A ten year old EV with a quoted range of 200miles would have been measured on the old NEDC system (not WLTP) which was much more optimistic, so realistically about 150 mikes when new.
It will have probably lost around 10% of range depending on how it has been used and maybe another 10-15% temporarily due to the cold, so about 110-120 mile range at the moment.
I don’t think you’d have anything to worry about though P, you only see snow one day a decade where you are.
Last edited by Dave+63; 18th January 2024 at 10:03.
It'll be the power needed to keep the cabin warm. Look at my pics. 1st shows current temperature in Kingston of -7C. 2nd shows car with cabin temperature of 3 degrees. 3rd shows that 4 mins later it has pre heated the cabin to 17 degrees and used 1% of the battery to do so, which equates to around 2.5 miles range.
I guess if you needed a lot of power to keep the cabin warm (such as if it was minus 20 or so) then yes range would suffer.
Luckily it is rarely minus 20 here so no big drama
Good job I don’t live in Chicago. Or commute on the M4 in a boat.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
Ok, so it’s a bit more complex to answer than X, so bear with.
So, 10 year old EVs with 200 miles range are quite rare beasts, you’re really only looking at the Tesla Model S, which will be doing that still now given the evidence.
Many 10 year old EVs were in the 75-125 mile mark really, due to the battery sizes being fitted, themselves constrained by many EVs of the time being designed on an ICE platform like the E-golf etc.
It’s possible to conflate two issues here, battery degradation due to to age and battery cycles, and capacity loss due to very cold weather, all batteries store less energy when they’re cold.
Manufacturers, and just about all of them now, use battery packs that can be heated and cooled to keep them in the ‘Goldilocks’ zone and minimise thermal stress.
Let’s go back to a 2014 e-Golf though, circa 26kWh usable pack, real world range of around 80-100 miles. Let’s factor in some degradation, 15% and you’re at around 70 miles. Factor in another 15% for extreme cold and a wet road/head wind etc, and we’re perhaps looking at 60 miles.
So, if the car in your example did have a 200 mile range to begin with when new, then perhaps your guesstimate figure isn’t wildly off.
Fast forward to 2019, and VW launch the ID.3 with its 58kWh usable pack, and all of a sudden it’s a 200+ mile car in most conditions, the oldest of those isn’t yet 5 yrs, but all indications so far are that the battery management and actively heated/cooled batteries are doing well, and I’d expect them to still have a usable 50kWh of usable battery at 10 years old, or 180 miles of range at the average I got when owning one at 3.7 miles per kWh.
My first EV was a BMW i3 60Ah, with the range extender engine under the boot floor, the public charging network really was dire back in 2014, the batteries on those have lasted very well, it was oversized to begin with (top and bottom buffers) so had an easy life. Most modern EVs have similar setups battery wise, they don’t ever really charge to 100% to preserve battery life, nor does the Battery Management System let them discharge too much, hence why you see people like me describing batteries as having a usable size, some of it is hidden and you can’t access it or use it.
Tesla’s all have heat pumps now, very efficient at producing cabin heat, so on a longer journey wouldn’t be the draw you think.
They don’t work well when very cold though, hence why your car also has a resistive heater to provide that initial heat you want in the cabin until the heat pump gets up to working temp, that’s what used the power in your scenario this morning.
The ID.4 I have doesn’t have a heat pump, it can pull up to 7kW to provide initial cabin heat, albeit only for a few mins, and once under way consumes aroun 1.5 to 2 kW per hour, so on a 3 hour journey (about my limit) it consumes around 15-20 miles of range. With a 77kWh usable battery though, it doesn’t impact much.
Bigger batteries really have made keeping warm a non issue. My env200 with a 24kwhr battery and useable 19kwhr when new (my estimate is around 16kwhr at nine years old and 70k miles), loses too much range with the heater left on so I don’t heat the cabin and just wear more warm clothes.
When the official Honda dealer mentions a 20% loss of distance, I don't think that it's something to question. These guys work with these cars on a daily basis.
The Dutch AA (here: ANWB) mentions on their website that the useable distance can drop from 350km (not winter) back to 250km during the winter. That's a lot more than 20%. FWIW: the Dutch AA /ANWB uses the VW Buzz as their tech cars on the motorways. With that in mind, I don't think that the Honda dealer exaggerated the loss of 20%.
