The Team Talks EVs In The Cold! Tips & Tricks For Electric Winters | Episode 246 

ya'll are too cute with the dress up to stay warm! I really like Coleton's experance talking to someone that's heard about the news, omg !! the evs don't work in the cold!! as I am here in Golden colorado and so thankful I live across the street from a semi public charger and living in apartment situation, so I don't have to pay for charging (yet) and my older apt building hasn't gotten charging. I am also such a fan of my LEAF's "climcate control" setting!! I use it on work days when I know I'm going to head out and it's cold outside just set it for the departure time and it's warm I don't have worry about scraping off my windows and mirrors!

Maybe Superchargers should have a level 2 ac plugs for people next in line to pre-heat batteries on minus 15 degree days.

Correct Dave. Started with a Volt and spent two years with it Put maybe 100 dollars worth of gas in 20,000 miles. After realizing how much electric driving we did, we moved on to a Bolt. Had we not had the PHEV we likely would not have gone to a BEV.

I think what Chicago has shown is that cities need more public level 2 charging. It can't be that EVs are only for people who own a house.

It's so strange watching all these videos about EVs and cold recently. I've driven EVs exclusively since 2016 with no issue. I'd be curious as to how many people that have the ability to charge at home have any issues like this.

For EV newbies, all of these measures are probably daunting. I equate the transition as similar to having your first child, a bit overwhelming and definitely a change in lifestyle. After multiple kids/EVs, not such a big deal as you've integrated them into your life and knowing how to handle the situations each bring.

Love this pod. Thanks. Loving my EV and will never go back. More of this please.

I agree with Dave. There are a lot of people who will refuse to make the full jump just out of stubbornness, hatred, or ignorance. For those people, a hybrid is exactly a gateway drug. There will be laggards. I had a similar story to Coleton: Spent a whole hour showing someone the app, preconditioning, savings calculations, 0-60, more american made, etc. of my MYP compared to the Charger he wanted to buy. He seemed surprised, but I can tell ultimately there was no amount of objective information that would have sway him.

I drive Uber with model 3 '23, STD range RWD. I drove about 300 miles in a day everyday in the recent snow storm. Rolling resistance in unplowed snow and 10 deg f. I lost 38% range max on the worst day of driving. I take a photo of the trip every day for tax purposes, so I have proof of Kwh/mile for every day i drive. Average 226 in summer/fall OEM tires. Worst day in storm/winter tires i was at 370. That's 265 miles per charge vs 165 miles per charge. 38% reduction. Realize I am driving 12-13 hrs almost non stop. Starting at 100% LFP fully warmed cabin from my garage. I'm not letting the car get cold, then starting it multiple times, which makes a difference. This weekend it was just cold and mostly dry roads and I was at 284/mile, 211 range. 20% loss.

I've had the same experience as Coleton had with that Dodge owner a bunch of times regarding my Model 3 Performance

You guys keep Our EV enthusiasm up.

I've posted this elsewhere, but: On a -19F (-28C) night I tested my Texas made 2023 Tesla Model Y Long Range (Performance VIN#). With only 5 minutes preconditioning I got 55 kW charge rate. 15 minutes preconditioning got me around 140 kW. 30 minutes preconditioning got me 230 kW. I normally see a maximum of 254 kW on that same V3 Supercharger port. Yes, I did all the testing as loops back to the same Supercharger. Rough elevation 950ft, and car was driven at 74 MPH (119 kph) for about 90 miles ((145 km) between charges. At -19F the car definitely used more kW to keep the interior at 74F. All charging started in the 10% to 15% state of charge range. I forgot to record kW use rates. Tesla really needs the ability for the user to request a precondition to warm up the battery. There isn't always a Supercharger where one needs to DC fast charge.

30:00 OOS Dave is spot on about hybrids. We own 2 EVs: R1T and Ioniq 6 but we also own a 2001 F150 and 2014 Impala. We will use the ICE cars when we take short cuts thru WV to see family in Ohio and western PA. So I am living a "hybrid" lifestyle. Dave is right that folks are using the hybrid battery for commuting and the engine for trips. I have many friends and family with hybrids who say this is exactly what they do. I did not want a hybrid because it had gas engine parts.

