Winter Weather Performance

[jefro]

A good heat pump would fix part of that.

If one has the ability to pre-condition the vehicle that also seems to help a lot.

Norway also has good EVSE locations and government and business support for charging. My stupid workplace has refused to allow any EVSE for the last few decades I have tried since the Leaf came out.

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[playjack]

Question in winter effects on ev, if a lightning was fully charged overnight but due to cold weather, instead of 300 miles it actually has only 180 mi (300 X .6). After burning 100 miles, truck has 80 mi left. But truck was then parked in a warm say underground building. Will the remaining mileage recovers to 200 mi as what it should have if it was driven in a warmer time of the year? Or does the cold temperature just eats the mileage and can't be recovered and truck isn't able to come home unless recharge.

 

[LightningShow]

The 41% average drop in range is pretty accurate. And that’s at 20F.
The biggest issue I see based on new EV owners posting on the Mach-E forum is that quite a few people don’t do their research and are shocked at the cold weather range. Scores of folks insist that their car is broken, Ford installed the wrong battery, etc.
It‘s important to do your homework before dropping this amount of coin on a new vehicle!

41% sounds excessive to me. I don't see anything close to that in my Bolt. I made a 70 mile drive at 20F last week with an efficiency of 3.2 mi/kWh. I get 3.9-4.0 mi/kWh in ideal weather. That's only a 20% loss and I had the HVAC on at a low level (the 3.9-4.0 is without HVAC). Running the HVAC on full blast (like my GF does) definitely makes a huge difference, when she's driving the car I see the range go down to 2.5 mi/kWh. If you're only considering the loss due to the ambient temperature, it's likely less than 20% particularly once the battery itself warms up. Even traveling at a consistent speed my efficiency goes up a few tenths as the battery warms up.

So, really it depends what you're looking for. If you need to max out your range in the winter for a trip you can sacrifice some comfort in the cabin and get 80-85% of the stated range but if you want to be cooking in the cabin you probably will only see 70% or less. Lower if it's under 20 degrees.

 

[sotek2345]

Question in winter effects on ev, if a lightning was fully charged overnight but due to cold weather, instead of 300 miles it actually has only 180 mi (300 X .6). After burning 100 miles, truck has 80 mi left. But truck was then parked in a warm say underground building. Will the remaining mileage recovers to 200 mi as what it should have if it was driven in a warmer time of the year? Or does the cold temperature just eats the mileage and can't be recovered and truck isn't able to come home unless recharge.

A little bit of both. If you start with 180 miles of range and use 100 of that, that is 55 percent. If the temperature then get back to say 70 degrees (note, not just the truck, the ambient temp) you would have 45 percent battery remaining or 135 miles.

Note, this would be a very unusual weather pattern.

 

[RickLightning]

Question in winter effects on ev, if a lightning was fully charged overnight but due to cold weather, instead of 300 miles it actually has only 180 mi (300 X .6). After burning 100 miles, truck has 80 mi left. But truck was then parked in a warm say underground building. Will the remaining mileage recovers to 200 mi as what it should have if it was driven in a warmer time of the year? Or does the cold temperature just eats the mileage and can't be recovered and truck isn't able to come home unless recharge.

You're also making an assumption that the range is affected solely by the temperature of the battery pack itself. In fact, the GOM (guess-o-meter) looks at WEATHER to determine range.

The real range, not dissimilar to the DTE gauge on an ICE vehicle, is the miles per kWh (gallon on ICE) that you actually are getting when you use the vehicle. So, if you pre-condition via a departure time with the vehicle plugged in, the battery gets warmed up. The fact that it's cold out will impact it once you start driving, because the battery isn't going to stay warm.

As @sotek2345 stated, the real measurement that you use is the % of battery left, times the size of the battery, times the miles per kWh. As you drive, it's pretty easy to do that. If I have 50% left of a 131kWh battery, and I'm getting 1.5 miles per kWh, then I expect to get 98 miles of range before I'm empty. Since I never want to be empty, I can go 80 miles with a buffer.

 

[jefro]

The larger energy losses are from battery conditioning and cabin heat in cold weather. Both are currently performed by resistance heating in most EV's.

Keeping the EV in a 50 degree garage may reduce it's battery conditioning load.

Since I live in zone 8 I don't use heat that much but I could see how range could be reduced 50% in cold climates if one wanted cabin heat. Most days I just run seat heat which isn't on the Pro from some odd reason. Also don't get seats wet ever, never ever.

 

[LightningShow]

The larger energy losses are from battery conditioning and cabin heat in cold weather. Both are currently performed by resistance heating in most EV's.

Keeping the EV in a 50 degree garage may reduce it's battery conditioning load.

Since I live in zone 8 I don't use heat that much but I could see how range could be reduced 50% in cold climates if one wanted cabin heat. Most days I just run seat heat which isn't on the Pro from some odd reason. Also don't get seats wet ever, never ever.

I just saw an article that looked as the different effects of cold weather on EVs. Unfortunately I can't find it now but they were claiming most of the range loss was due to additional drag caused by density of the air increasing when it gets cold.

