(s) in a locked up state and then harvesting this energy to heat battery faster. I am not sure if other manufacturers can do this, or even if they are allowed due to the stupidity of patents possibly blocking them. To engineers this is pretty obvious, but to lawyers it is not.
They predicted 0 F for several days. I stopped at a AE charging station. I charged to 80% on a Thursday. I had a doctor appointment at 08:00 Tuesday. The temperature was at 0F everyday. I stayed in the whole time. Tuesday I went to my car to go to the doctor. MY car showed 5% charge 5 miles on the predictor meter.
Wednesday the temperature reach 32F. My car showed 15%, 20 miles predicted. I went to the AE station. It cost me $30. To charge back up to 80%.
It's really totally up to the 12V. Anyone that can't go anywhere at low temperature, the problem isn't the EV, it's the lead-acid starter battery. Just like an ICE car.
Even my lowly 10yo Leaf has a battery heater.
Totally agree. Oh...I would love to do something similar in a first gen Leaf!
My Kia e-Niro throws an error when the outside temp is +5c it's been to a dealer and returned with no fault found. It's just happened again yesterday and this time the infotainment screen has gone as well. Maybe I should get a Soul?
Mine is doing fine in the cold so could just be your particular car that has issues. The Soul is pretty good , I like it.
An interesting test would be to driv the car so it's warm and working well then park it with perhaps a 10% charge and see how it handles when it's that cold. How far can you drive on a pretty low charge when the battery has cooled down that much? How long time does it take for the battery to warm up enough to be able to fast charge? This is a situation that can be tough for a EV as I see it. An ICE has the energy that's in the tank, and the temperature doesn't really change that. water in the tank is however something that can be a killer for ICE, as is frozen coolant and oil. But with the right coolant, oil and some alcohol in the gas that shouldn't be a problem. Still, an ice engine can get damaged if it's real cold so that's not a perfectly safe option either.
Gap between getting in the car and then you are driving down the road thought the idea was to show starting the car and driving off how long did it take to clear windscreen and heat the car?
6:12 is that a big crack across the windscreen? That looks like one that would fail a UK MOT (long and in driver's main sightline).
In Canada no one cares since they love to put gravel and sand on our roads in winter. Basically making it a windshield killer.
That's typical for Canada, cars ahead of you kick up the gravel used on the roads in the winter.
M6 can throw lots of crap up sadly. Another windscreen killer
AND, also can you turn on the cars heater to keep you warm?
Of course. Check 4:25 of the video and you will see the heat is on. In the Kia it is a separate button called "heat" which you can see in that part of the video.
I did a cold soak a couple months back on a 2022 Mini Cooper SE. Outside temp -27, battery temp hit -14. The car limited power to 30%, which you could tell, but otherwise behaved pretty normal. I didn’t test fast charging. I’m also in Edmonton.
Nice to see folks from Edmonton in the comments! Thanks for the info.
yeah its always the newest EVs vs old ICE make it make sense......
How long did it take to charge the EV and how much $ to fill up?
This isn’t a charging test. If you want costs and charging times you can explore my many other videos as prices vary between Canada and the USA as well as the many charging providers. I mostly charge at home on my Level 2 charger overnight and it costs me about $6 for a full battery.
I visited Canada some years ago and the motel I stayed at had cables to plug in engine block heaters. If ice cars were so good in sub-zero conditions, why did these things exist?
Shhhhh! The anti-EV trolls don't want to be bothered with facts! 😅
Exactly! The plugs are still around and the perfect way to trickle charge your EV at night staying in a hotel on a road trip in Canada. What I do is I fast charge to around 80% before arriving at the hotel and then plus into one of those plugs with a Level 1 charger and have 100% the next morning. Thanks ICE drivers!
HAHA you are right...facts are not something they like.
Yes, decades ago (especially 1970's even employee parking lots in Quebec had an outlet at practically every spot). This is because it WAS much harder to start a car that had a carburetor, thick oil, low engine compression and batteries that would easily drop in voltage to 9V while cranking. My dad was told by a mechanic to turn on the headlights for a second, in order to "wake up the battery." Block heaters would heat up the engine oil and many had warming blankets over the battery as well. At home, you'd plug in your car at night, but have a timer that would turn on the current two hours before you left. Some also had auxiliary heaters in the car to warm up the cabin, but these were often removed because they could be a fire hazard. For winter driving, you'd place a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator to block about 50% of the surface area. EVs have none of these problems because there's no combustion reaction needed to start.
