For all of you electric car owners, how is the charge in your batteries holding up in this cold weather?
Are you still getting the same distance out of a charge or are your batteries draining faster due to the cold weather?
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ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@Virgo79 Hardly at all in my 2015 Tesla S 70D. The heater has a maximum output of 6 kW and it rarely has to run hard. Newer cars use a heat pump which further cuts the power needed to warm the cabin.
Typical below freezing 'fuel' consumption is about 250 Wh/km at say 100 kph (60 mph), that's 25 kW. But I never need to run the heater at maximum, that only gets used for defrosting the car before setting off. At most the heater would increase consumption by about 10% in my car and less in newer or smaller cars.
Typical below freezing 'fuel' consumption is about 250 Wh/km at say 100 kph (60 mph), that's 25 kW. But I never need to run the heater at maximum, that only gets used for defrosting the car before setting off. At most the heater would increase consumption by about 10% in my car and less in newer or smaller cars.
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@Virgo79 I used to fairly often drive over the mountains between Oslo and Trondheim in the winter at -20 C. The range didn't seem to be noticeably affected by having the heater on; I drove in shirtsleeves and barefoot.
Virgo79 · 61-69, M
@ninalanyon must just be a fan blowing heat off the electric parts
ninalanyon · 61-69, T
@Virgo79 The heater in my car is a resistive heater connected to the high voltage battery. The other electric parts, battery and motors, are all liquid cooled so the air conditioning heat pump is also involved to some degree I think to cool the battery and motors, I presume it can dump some of that heat in the cabin but I'm not sure of that. Newer cars use an actual air source heat pump as well I think.