 

[Sam James]

41% sounds excessive to me. I don't see anything close to that in my Bolt. I made a 70 mile drive at 20F last week with an efficiency of 3.2 mi/kWh. I get 3.9-4.0 mi/kWh in ideal weather. That's only a 20% loss and I had the HVAC on at a low level (the 3.9-4.0 is without HVAC). Running the HVAC on full blast (like my GF does) definitely makes a huge difference, when she's driving the car I see the range go down to 2.5 mi/kWh. If you're only considering the loss due to the ambient temperature, it's likely less than 20% particularly once the battery itself warms up. Even traveling at a consistent speed my efficiency goes up a few tenths as the battery warms up.

So, really it depends what you're looking for. If you need to max out your range in the winter for a trip you can sacrifice some comfort in the cabin and get 80-85% of the stated range but if you want to be cooking in the cabin you probably will only see 70% or less. Lower if it's under 20 degrees.

This is my experience with my ID.4, so far at least. Preconditioning the battery and not going overboard on the heat has worked just fine with minimal impact to range. Kids don't have heated rear seats or anything, but they do just fine with jackets on in an already warm car.

 

[Maquis]

41% sounds excessive to me. I don't see anything close to that in my Bolt. I made a 70 mile drive at 20F last week with an efficiency of 3.2 mi/kWh. I get 3.9-4.0 mi/kWh in ideal weather. That's only a 20% loss and I had the HVAC on at a low level (the 3.9-4.0 is without HVAC). Running the HVAC on full blast (like my GF does) definitely makes a huge difference, when she's driving the car I see the range go down to 2.5 mi/kWh. If you're only considering the loss due to the ambient temperature, it's likely less than 20% particularly once the battery itself warms up. Even traveling at a consistent speed my efficiency goes up a few tenths as the battery warms up.

So, really it depends what you're looking for. If you need to max out your range in the winter for a trip you can sacrifice some comfort in the cabin and get 80-85% of the stated range but if you want to be cooking in the cabin you probably will only see 70% or less. Lower if it's under 20 degrees.

I think the 41% will be pretty close if you drive just like you do in the summer at the same comfort level.
Short trips are a killer. If I leave home when it’s single-digits, my 5 mile trip to the store will run about 1.5 miles per kWh. The return trip home will be 2.5 because everything is warmed up.

 

[LightningShow]

I think the 41% will be pretty close if you drive just like you do in the summer at the same comfort level.
Short trips are a killer. If I leave home when it’s single-digits, my 5 mile trip to the store will run about 1.5 miles per kWh. The return trip home will be 2.5 because everything is warmed up.

Yes, definitely. Warming up the car for a short trip kills the efficiency. If you're only commuting 10 miles back and forth you'll probably see a 40% "range" loss but for that kind of use case the range number doesn't even matter because you're at a charger every 20 miles. It's important to note that doesn't mean you'll only get 60% of the EPA range if you go on a road trip. If you preheat the car while it's plugged in and don't go crazy on the heat you'll probably get >80% of the EPA range if you keep under 70.

 

[EaglesPDX]

Unfortunately I can't find it now but they were claiming most of the range loss was due to additional drag caused by density of the air increasing when it gets cold.

Air density will go up about 10% in Winter but the net effect is smaller.

" This means that if you make a 10% reduction in aerodynamic drag your highway fuel economy will improve by approximately 5%, and your city fuel economy by approximately 2%."

Winter loss of range of 40% is mostly the battery issues plus wet or snowy roads.

 

[LightningShow]

Air density will go up about 10% in Winter but the net effect is smaller.

" This means that if you make a 10% reduction in aerodynamic drag your highway fuel economy will improve by approximately 5%, and your city fuel economy by approximately 2%."

Winter loss of range of 40% is mostly the battery issues plus wet or snowy roads.

Actual loss is far less than 40%, though. The 40% that's often quoted includes accessory usage. If you're just looking at range loss specifically relating to ambient temp it's usually under 20%. It also seems very dependent on the vehicle (see chart). Interesting that they see the largest loss with the Bolt, my experience has been completely different. I see ~15% range loss at 30F when I don't run HVAC. I consistently get 3.5 mi/kWh compared to 4.0 at "normal" temps. Maybe Chevy adjusted the battery conditioning at some point? Interesting that many of the cars see almost no loss.

 

[RickLightning]

Some of these vehicles don't weigh much. Some of them drive like a toy car, whereas the Mach-E, and the Lightning, will invite heavy foot syndrome. Mach-E is much heavier than a Bolt. Also matters if you drive on flat terrain, with no hills, and on highway, vs. local.

 

[EaglesPDX]

Actual loss is far less than 40%, though.

Actual loss on trip last week was more like 50%.

 

[LightningShow]

I just noticed that those numbers are just estimated range based on what the vehicle's display tells the driver, not any kind of actual range testing. The Teslas don't drop because Tesla's software doesn't consider ambient temperature in the range estimate. Kind of a stupid chart, actually.

I will say, my Bolt *does* show a huge drop in estimated range when it's cold out. I can very easily beat the estimated range that it shows when the car is fully charged. It will often say something like 110 miles at 80% charge in cold weather but I'd get 150-170 miles of actual drive range. It seems to aggressively compensate for HVAC usage.

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