Thank you for the wonderful story! It’s amazing how far we have come in car technology. Thanks for sharing.
What happens to the car battery if it runs completely out of power and sits out overnight at this temperature?
Nothing good, same as a gas vehicle.
Thanks for showing the experiment. Reallife is always nice to see.
I'm into the 6th year of owning a 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV and have never been happier with my car. In fact, I am more concerned with that salty winter slush on the roads than with the EV performance. Winter or not, my Bolt gives me all I need.
The Bolt is such a good EV. Even older ones are perfect for new owners dipping their feet into EV ownership. How Chevy brings it back!
@@LeftCoastEV Couldn't agree more!
Exactly. You don't need to have the latest, greatest technology to have a good EV experience. Yeah, I'd love a new Model X, but my Bolt does everything I need at a fraction of the cost.
How did you crack your windscreen?
Alberta roads. Here they put down gravel and rocks during winter. Windshield killers.
My new Kona 2025 electric performs very well at the same at this temperature. I charge on my level 2 charger all the time, just use the app to start it and warm up the car, then I go like any normal car, The range goes down to 230km (summer range is 420 km), and this is normal. My Volt did the same. I didn't see any difference with both cars. With my previous ICE cars, there was always an anxiety when starting the car at these temperatures. WIll it start? WIth EVs, I never had this anxiety. Thanks for the video. But you have to make sure you are always full.
I am in QUebec.
Thanks for sharing your experience! When I drive ICE and it was very cold for a few days in a row I also wondered if it would start or not. Now with the EV anxiety is gone. Thanks again!
I would love to know where the electricity used by the charger came from.
You can Google this info...search for electricity sources in Alberta.
No you don't. You just want to shout "coal electricity, see it's not greeeeeen!!!!11"
@Tschacki_Quacki who would do that? That's a strange response. I would just like to know. I used the word love, my mistake , and you jumped to a judgement. Nice.
The best part in my EV is that the heater is on pretty instantly and heats up the inside fast and the windows are defrosted in no time.
Exactly. And you can do all that via your app from the comfort of home/office/wherever before you get in the vehicle.
12:43 Ofcourse it will work. I had an EV (yes HAD) the real problem is the range. 550km turns into 100-250km. My current gas car can go 800 - 1200km doesn't matter if its winter or summer.
Interesting test ! Here in Germany we do not have those minus peaks. But around 10 years ago had our E320CDI outside at a very cold winter with -20 degr Celsius. It dit not start, had to be towed. HPpump burst, 3000EUR gone. All of my 7 E-classes had problems in winter temperatures (-10 is very cold here....) and it´s not common here to preheat your car. So, the last 3 cars before our EV were no diesels (plug-in gazoline). Now, with our EX40 no more problems with Turbos, injection valves, pumps (and finally a cracked head in the E320cdi). Just be careful in start phases even with EVs (as you said), it still has a gearbox with oil like honey. Still cannot understand, why we have so few EVs here, we still have discussions which are nonsens (can it run 1000 kms as my Diesel ?).
Back in my younger days I also drove a diesel and no thanks, not going back. So I understand all the problems you had, I was in a similar situation more than once. Exactly, even with an EV you need to be careful during a cold start and don't do it too often. There are still fluids there that need to warm up. This is why preconditioning on cold winter days is key. Looking at other European countries, not sure why the adoption rate of EVs is lower in Germany. And like you said people saying they can drive 1000km on a diesel is nonsense indeed...they don't need to stop to stretch legs, go to toilet or eat? I have to and when I stop I charge my car and when I am done I am ready to go so I never wait for it to be charged. People who hate EVs make pretty silly comments!
@@LeftCoastEV Germany hasn't been as generous with its EV incentives as other European companies, probably why the adoption rate is lower. Got my first EV this month (MG5, not something you can likely get in Canada as it's a Chinese brand, but they build to European standards, design is done in London) and don't think I'll be going back to ICE. It isn't the longest range car, around 240 miles/386 km, but I'm currently not doing long trips, so it is fine for me.