Here is a test done in Norway in Feb '23. The temp was -19C at that time. They copied a trip they'd done during the summer months and compared the data.
https://www.naf.no/elbil/elprix
From the test:From previous tests, we know that EVs drop between 4 and 30 percent of their range in even mild winter conditions. The charging speed is also affected by colder temperatures. By testing the cars in realistic driving conditions, we gain more insight than the standardized WLTP range tests – important knowledge for anyone considering an EV.
- Tesla Model S: -16.4%
- MG Marvel R: -16.8%
- MG 5: -17.6%
- KIA EV6: -17.7%
- Tesla X Plaid: -18.2%
At the bottom:
- Toyota bZ4X: -35.8%
- Skoda Enya1 -33.7%
- Merc. EQE300: -33.4%
The "20% loss" mentioned by the Honda dealer is not too far off from reality.
I live on the border of London/Essex and yesterday had 39% on the Model 3. The car was parked on a different road so I hit defrost rather than preheat just in case and got in it at 22 degrees, drove to Hackney, then Farringdon, then a supermarket on the way home. All with heated seats/steering wheel and a combined hour parked up with the aircon manually left on so I didn’t come back to a cold car at any of my stops. Got home with 29%.
Some of the guys in this thread wouldn’t buy an iPhone because their landline cant run out of battery. It’s really not a big deal.
What I also notice about the cold weather is that the maximum regen possible is reduced (shown by bars to the left on my display) and with around 30% of my useable energy being from regeneration, that would account for a loss of 10-15% range.
Norway is hit as well: their electric city busses in towns have stalled. (Sweden as well, btw)
https://nyheter24.se/motor/1221143-e...ar-anledningen
Recently bought my wife a new (to her, ex demo) Kia she does circa 4K miles, her high spec xCeed cost just under 20k, a new Niro ev in a lower spec- no ex demos available- £39.6k, maybe for delivery this year, electric doesn’t add up for us. If it does for others, or they just want to own/drive an ev fine, here in the UK we are allowed to have a choice/opinion.
This is where the nuances of running an EV through winter get lost somewhat, links to ‘studies’ and the all of a sudden ‘guy who must totally be believed because he agrees with me’ don’t compare to actually running one on a day to day basis.
This information I’m about to impart may just change your life, but just like in any vehicle if you need to eke out your range then you just travel slower.
I’m 100% certain that I can achieve the same range in any weather conditions by varying my speed. The slower you drive the less energy you consume, EV or not.
We’re not talking much here, and journey times are not much slower, or you do your charge stop sooner. Every vehicle consumes more energy in cold, wet, windy etc etc conditions, and likewise less energy in warmer and drier conditions.
With most EVs carrying the equivalent of only 1.25 gallons of liquid fuel on board, you notice those variations more in an EV.
A perhaps more balanced link, not that electric buses being used in Norway during a cold snap is that relevant to a passenger car.
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2...ue-to-the-cold
Can you switch to answer mode for a minute?
What hybrid does your wife drive please?
Honda Insight, given you mention a Honda dealer? If so, it has a tiny NiMH battery and is in no way representative of a modern battery electric vehicle, or even a modern plug in hybrid.
Yes, I do understand this, I wrote as much earlier.
What I’m saying is, if reduced range is an issue for you or anybody else, drive more slowly.
Your right foot uses much more energy than battery heating/cooling.
Edit: Although most current EVs in production do have battery heating/cooling, not all previous EVs do, many are passive and only get warm via charging or through use. The current Leaf is still a ‘dumb’ battery for example.
I've been driving Ev's since 2020, currently have a Taycan. Range decreases in cold weather, its a fact not somehting thats debateable.
The i-Pace is a little thirsty compared to some of its peers, it was improved a bit via a software update IIRC?
A good car though, I’d love one!
They tweaked the ID software recently to not so aggressively warm the battery during a cold start, makes a positive difference to efficiency on short cold journeys.
Oh I'm sorry, I overlooked that.
Honda CR-V 4wd latest version. 80km according to the papers, but IRL 60, 65kms I guess. Daily driving in and around town is 100% EV. We didn't have the chance to check yet what will happen when the temp rises. Only wet, windy and cold weather until now. Honda has a full hybrid as well; that should do 960km... theoretically. On the other side: my experience with Honda products is that their data is often more 'negative' than IRL. Fuel consumption of various CR-V versions she drove was always better than the datasheet. Other Honda drivers mention more hp than Honda suggests. Still she decided not to go for a full hybrid. The previous (2020) CR-V managed to do ± 90% of the 'predicted EV distance'. But only with a light foot, so to speak. And the overall fuel consumption was 9% better than the datasheet.
