Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Green This, Green That . . . Brrr

There is a potential major ice jam in the Green River, and I am not referring to the 1980 hit song by Credence Clearwater Revival. I am referring to the recent report about the performance of the green electric cars in winter. This study was carried out by AAA following the test procedures drawn up by SAE, an auto engineering group. It looked at the performance of five different electric cars at a temperature commensurate with a typical winter temperature.

The study examined the performances of BMW13 (2018), Chevy Bolt (2018), Nissan Leaf (2018), VW e-Golf (2017), and Tesla (2017) at temperatures of 20F. When compared to performance at 75F, at 20F there was a significant decrease in the range of these cars. When the interior heater was not used, the decrease in range was 12%, however when the interior heaters were used there was a decrease in the driving range of these electric cars of more than 40%. Those of us who have lived in areas of the country that have real winter know that the interior heater is on way more often than not, even when the temperature is much warmer than 20F.

This study also looked at the effects of hot temperatures (95F) on the performance of the same aforementioned electric cars, both with the air-conditioner on and also with it off. With the A.C. off, the driving range decreased by only 4% compared to a decrease of 17% with the car’s air-conditioner on. Those of us who live in areas of the country that have summer know that the air-conditioner is always on when the ambient temperature is 95F, and if the corresponding humidity is high (real summer), the A.C. is on at well below 95F. For the sake of fairness, I need to say that Tesla disputed the results of this study. It said that there was only a 1% decrease at 95F (A.C. on or off?), but would not release the percent decrease for cold weather.

Jason Hughes, who owns four Teslas in North Carolina said that during the recent cold weather, the ambient temperature “would easily double the amount of power used for my 15 minute commute.” One of the recommendations to try to circumvent this cold weather electric car issue is to heat the inside of the car while it is still plugged in. Certainly if you do that, the driving range will not be decreased as much, but you are still using electricity when  the car when it is not moving.

Many years ago when I lived in Illinois, one of my coworkers was an avid jogger, but he would not go running if the temperature was less than 30F. Similar to my ex-coworker could it be that in the winter a lot of electric cars also won’t be spending a lot of time running outside, but rather will spend a lot of time behind the Green Door, and I don’t mean the hit song by both Jim Lowe (1956) and Shakin’ Stevens (1981).

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