Hoping by the time I replace it we'll be fully into semi or full solid state batteries with ranges up to 1000 miles, then the range anxienty will be gone (I must admit I do have it now, even if it isn't warranted) and probably that will also be when I start going on some longer road trips to see some of the corners of the country. I must agree though, even if I'm driving long distances, I aim to stop every 3-4 hours to stretch my legs, have a coffee and maybe something to eat and already fast chargers are prevalent everywhere near UK motorways, so nothing stopping us from doing this. We just need some regulations on prices charged, as some are stupidly expensive.
Let's hope that with the new tariffs introduced by US government against Canada will be a wake up call for our government to not be dependent on the US for pretty much everything. The only reason we don't get Chinese EVs is that our government plays ball and does not want any US auto manufacturing competition since we have a few plants in Ontario that manufacture US vehicles. They could easily do a deal with Chinese brands like BYD to take over manufacturing and still keep Canadian jobs, but the US wouldn't like it. With the new trade climate being what it is, maybe things will change.
As for as your choice of vehicle, I really like the MG. Enjoy it! Also, thanks for the info on why Germany is lagging behind other European countries in terms of EV adoption.
When I lived in the Catskills New York, I had my 82 Mazda GLC with a manual transmission. When it got down around zero or -10°F, the gear oil and the motor oil were so thick that the car wouldn’t start, even in neutral, unless you push the clutch into get the engine started. Once the engine started, you could let the clutch out, even in neutral and it would bog the engine down a little bit, but after a while, it would drive fine.
the reason the taxi drivers in Chicago had problems last year i think ... was they all ran there cars to low state of charge and did not preheat the batteries.. also when the station was full they did not go to another station if you look where they had issues there were 4 more tesla charger stations within a 10 mile range also there were many level 2 chargers that they could have plugged in and gotten some recovery instead of Turing everything off and freezing the battery while waiting at the station. Most the issue were they all bought used Tesla's single motor cars and did not RTFM and did not realize you need to navigate to charger even if you know where it is.
live and learn
Watching you outside in those temps and I can feel my nostrils sticking together. lol
This might be TMI but my nostrils did stick together when I was filming this!
@@LeftCoastEV I knew it. lol
Ever had tears freeze your eyelashes together when you blinked? Yeah, that’s cold.. needing to unglove a hand so you could melt the eyelash ice and see again.
@@ChuckvdL Yeah, been there too.
Great video. It may be superstitious, but I hold the evse nozzle into the car until the handshake happens. Where I am on Vancouver Island it seldom gets below 10C (14F), so I have zero problem with my Bolt euv in the cold, but Bolts don't have heat pumps, so range is lost, and I deal with it. I do notice that if I'm plugged in at home - in the winter -- and the battery has reached target charge, I see a spike in electricity usage every four hours or so, which I assume is the BMS.
You are correct. The BMS has one job and one job only: to make sure the battery is functioning properly. If it needs to warm it up, it will do so. If it needs to check individual cells for posterity, it will do so. Most EVs will use the grid power when plugged in when the BMS or other systems are running thus not depleting the high voltage battery. Glad you like the video...wish I was living on Vancouver Island, it's one of my favourite places in Canada!
Interesting video but really, REALLY hilarious is that you live near me! 😝
I’m watching and thinking HEY that looks like Blackgold Ave and the LRC!
2 km away? 🤔 you’ve got to be near me, I live in Aspen Creek. ❤️
Yup very close to where you live!
Very informative video. This should be shown to anyone buying an EV and worried about driving it in cold temperatures.
There is really nothing to worry about. Even if you cold start you are still fine. But most EV owners will precondition their cars beforehand anyway. Sure there is range loss but ICE cars also burn more gas during winter.
@@LeftCoastEV In theory they should use less fuel because cold air is denser and therefore has more oxygen. And more oxygen means better combustion.
@@adriaanvantulpenbaard1740 Dense air also produces more drag which impacts efficiency. Something that also happens to EVs. I’m sure that there are also other factors like combustion (harder when it’s colder), oil viscosity and so forth.
you should definetly have a heated garage or insulate your 12v battery very well thats the problem on older cars mostly! or cars that werent made for the cold climates!
@@LeftCoastEV If you extrapolate your power consumption of 5% for 2.4 miles driven, you get a range of 48 miles, and that would be completely depleting the battery. I believe that is what ICE drivers are talking about, a ridiculously short driving range.
