Electric Cars in Cold Weather: The Reality and What You can do! – #EV
So this is one of those hot topics that we’re going to talk about while the temperatures are freezing you see what I did there so let’s jump right into things hey guys welcome to another episode of LJ’s garage I am back in the studio and today we’re going to talk
About something that’s been taking the Internet by storm it’s all over social media and I kind of want to throw my hat in the ring on some things and some stuff and what I’m talking about is the fact that EVs and the cold are two things that don’t seem to mix very well
It seems like these things should come with some sort of a disclaimer warning training additional information to let buyers know what they’re getting into when it comes to EVs and the cold if you don’t believe that global warning global warming if you don’t believe that global
Warming is a thing yet you still tell your kids about Santa Claus you’re part of the problem so that is a real thing and if you can’t tell that climate change is in fact happening uh you know it’s 60° 50° in Hawaii things like that
That are kind of weird um maybe not not that weird I don’t know I’m not Hawaiian I haven’t lived on the island but I can tell you this much that there’s a lot of weird things happening and right now in Ohio it’s been in the teens we even hit
Negative degrees I want to say a couple days ago I think it was like two degrees but it felt like Nega five or something along those lines so with all that being said I just want to say that it’s crazy it seems like electric cars are starting
To be a normal thing and they’re everywhere yet only 2% of the cars in the US are actually El electric cars I hope one day that I’ll be a part of the electric car ownership thing and so right now I’m trying to get my hands on
An ev9 so that’ll be the first electric car that I film I’m excited for that one and I’m looking forward to it so a couple things that I want to point out is that as much as that seems scary it’s not a unique thing to electric cars to
Have diminished performance with sub 50 30° temperatures uh specifically below 20° anything below above that is still consider pretty good temperatures the ideal range for Batteries is between 68° and like 86° that’s where they’re happy so you can imagine once you get to the 20° you’re kind of missing out on a
Little bit there and so it is not optimal if that is what you’re driving is an EV so the couple things you’ll notice you’re going to notice decrease range slower charging speeds overall you’re just going to notice that the car is just less efficient believe it or not
This does happen to gas cars as well and so people often think that you know because you drive a gas or diesel it means that these things don’t happen to you well an electric car has a low voltage battery and a high voltage battery and just like every other car on
The market low voltage batteries you know your 12vt traditional ones it starts to deplenish even faster in the cold than it would just sitting in your garage in the middle of summer so something to keep in mind there and I’m not trying to put electric cars and gas
Cars in the same boat and try to diminish the problem that they’re facing right now but I am just trying to say that there is a little bit of overlap between the two and Diesel owners will chime in at any moment and let you know what I’m saying when it comes to
Efficiency range all those things the ability to start the car in the middle of winter all those things are noticeably different when you’re talking about 20° and Below one of the articles I was reading from Forbes says that the average efficiency loss is between 12 to
41% for EVS and so with that being said that means that 12% which again is similar to gasoline cars for the uh efficiency change is sorry I got I got distract I’m over here petting my dog but what I’m saying is that that 12 to 41% reduction in efficiency is actually
Due to a couple things and you know if you’ve driven an EV you notice that when you’re getting ready to go to the charging station it’ll say it’s prepping the battery to accept the charge which is just the batteries heating up a little bit adding some temperature so
That the chemical reactions and and things like that um you know electrons and all that stuff can flow from one place to the other one side of the battery to the other side positive negative all those things I’m not going to get into the science because I am no
Engineer I am just a person who thinks I’m a mechanic some weekends but moving on to the next point is that 12% is if you just happen to be below 20° now the other kicker is let’s say that you turn your heat on that means that your toasted buns with your heated steering
Wheel and your heated seats and all those things you’re trying to get the temperature to be 80° inside of your Tesla Model y your Model S the a the E the X the Y all of those you’re trying to get your heat up by doing that you’re adding to the reduction in efficiency