Everyone needs to consider their use case. If you need to be able to traverse over 500 miles in the absolute minimum time, you want a hybrid and not a BEV. I'm already in the situation where I can get BEV for my next car, and if I need to make a trip that cannot be supported by the BEV, I will just rent a car. I'm old enough to remember needing to plan road trips in ICE vehicles that did not get 500 miles to a tank, and you could not count on there being a gas station just anywhere you needed it. You might need to know a bit more about the EV today than the ICE alternative to be comfortable, but this is improving. The cars are getting better at telling you what you need to know. Finally, I think there will always be use cases where an EV is not the solution. I think a hybrid will cover almost all of those cases, but even they may not work for a specific use case. The key is to make an informed decision using the best sources of information available.

Dave's 60D has me beat, but I took my S70D from MI to CA in winter and it was some long charging getting to the next supercharger in Kansas with the wind and cold

32:00 EV's are hard with people without a level 2 home charger... PHEV's are even worse. the real answer for all this is level 2 charger expansion to all overnight parking spots.

I agree with Dave about the Plug-in hybrid. We have a RAV4 Prime (2021) and my wife drives it around town and we get 45 miles on a charge....we fill it up with gas 1 time a month....I drive the R1T

We need a list of what EVs have battery preconditioning and/or charge well at DCFC in sub 32F.

We’ve only been driving an EV for two years. When we bought it I was thinking we could always use our Tacoma for long trips or cold weather. Turned out we only use the Tacoma when towing our camper trailer or when we need to use both cars at the same time. The EV is the preferred vehicle for almost all of our driving. P.S. We live in western Colorado which does experience winter.

My household has 3 ICE vehicles & 1 EV in the northern Chicago suburbs. The only vehicle that didn't have problems starting, driving, or heating itself was, Kyle's favorite, the Nissan Ariya! 😃

I wonder why Kyle has a plug in Hybrid when he hates them so much. Still it was fun to watch the podcast. Keep up the videos.

The Tesla manual now talk about using the off peak charging feature vs charging to be ready with warm battery and you should consider if the off peak is too far away from when you drive, you might want to switch to the schedule to charge to be ready when you leave if you need to use too much electricity to reheat the battery.

Great content! Though, considering all videos of Americans driving high speed across bridges in cold temperatures and spinning/crashing, my faith in the same group of people actually learning about all these things is very low...In Scandinavia we've had very limited issues last few years with cold temperatures and EV's. Most have been designed i USA and built in US, China or Europe, since most are Teslas.

Seems a bit harsh to simply write off EVs for those who don’t have home charging because of this freak winter weather in Chicago. I live in California where we get a handful of days every year where it gets down to the upper 20s (F), so I can’t testify to that type of weather. But, outside of this extreme (but short lived) weather event, how is having an EV in Chicago during much more typical winter weather? It must be doable, given all the EVs there. How about some tips on things people can do to prepare for those short lived events. People live in places where tornados, hurricanes, floods, and other natural events happen that impact their lives, including operating their vehicles, ICE and EV alike. Even after those events, the vast majority continue to live in those areas. They prep ahead of time to get through the event and then life goes on. Maybe something a little more helpful would be more constructive rather than a blanket statement condemning EVs. Good video on an important topic!

I'm with Kyle on the hybrid electric thing. It's basically training wheels for life with a battery electric, and if you have at-home charging 99.9% of the time the ICE powertrain is completely unnecessary (the .1% where the ICE powertrain is needed can easily be worked around). As little as I would need the ICE powertrain, I'm afraid the thing would seize up or degrade. The gas in it will spoil over time, or it will burn off unnecessarily in the interest of powertrain preservation.