Let the haters know that EVs are very stable in the snow too. Our Kia EV6 has snow mode, where all 4 wheels are driven, and it's heavy. Our miles per KWH drops from 3.2 to 2.9 (at 70 mph) when we get below 25F, but we can still go anywhere we need to. The battery warming software has not been downloaded yet, so charging starts out slow (25 KW) but since we charge at home mostly we haven't bothered with the download. Glad it doesn't get that cold on the coast of Maine.
Good debunking with proven experimental tests.
Thank you and glad you enjoyed the video.
But how did the driver keep warm & how much power did it take?
This answers the big question. Do not go further than 10km from a power source in cold weather and always park inside in the winter.
What for?
@@beatreutelerwhat,for,what?
Yes absolutely spot on, I drive my car hundreds of miles and I certainly don't sit around waiting for it to charge up every hundred miles if your lucky
I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But there are plenty of cases where what you are stating is not the reality. Plenty of people don't have homes with garages, or if they do, they often use it as storage and don't park their vehicles inside. Yet they manage to own EVs without issues in cold weather. The reality is that this test essentially demonstrates a worst case scenario, where you have no parking garage, you aren't able to plug in at home, and you start driving from a completely cold car without preheating. In most cases, you would not do all of those things, or at the very least the one thing you would have to worry about, is not being able to plug in at home. But simply doing the smart thing and allowing the vehicle to preheat before driving makes a world of difference, even if you cannot plug in at home. If you can plug in, then you basically have nothing to worry about, whether you park inside a garage or leave it out in the elements.
Huh? I believe this video gave exactly the opposite answer to your "big question." He parked outside (not inside) in the cold, and even though he started out with only 40% state of charge, he still had at least 100km range left (not "10km"), even with the heaters going flat out. And had he driven, say, 80km down the road, then stopped at a DC fast charger (as you do when you road trip) the battery would then have been warm and ready to accept a charge at a normal rate. And for a shorter commute, the ability to DC fast charge with a cold battery doesn't matter. He could just have plugged in when he got home. An EV can charge normally on a level 1 or 2 AC charger even with a frozen battery.
Why were electric outlets so popular in downtown Canadian city parking. (hint: Block Heaters)
Thanks for sharing!
You are welcome! Thanks for watching.
Some balls to do this test with an already cracked windshield!
That’s how it is in Alberta. Everyone has at least one crack.
@@LeftCoastEV The more you know!
Very helpful video. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you liked it!
In Sweden and Norway, there are fewer problems with BEVs than with ICEs when it is -40 C.
Even here in Canada when it gets really cold ICE drivers have more problems getting their car started than me!
This. Or else, Norway wouldn’t have most EVs per capita in the world.
@@cousinluigi I read a study on EV ownership in Norway and basically it is rich families buying a second car when their first car is usually a petrol car. Very few people buying EV as their first car. AS usual huge government incentives to buy an EV produced a distortion in the market. In Quebec, with subsidies it was cheaper to by an EV than a hybrid Prius! How crazy is this?!
@@dimdim3490 Norway has mandates on taxis, so 9/10 of new taxis are EV, and on a visit I saw so many EVs as private vehicles too it was amazing.
@@dimdim3490 A single study? Was it peer reviewed? Does it have sources and other supporting information? How many people were asked? There are a lot of things that matter when discussing studies.
This test could have been done in northern Finland aka Lapland :) At the moment about the same temperatures there. Thanks for good information and yes, it's a little bit slow with charging now. The good point is the motor will always work and heating the inside of the car to decent temperature is pretty quick. Sounds crazy that not all CVs have battery preheating even today. Must have!
Glad you liked the video. I would really like to travel to Finland one day to do some videos there. My Kia is a 2021 model and does not have preconditioning unfortunately. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this interesting video showing an EV working at the extremes. I am 6 years into Kia e-Niro ownership here in France and of course we never get anything like the temperatures you get....So far this year in Southwest France -3c was out lowest. The Soul has same battery and BMS as the Niro and ours is now on 115,000 km with no problems and no discernible loss of range.
Glad you like the video! My Kia Soul EV is also going strong and just passed 100,000km a few days ago. I have not done a proper battery degradation test, but so far, like you, have not noticed any range loss.
Here, in northern MN, it hits -40c for a day or two every winter.
We get temps like this occasionally. Plus windchill. It gets cold.
Gosh, my diesel won't even start at those temperatures.
EV can have problems too at low temps, but most likely it is the 12V battery that are dying
Really? Because my BMW diesel starts just fine in those temperatures. Get your glow plugs checked.