And now you’ve lost 41% on average mileage reduction and that’s pretty tough so a lot of people that have let their batteries go below that 20 to 10% range they wake up one day and their battery is just dead and one of the things that they don’t teach
You when you buy these cars is how to actually jump start those cars or to access the car when the battery has died whole another video something that I want to dive into a little bit more because I feel like those tutorials will be good for owners and I’ve learned a
Lot of that just watching like B is for build um Rich rebuilds a couple different channels where they talk about how to uh get into those cars when the batteries have died some of the tips and tricks that you can do is set your CL it
When the car is still on the charger park inside of a garage and really just lower the temperature even though it feels like you get in the car you want to crank it to 85 don’t do that set it to 65 or 60 you know bundle up put on
Your seat warmers heated steering wheel and just keep it a little a little bit of a lower temperature so that you can get a little bit more range and most importantly during the winter time try not to dip below that 10 to 20% battery because one it’s it’s going to take slow
It’s slower to charge and everybody else and their mom is going to be at the charging station so if you want to avoid that charging at home keep it in your garage but also I mean I’m in the midwest so maybe I think garages are more plentiful than they actually are so
That tip may not go for everyone obviously but it’ll definitely help if you can keep your electric car charged up and in your garage so that way you don’t have Frozen door handles or a Frozen frunk and if you do need to jump start the car and access these things
They’re not frozen shut so as we start to move into electric cars you know I think the last statistic I saw is 7% of new car sales are electric and another thing I wanted to add on top of that too is that there is a big push to fix the
Infrastructure for electric cars right now in fact President Biden has actually signed a I think it’s $1 trillion dollar some crazy dollar value on uh enhancing the infrastructure we have and the goal is to have a charging station on highways every 50 Mi and I know you’re
Saying every 50 Mi is still pretty far but that’s huge considering that a gas station is almost like sometimes every three exits on the highway the furthest exit I’ve ever seen for a gas station I think is when I was in Wyoming I think it was 80 mil to the nearest gas station
And that was pretty terrifying uh when you’re on those open roads you know in the middle of like Utah Wyoming Idaho Montana those parts part s but it’s a great drive and so having that little anxiety of 80 M apart 50 Mi seems like a pretty more acceptable uh you know
Target to shoot for and I’m hoping that eventually that does kick off and that’ll help relieve some of the range anxiety that people feel you just have to adapt to new technology there’s always changes and there’s always workaround and I know that some people are like if I spend $770,000 on a
Electric car or let’s say I bought a rivan for 100,000 I shouldn’t have to deal with these things if you tell me I’m going to get 270 mil on a charge I should get 270 the thing is that’s not real world and the way they test those
Range numbers is not the way that Americans Drive most people drive at all so very few people are actually going to hit those things um yeah but anyways and rant I just wanted to get in on the conversation about electric cars a little bit more and talk uh you know
Share some points consider but there are other countries that are way way way way more ahead when it comes to electric cars like Norway I think the statistic I saw was one in four cars in Norway is an electric car and that’s one of the coldest countries I’ve never been but
I’ve heard and if they are able to make things work there’s no doubt in my mind that the US will find a way to persevere and push through and I think the tradeoffs of electric cars are worth that and eventually I plan to get into
One and so for those of you that have and are worried about saving the environment and protecting the future for our children and things like that my hats go off to you my goal is that electric cars will move away from being like vegan and like a crossfitter like
Those types of folks you know and get away from that so they’re not getting all the bullying and the hate for being an EV owner I feel like it’s a little bit ridiculous and I hope we start to move away from that it’s not it’s not
Anywhere near like that you know so what if you eat organic things and care about the environment and the planet you shouldn’t be picked on for it so and rant for real this time that’s all I got for you guys be sure to like comment subscribe share your thoughts let me
Know whatever I missed and uh we’ll talk about it some more but I’ll see you guys on the next episode Peace
I wanted to share some research on what happens to Electric Vehicles (EVs) when the cold weather hits. Anything below 20 degrees can create a mess for owners.
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