Last edited by thieuster; 18th January 2024 at 14:27.
-17 over the past week in Chicago I read, at those temps even diesel would start gelling. Nothing is happy in that weather
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Thanks. You said earlier it wasn’t a plug in hybrid so that’s the CR-V e:HEV version, with a 1.4kWh battery that is ‘self charging’? That obviously will do hardly any battery only mileage, really an enhanced stop/start system but does do some leg work from a standstill.
Only the CR-V e:PHEV has a sizable battery that can run in tested conditions for up to 80km, but as you correctly point no car hits the official numbers as nobody drives like the WLTP test.
So you’ve got the plug in version?
The mild self charging hybrid version has a tiny battery, any ‘20% reduction in range’ will be down as much to the engine as any electrical assistance.
Its results won’t scale to a full BEV or even a PHEV, that’s not how it works.
All cars will consume more energy in cold weather, whatever powers them.
I have a Citroen e-C4 and the cold weather makes a massive difference to the range.
It’s 50Kw with a supposed range of 218 miles.
In reality during the summer months I average around 170 to 180.
Now the temperature is so low I think it’s more like 130.
Even less if I do a lot of short journeys. The range can drop by 4 or 5 miles on a 1 mile round trip to the shop.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
In the car again today and lost 5%. Thought it was going to be 4% but it dropped down one more percent just as I was reversing onto the drive.
IMO the issues are overblown but manufacturers will differ. You wouldn’t compare a Ford to a Mercedes or a Porsche to a Smart Car. My brother is a gas engineer and work just gave him some kind of EV van which can’t charge faster than 50kWh and he seems to spend half his day charging because the range is terrible.
50kw charging was the fastest rapid charging available (except tor Teslas) until about five or six years ago.
My van will only rapid charge at up to 50kw and slow charge at 3.5kw.
I get an average of 3.9mi/kWh in summer, 3.5mi/kWh in winter. I can live with that, YMMV.
Don't just do something, sit there. - TNH
Some EVs seem to do much worse in cold weather than others, and a heat pump/battery conditioner or lack thereof is probably the key differentiator. My wife’s Renault Zoe has an official range of over 230 miles, but it’s probably nearer to 130 in this cold weather as the regen doesn’t operate if the battery is too cold. In contrast my e-tron has a similar official range but I still get 180-190 miles in winter.
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our i3 is range suffering in this cold weather
still it's a wonderful car to use for all our local miles - a delight to drive and park in town - great build quality with a solid feeling
https://youtu.be/OvTRJ8Lh9AY?si=GLkBEPqooH3j3zqo
Reminds of this YouTube vid, EV might be the better option
I love 'range' calculations...
My Mercedes PHEV was on 222 miles petrol range and 79% battery. I drove 22miles in 'Sport' (mainly petrol with battery only when needed) and arrived with 236 miles of petrol range and 85% battery. It's obviously not creating energy but the recalculation is interesting. I then drove home on 'Comfort' (mainly battery) and arrived with the petrol range unchanged and enough battery to pre-warm the car and get me to work where I can charge again. Happy days.
I drive a VW ID Buzz now which isn’t the most aerodynamic of vehicles. No heat pump either.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised that the 77kwh battery has delivered c. 200 miles in range during this cold snap. I drove 182 miles on Wednesday and got back with 19% battery in -5 conditions.
This has way exceeded my expectations. I have to keep a track of my miles for work and in the last 3 years, my max daily mileage is what I did on Wednesday. I’m interested to see how this will translate to the warmer months.
The bit that took me a while to get used to with our i3 was that the range calculator is VERY accurate so you don't need to build in any fudge....if you continuing driving like you are just now you've got x miles. Period. Once you get your head around that it's not too stressful.
The "stress" bit is when it changes the instant you crank the heating up or start driving like a moron. The i3 also has a screen that shows you how many miles you'll get if you turn heating off / down etc. I'm guessing others do too.
Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus, 55 KWH battery. Did Kingston-Poole-Kingston which is a 200 mile return trip, all on a single charge with 5% battery remaining. Had heating on in the car to 18 degrees, plus heated steering wheel and seats, radio etc.