@@mediocreman2 well, it's old and will be replaced with a nice Electric soon
why dou you fail to mention its an old diesel first?! thats the problem on internet! always the inacurrate informations been divulged everywhere! diesels have a glow plug for a reason! and with a good 12v battery insulation you have no problems! alot of modern ICE vehicles for example the 12v battery located inside the car or at the rear less susceptible to climate conditions.
@@mediocreman2 exactly! glow plugs are the key for diesels.
"So, it's now talking to the car".
- Hey, power station.
- Hey, car. How are you?
- Oh. -30C all night.
- Same here. Would charge me?
- Yeah, off course. Pay money through app. Or RFID.
What a nice Canadian talk.
Not a hater but physics dictates that batteries are less efficient in the cold no matter what. EV's are great in the right place but they are in no shape or form reducing carbon emissions as more carbon is emitted from the power stations every time you charge them up unless you believe in free energy.
To be fair, ICE vehicles also have issues in the cold. There is a reason I don't like to let my fuel gauge get below half during Winter. I remember the stories about EV charging troubles in Chicago, and I believe it was mostly new owners who underestimated the range hit they would take in the winter and waited a bit long before hitting the fast chargers.
From what I've heard, even with the environmental cost of creating the battery pack, most EVs environmentally break even by about 50,000 miles. A major part of that is that renewables are making up a growing part of the electrical grid. This is happening even in red states.
"EVs ... are in no shape or form reducing carbon emissions as more carbon is emitted from the power stations every time you charge them up unless you believe in free energy." - Except where grids are partially (or nearly completely, in some cases) powered by renewables, where some of those electrons are as good as carbon-free. Meanwhile, the petrol/diesel an ICE vehicle uses has to be pumped up (using electricity generated by burning fuel if it's an offshore rig), pumped ashore if nearby, more often pumped into a ship, which then burns lots of fuel getting it to a refinery, where even more electricity (some of it green, now, as the refinery is likely connected to the grid) where even more energy is used to fraction it into its various fuels, then even more fuel is burned transporting the finished product in lorries to the various fuel stations where - finally! - after just a little more electricity is used to pump it into your vehicle, you burn it once & throw away the residue (carbon + various other nasties)..... what do you reckon the overall percentage efficiency of that process is, bearing in mind that your vehicle is at MOST 40% efficient?
One thing that really does highlight, though, is just how energy dense oil is: The fact we can use all of that energy and STILL get useful amounts of work done with the remaining fuel is quite mind-bending.
@@darwinskeeper421the Chicago drivers were pretending they were driving ICE and treating Superchargers as if they were gas stations. Only went to the “gas station” when battery was low. The correct way to operate an EV is to have an L2 connection at night so the car is “full” (typically 80% is enough) every morning. This uses power when the utility has a generating capacity surplus, proving revenue they would not otherwise receive, that can help keep daytime rates down and/or pay for expansion and line maintenance.
@@N4HHE Interesting, but it raises a question. What should EV drivers who don't have access to a level 2 charger do in the winter? Is there a winter safe amount of charge they should never go below before they head for Supercharger? Should they set up their vehicle to precondition the battery on the way to the charger? Inquiring minds want to know.
@ they should do the same thing those who own horses do, you don’t own a horse unless you gave the facilities to support it. You are begging the question in presuming everyone is entitled to an EV. If you live in an apartment then you have elected to do without things homeowners get. Just as when you chose to drive a sedan vs pickup truck, you do without the capacity to bring an 80” tv home from Costco.
Here in the UK we never get temps that low. However, I had a problem actually getting into my EV6 as the doors were frozen at -7c. This would happen to any car, EV or ICE. Used the app to heat up the inside a few minutes before I went outside and then no problem.
Good! And it should be noticed that for a LARGE percentage of owners, charging at home (L2) almost exclusively, this is a non issue even at minus a million. I've used fast chargers (L3) four times in two years.
Another (less) fun detail... my VW ID.4 is terribly misbehaving at temps below minus 20 C. The computer goes nuts, half the assist systems are gone, my dashboard looks like a Christmas tree (warning lights). Apparently, this is a VW thing, your Kia seems responsive.
I've heard of the same from a few VW ID.4 owners here in Alberta. When the temps drop, the car systems go a bit wonky. So far my Kia has been driving without issue.
