AAA Study Claims Cold Weather Significantly Shortens EV Range

I'm comparing how far ICE has came in the past 100 years (a long, long, long way) and saying, in 100 years from now, electric will probably come a long, long, long, way.

Sure, but you're missing the point. EVs have not come a long way over the past 100 years, because battery technology sucked, and still sucks. The key problem the entire time, has been batteries. And you can't claim "well if the automotive industry actually put money into R&D it would be better", because that's simply not true, as many other industries also rely on battery technology(everything from flashlights to forklifts, some of which are made by auto manufacturers) and the combined efforts of those industries exceed anything the auto industry would have been capable of on its own.

And you're right, it would make more sense to use a hybrid fleet of vehicles, as current battery technology can definitely supplement ICE. Hell, look at the diesel electric locomotives that the train industry uses. Run the ICE generators at their peak efficiency, then use batteries to store any excess while powering the train. The chevy volt actually did that, but that's out the window. The other key problem with a lot of these EVs and even some hybrids, is that they're also little econo-shitboxes. The BMW i3 is trash, the Volt was a cheap econobox, the Bolt is still a cheap econobox. There was a hybrid cadillac, but it was just a chevy volt with different body panels and an outrageous markup. Most people don't want to pay $30-$40k for the equivalent of a Nissan Versa for everything besides the drivetrain.
 
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Extreme cold significantly shortens the range of a traditional internal combustion powered vehicle as well.

Maybe if you let your car idle for 20 minutes in the driveway to get the ice off your windshield. Mine get parked in a garage or under cover and in normal usage I don't see a significant difference in miles per gallon on the winter. Heck my supercharged truck does better in the winter than the summer but for physics of different reasons.
 
I used to dis hydrogen cars, but the more I have thought about it I think those advocating it might have been onto something since battery technology, as others point out, still sucks for bulk energy storage. It's expensive, heavy, short lived and long to recharge.

Hydrogen can be produced anywhere you have electricity (and is a by product from many industrial processes), is a lot more energy dense and a hydrogen fuel cell can be charged as fast as a gas tank. Now hydrogen under pressure can be a little scary - but a big freaking lithium ion battery bank is pretty damn scary too and people should be a lot more respectful of those things than they are - but I digress.

A serious shift to electric or hydrogen will have to solve the distribution problem; electric has a sight edge with home charging. Maybe a home hydrogen generator that's as cost effective could be produced. My grandmother had an oxygen concentrator in the 80's the size of a dorm fridge that needed a dedicated outlet and they have portable units now that can go four to five hours on a battery charge so there is probably more room for dramatic improvement in generating, transferring and containing hydrogen vs. batteries.

Anyway the only real disadvantage to todays hydrogen fuel cells is a little is bleed to keep the temp down to keep it liquid and the pressures reasonable. Right now I'm visiting my folks for a couple of weeks; by the time I get home if I had a hydrogen car the fuel cell would probably be depleted so would need some sort of on demand fueling service or a home generator. Again imminently solvable. Maybe it already has been - I just realized it's been quite a while since I really payed attention to hydrogen fuel cells since Musk with Tesla has whipped up the media and everyone else to focus on pure electrics. Heck now that I think about it there was an article discussing a strain of algae they found that produces commercially viable amounts of hydrogen as a by product. Treat wastewater generate hydrogen.

There's potentially a number of ways to start shifting from pure ICE cars. I was very disappointed the first hybrids weren't more like the diesel electric locomotives. Mazda was proposing using a Wankle teamed and dedicated to a generator (not tied into the drive train) as a range extender - Wankels would be perfect for this. They are tiny compared to other traditional ICE engines, very reliable and a lot more fuel efficient if they are allowed to work solely in their ideal power band (easy to do if teamed with a generator) and would be perfect for this use case. Sadly I don't think Mazda is solvent enough to take on something like that :(
 
Having heat in the car is not the same as being at optimum temperature for best fuel milage.
I agree.

The important bits of an ICE are warmed up WAY before you start getting heat through your vents. We're talking 1-2 minutes for all that friction of moving metal to heat up the critical bits of an engine.

Don't get me wrong, the article is clearly penned by captain obvious, but then again the impact of cold weather will be far more detrimental to a battery operated car than an ICE car. There's no way to make that argument look good for an electric car. All that wasted energy in an ICE goes somewhere (lots of it is heat fyi) and even in extremes like the -20f or lower temps we had last week the ICE is going to lose less efficiency than a battery powered car unless you're idling the damn thing for 20 minutes before taking a 1/2 a mile trip.
 
When ICE took over from horses, did the government have to pass laws mandating the change? Did they force carriage sellers to have a percentage of ICE sales each year? Did mobs of people run around and try to shame, coerce, or lie about the drawbacks of horses and the benefits of ICE?

No. The market saw the benefit and ICE took over from horses. Then, after being adopted, competition forced improvements. (How many flats do you get in 20 miles? Ever break an arm cranking your car? Etc.)

EVs probably have a place in our future. But not as long as the "do-gooders" are using the power of government to forcefully coerce their use.

This mileage drop? Yeah, just one more reason to be wary of them.
 