What app is that? Paired with OBD II?
Car Scanner with an OBD2.
The only thing I do different when heating car is to press the recirculate button. Then you heat up air that already is heated and de-ice goes quite a lot faster. Remembering to switch it off before I get moisture on the windows is harder to remember
Good tip thanks!
And of course, he has the classic Alberta cracked windshield…
Also in those temps I would have plugged in and preconditioned before moving off. Good video tho! And our Polestar 2 is an absolute champ in winter weather, central Ontario.
Hey it’s not my fault that they put rocks on our roads in winter! Yeah I always precondition but the point of this video was to see a cold start and charging session. Glad you liked the video!
90% of new car sales was EV's in Norway last year. Would have been really stupid if EV's didn't work in cold winter 😀 We had -20C and below in three weeks last winter and my Jaguar I-pace had no issues - except high consumption.
We who drive EVs all know that they have no issues running in the cold...this video is more for those folks still on the fence about EVs and who are worried about driving them in cold temps. Conclusion: there is nothing to worry about except, like you said, higher consumption.
While true, Norway is actually a lot warmer than you might expect (Gulf Stream).
Hows that interior, nice and toasty warm?
Yes. Much sooner than an ICE.
@@daviddawkins2829 no way
@ press start, and the same way an EV will leave your ICE vehicle in the dust, the heat is juiced by the battery and is boosted by heat pump, radiant heaters, heated seats and steering wheel. The top of range on the thermostats in mine is 29.5 and it certainly goes for it I have tried it. You do not need to take my word for it. The next -30 or -40 day pick a dealer and ask for a demo.
@@daviddawkins2829 I live in Northern Canada, its 24 below right now. There's NO way any electric heater is going to heat my truck like my gas engine will . And if you did route all the electric to heat whatever it could, you'd be stuck 20 miles down some logging road dead in the water.. If I ever decide to move to a warm climate, I'll consider an electric something to get me around town..
@
I am in Edmonton and it’s much warmer today. It’s a balmy -21. And I don’t do logging roads in winter.
Unfortunately where I am living now, ex-Pat Canadian, winters are not nearly that cold(5-10c) but I did grow up with winters as cold as yours. Thing is though ICE vehicles can't be left out either in extreme cold I remember everyone having their cars plugged in even if they were at work to keep the engine/12V warm enough so it would start when finished for the day. I remember my Dad wrapping the 12V battery in a warming blanket that the plug stuck through the front grill and plugged it in overnight or if it was going to be parked for say a day somewhere and it was cold temps.
This is still a thing here in Alberta. Many parking lots have plugs so ICE drivers can keep their vehicles warm so they can start. Which is also nice for us EV drivers as we can also plug in and Level 1 charge off a normal wall plug if needed. Thanks for sharing your story and I am jealous you no longer have to experience such winters haha! Enjoy the warm weather!
@@LeftCoastEV Funnily enough I grew up literally 3hrs west of Calgary in the Columbia Valley so really not that far from where you are now. But yeah well today is weather I don't really like, forecast for 33 luckily only one day tomorrow cooling down to 27 luckily I'm not on mainland Australia WAY too hot for me.
Don't lithium ion batteries get damaged when they're below -14?
Tip if you have no optional battery preconditioning mode: Speed up and regen-brake like an idiot to make the battery warm up on your way to the fast charger.
This is called yo-yoing the car lol.
Other drivers are going to love YOU ! Driving without due consideration for other road users is an offence in Britain and will result in a fine and 3 points on your licence as a minimum. Also note that at 10 p.m. the previous night, he had 128 kms range. By the time he moved, he was down to 98 kms. He didn't show how the range dropped when he was driving to the fast charger. In Britain, that overnight loss would cost you £18 at a public charger. Where I live, we don't get -30°C but we do get -10°C. Just couldn't afford to drive an EV. I'm not made of money.
It appears that Sunshine, other than for this video, habitually parks his Kia in his garage. I and my two adjacent neighbours have shared private parking for 20 cars and double garages, BUT, over half of households in Britain do not have private parking and many who do, do not have an electricity supply to their private parking. With threats that household insurance at reasonable cost will, in the future, forbid the parking of EVs in garages adjoining houses and suggestion that such insurance will require an EV-free zone of at least 20 feet from the house, for most British people, home charging will be impossible and therefore, ownership of EVs will be completely impractical.
This is becoming more and more of a class divide. The rich will be able to drive their EVs but the majority of existing drivers priced off of the road. I habitually park my Kia Sedona diesel outside because I can't be bothered to open the garage. A cover over the windscreen when frost threatens keeps it clear. The car starts every time and the heat to keep it clear and make driving warm and cosy is free
Did you just call me Sunshine? Thank you for the compliment. As for my range loss driving to the charging station…that’s shown in the video in % as this is how most EV owners calculate range (not based on what the GOM says).
@@LeftCoastEV Does your range indicator take into account the fact that your battery loses range AND consumes far more electricity in cold weather, I would be interested to know the reduction in range on the journey compared to the actual mileage.
Yes, I know you use stupid kilometres but in Britain we still correctly have distances in miles hence mileage, and speeds in miles per hour. Despite the Bolsheviks who run our Country behind the scenes having imposed the metric system upon us for many food stuffs and the purchasing of fuel, we still buy milk and beer in pints. Things like vinegar are sold in metric, but the bottles are 1.14 litres .... that is right .... a quart ... and cans of beans etc are frequently 454 gms ... that's right ... a pound
@ Yes it does, but it is not as accurate as I want it to be. It's an old EV from 2021 so technology and range projection have improved since then. This is why I don't rely on the projected range in KM but on battery %.
I see you have the compulsorily Alberta crack in the windshield. 😆
Haha I do! Thanks for watching!
You don't start an EV, you turn it on.
Or fire up, even by itself 🤣🤣🤣
Picky, and not strictly correct. Starting an ICE means priming fuel, running initial checks and engaging electrics first so that the crankshaft can be rotated. With a battery EV starting involves engaging electrics and running checks, to prepare the engine/motor for rotation. Semantics, I know, but maybe think it through first.
@@RobA_OzGood god, give me strength 😂🤣😂
@northsouthpaw Just like a washing machine
you start it.
My Audi A3 from 2000 got a really rough idle when it's under 5°C or just shuts off. The check engine light turns on and I got error codes like mixture too lean and even cylinder misfiring detected. If I had an EV none of these problems would occur. At least it runs fine after 10min ride.
EV's with an age of 25 years don't exist and time will tell if their battery will ever get that old, I doubt it....
@@Anton-pu3jz They do exist (Peugeot 106 from 1993-2003 for example). However in that time you probably replaced the batteries couple of times. Time will tell how good new battery tech is. And also you could replace modules over time.
My Audi A3 is from a time when Audi still built pretty reliable vehicles and has seen service on a regular basis, that's why it got so old. There is no way a new A3 will last 25 years.
My 4th winter of driving my id.3. Yes the range drops but it’s great getting into a defrosted warm car in the morning all managed from my app. Would never go back to ICE unless I had to. We never get temperatures like that in the Uk. Thanks to the Gulf Stream. Take care.
Cool (literally and figuratively) video. Thanks. Crack in the windshield confirms it is an Alberta car lol
Haha thanks for watching and yes, indeed, cracked windshield always = Alberta.
A chap in the Prairies tested overnight minus alot in a Tesla 3, he found leaving the car on was best, battery stayed warm with very low consumption. You have to realize that an electric motor & systems consume little while running, it's the start up that consumes.
That was a good test, but most folks wouldn't be running their car at night. This test is to show people that if, for example, you stay overnight at a hotel or friends place without the ability to charge or leave your car running, that you can wake up and know for sure your car will start and take you where you want to go. On a day to day basis I keep my car in the garage and if it is outside I precondition before setting off.
The greatest energy consumption occurs upon acceleration (e.g. stop and go) because of the inertia you have to overcome to get the thing up to speed. This is true regardless of the power source.
In an EV when you stop you use regenerative breaking which puts energy back into the battery.
@@LeftCoastEV Great. How much?
@@citizeng7959 I didn’t test the exact figures but in many instances it helps with lowering consumption and extending range. This system is also quite useful when I drive through the Rocky Mountains here in Canada and steep declines put in quite a bit of juice into the battery. I might do a video on this in the future. Hybrid vehicles use the same technology to top off their batteries.
-30°C and You don't need gloves?? 😂😂😂 (you only got 2km)
And no hat, go team Canada! But seriously, the air is so dry you can take it for a few minutes unless there is some wind. Just be careful with touching some metal, like door handles.