NOT significantly. This a weak attempt by all the ICE haters to minimize an advantage of gas engines.
Actually I'm more being facetious... Too many serious people on here. I'm actually pro-EV and would love one myself, but that doesn't mean I'm anti-ICE especially if you consider our family's classic car collection

If we're talking facts though, until up to temperature ICE cars do use significantly more fuel... So on short runs they are very affected. Long runs not so much...
 
I'm comparing how far ICE has came in the past 100 years (a long, long, long way) and saying, in 100 years from now, electric will probably come a long, long, long, way.
Electric doesn't need to replace ICE and won't for several decades.

I absolutely love electric motors. In industrial applications, they are absolutely amazing little(haha "little") tools and if you toss linear actuators into the pile it becomes even more awesome.

That said its also old tech. Really old tech. Banking on improvements on par with ICE development period at this point is a little well... hopeful. The reality is we are pretty darn close to the physical limits of storage unless we want to take some significant risks for operators and electric motors are already near their physical limits as well. Electric isn't a miracle technology. It never was and it never will completely replace liquid fuels no matter what future you envision without a novel material.

The best case scenario is liquid fuel powered electric hybrids. It's a technology that is proven, has plenty of room to improve both in design and based on physical laws, and it has the most combined efficiency for any transit application(air, sea, & land).
 
No shit.

Guess what.

Extreme cold significantly shortens the range of a traditional internal combustion powered vehicle as well.


Next up, AAA confirms water is wet.
Except tanking up is minutes and charging is potentially hours if you can find a place. Or, there's no place you can't still reach in a gas car whereas the point of no return in the EV just shrank 40%.
 
That's why it's mostly Hybrid vehicles here in Canada, you guys are talking 20 F, How about 0 F in the winters ?

Have they not tested this in R & D ??
 
I know this, so perhaps I should have worded my post better. Let's try this instead, I have bolded and underlined the parts I should have added to my original post:

Half an hour to warm up at 20°F?!? It didn't even take my truck (V8 Silverado) or my wife's car (V6 Malibu) that long to warm up during our recent -40°F or colder cold snap we had here in upper Illinois recently. Took a few cranks to start at 5:30am with your nuts freezing to your leg but after a few minutes the engine smoothed out, maybe 15 minutes later sitting idle then we're on our way to work with heat from the fully warmed up engine as indicated by the temp gauge in my dash cluster. On a normal cold day? Let it run for five minutes, begin driving, have heat and a warm vehicle after 10 minutes of total run time thanks to the fully warmed up engine as indicated by the temp gauge in my dash cluster.

This.

When you temp gauge stops moving your thermostat is opening and your engine and water are now 'heat soaked' and is operating at optimum temperature.

Also, the reason why your mileage is going down, as well, is because the colder air is way more dense to a combustion engine than 70-90 degrees F air. So the computer sees this as a need to increase fuel because the oxygen sensors are telling it the air/fuel mixture is too lean. So, to maintain the air to fuel ratio set from the factory it will increase the amount of fuel being delivered. Burning lean on a motor is terrible for it.
 
imagine that, colder weather means you have to heat up your car and electric heat is very inefficient....
 
My response was also to the fact that he said the IC engines also take a significant hit in fuel mileage. And at 20F they do not. I do agree with you that 20F is a cold temp for a battery, but 20F isn't an extreme cold temp and is routinely a temperature in the winter for the upper area of the US.




Even when it was -20F air temp, most people don't bother plugging in their gas ICE vehicles where I am from, let alone 20F.

-29F car started right up each time....
 
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Yeah, this Z guy is clearly full of it along with the hordes giving a like to this nonsense. At 20*, it takes about 5 minutes of idle to warm up. Even frigid temps take 10-15 on most vehicles and that really does not burn much gas.
Just yesterday my Jeep sat outside at work for over 9 hours in subzero temperatures. Yep, it never got over 0F. After warming up for 7 minutes, the coolant temperature was 100F. 8 minutes of driving brought it up to 185F (normal operating temperature), so 15 minutes in -5F weather. Another data point: I normally get a consistent 25.5 mpg in the summer. Over the last 3 weeks of frigid and snowy weather it dropped to 25.3 mpg. That difference is probably within the margin of error, so really, no change in mileage.
 
This is just another example of why these things need to die. ICE for life.
 
This is just another example of why these things need to die. ICE for life.

Electric has its uses and gas has its uses. The world will be better with both and both are continuing to get better.

Right now electric ice augers are all the rage back home. Even old guys that have used gas or propane augers for decades are paying big bucks for a 40v auger. Hunters sometime prefer electric ATVs for their silence.

Still, it will be a LONG while before electric vehicles are useful as a pickup or practical for cold climates.
 
This is just another example of why these things need to die. ICE for life.
No, electric vehicles don't need to die. They just need to stop being cheap overpriced gimmicks, or luxury toys. It's been brought up a few times, but a hybrid power train is great since it combines the positive aspects of electric drive and an internal combustion engine, using the ICE as a generator is even better. The problem is that people want to push so far away from ICE that they're missing the middleground which is completely viable today.
 
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