When it is cold and dry I can handle the temps for a little while.
4 years living with an EV in the middle of Sweden. Best winter car ever!
It really is!
How much juice does running a heater use?
lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I live in the UK and I worry about the temperature going down to about +2°c. I feel reassured having watched this video.
Glad I could help!
So your next door neighbor had an extra hour in bed. Started his ICE vehicle, cleared his windows and heated the inside, with the free heat. And is now sitting at work nice and warm, while you are paying good money to heat your battery, as you slowly freeze to death. What a wonderful future.
Since when is gasoline free?
You realize if you plug it in at home, you are spouting nonsense. Give it a few minutes at -30C and it is toasty. By the way mine is parked outdoors and it was -30 not last night but the two previous nights.
Can someone please tell me what App he’s using in this video?
I can tell you. It’s Car Scanner. You can download from the Google Play and iOS store.
Thank you for illustrating how the car responds when the owner makes virtually every possible mistake. 😉
From my understanding, fast-charging a battery at extremely low temperatures is highly detrimental to its long-term health.
This is a one off test to see what would happen. But thanks for your opinion.
The reality is that typical car owners make virtually every possible mistake.
Bring on sodium batteries.
I'm in Northamptonshire in the UK, fortunately it doesn't get anywhere near that cold here, a cold winter night here would be about -5° with a possible -10 Celsius on a really cold night. I have a Renault Zoe ZE50, I guess the manufacturers likely change how the BMS behaves related to the region it's sold in. Having worked in the automotive industry for years I know manufacturers will make tweaks depending on conditions, ie extra dust protection for cars in Australia, or extra corrosion resistance for UK vehicles because of the damp and use of rock salt to de-ice roads. As far as I know my Zoe doesn't do any extra battery heating until you plug it in, then if it's sub zero it does a battery warm up cycle before charging for about 2 mins. Other than that no issues apart from around 20% range loss.
I think you are correct that different markets get slightly different variations of the same vehicle. Due to our cold winters, EVs sold in Canada need to have at least some tweaks to the BMS in order to make sure that the battery is being managed properly when temps drop to extremes. When I charge and precondition the car before heading out even in very cold temperatures I also experience 20% range loss like you mentioned. Which is fine for me and expected. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experience!
20% sounds about right, my MG5 went down from 240 miles to just over 200 miles when the temperature hit just under freezing a few weeks back (greetings from Wales, used to live in Northampton a decade ago). Don't think we need to fear temperatures far below that in Sunny Blighty anytime soon... I just use the app to preheat my car, takes it through a 10 minute cycle before you even get in and doesn't even seem to eat that much battery. So nice getting into a car that's a crispy 19-20 C with defrosted windows.
@michaeldendulk2230 I actually have some Welsh ancestry, my Great Grandmother was a Pugh and came from Cardiff. She moved to Kettering in Northamptonshire to work in the Shoe industry.
As a EV enthusiast I appreciate getting real user information about EV's. Thanks so much for dispelling the myths about EV's....😁
we drive in 120 summer and 0 winter. crazy our EV keeps working......the right cant comprehend.
EVs are great and work in all conditions!
Right what? I've been an electrician for 50 years. We're still mostly burning fuel to generate electricity. EVs are nothing more than a choice. Drive whatever you want. The 2030 agenda will have most people taking the buss.
Thanks for this. very interesting.
You are welcome and thanks for watching!
Remember to rapid charge when you finish your drive whilst the battery is warm. You get much better speeds.
Great advice and something I tell brand new EV owners all the time. If you are doing a long road trip and staying at a hotel for the night, rapid charge before you check in (unless the hotel has Level 2 charging on site).
I thought this was a well conducted and interesting test. Left me feeling reassured. How what age is your Soal. Many thanks.
I have the 2021 Kia Soul EV Limited. Thanks for watching and glad you liked the video!
Got -25c here a week ago and my wife's ford cmax battery was done. Car could not start. Boosted it and took it to a local garage. The mechanic says, we cannot get a new battery today there is none in town. Small town 10k people with a wallmart Canadian tire ,NAPA and a Benson in town. All batteries were taken. Luckely we had our trusty Hyundai Kona EV to go on our 900 km trip we had planned. No problem.
Thanks for sharing this! The Kona EV is a great car.
How was the heating then.
Heating is faster than an ICE.