All you need to do with an EV is to set the cabin pre-heating to go on at it's very lowest setting an hour before you plan to leave -- WITHOUT being plugged in. As long as the battery is above 20% SoC, this forces the battery to slowly warm itself so that when you battery pre-condition on your way to the charger it's warm enough to do so. All modern Teslas (starting in 2021) and most new EVs worth their salt all have heat pumps that use very little energy to do this. You do NOT need to be plugged in for any of this. All people in Norway (way colder than any part of the lower 48) know this by heart. And that's the country with the highest EV uptake per capita in the world at over 88% now. Not all of them have the ability to plug in overnight, and yet they have no issues with their EVs simply because they know what to do. And hybrids are nothing more than an oil industry con job. As battery gain longer and longer ranges, they'll be worthless. With most EVs now having a version per model over 300 miles, there's no need for them. Unless you need to tow very long distances (over 300 miles) very frequently.

Have a 22 Model 3 RWD. The temperature really does matter for charging. Plugging cold car into a L2 charger (240v 32A), it only starts to charge when the battery is above 32F, and only at about 7 mi/hr. It didn't reach full charging rate (32mi/hr) until the battery temp was above 39F. When colder, it takes the full L2 current through the stator to generate heat. I also saw slower SuperCharging this weekend, even after pre-conditioning. The L3/V3 rates were much lower than what ScanMyTesla claimed for MaxChargePower and MaxRegenPower. Any body know if the reluctance (Front motor) is better for heating than the induction (rear motor), or if its just 2 motors are better than 1. Interesting note: after fully charging on L2 charger, I turned on Climate control remotely and let it run. It took the battery down about 10% just pre-heating the cabin and battery.

Cant agree more, having home charging just maximises the EV experience. I do alot of short journeys around town, school run in traffic type of stuff and today in 8c i got 513wh/mile after driving 3 and a bit miles in 25 mins in my 22M3LR. That’s more than double my summer consumption.

Thank You Everybody for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth.... Peace.. Shalom.. Salam.. Namaste 🙏🏻 😊 🌈 ✌ ☮ ❤

I almost got a PHEV (Sportage) before test driving the ID.4 and loving it. I'm glad I didn't go with the PHEV. I only charge at level 1 at home (we own but this would also be possible if we rented this house), and I hardly ever need to charge to 80%. Had I gotten the PHEV, I would have been dragging around an unused drivetrain and would still need to get oil changes and such.

I recently completed the first long road trip in my R1T (dual-motor, max pack, 21” Wheels, no tonneau yet). The truck was empty except for me and a few luggage items. For the northern half of the trip south the temperature ranged from 16F to 29F and in the southern half about 40F to 50F. On the return trip the temperature was somewhat warmer, 45-55F in the south and 30-40F in the north. Starting elevation was 5300 ft and destination was 417 ft. Here is a summary of the results: Southbound Miles: 675 (including a short sidetrip to Kolob Canyon) Southbound Net Elevation Change: -4883 feet Southbound Avg Temp (F): 29 Southbound mi/kWh Charged: 2.26 Southbound mi/kWh from Battery: 2.48 (the difference is charging loss) Southbound Implied Range: 351 Northbound Miles 658 Northbound Net Elevation Gain: 4883 feet Northbound Avg Temp (F): 45 Northbound mi/kWh Charged: 2.07 Northound mi/kWh Battery: 2.23 Northbound Implied Range: 316 Round Trip Miles: 1333 mi/kWh Charged: 2.16 mi/kWh Battery: 2.35 Implied Average Round Trip Range: 334

There's a distinction I don't hear talked about: cold performance vs cold SOC. That is: You can be charged up but not have full deliverable power (and possibly not full deliverable range) just because the battery is cold. I would expect range and performance to return when warmth returns, but that's not been clarified by anyone AFAIK.

Don't know why those people feel it is okay to make snarky comments at work etc.. Luckily in the cold snap, being all wheel drive I made it, and they were mostly stuck at home. So, didn't have to hear it. They've avoided the issue this week. Of people who I've talked to otherwise, I explained it as close to what they waste remote starting their car. When comparing MPG loss, it's fairly close. Sounds like video material... Also had a few conversations like Colton's. They were with a few trucks I pulled out the ditches, so they were being nicer than normal. The deep and rural south... Find the old ICE habit of never going below a 1/4 tank is the best thing to do winter or not here. Allows for any preconditioning, a charger outage, or unexpected trip. You also missed not having to stand at the pump (if you have home charging) in this weather. I have had better luck if I time my charging to end at the departure time (aim slightly after). This will keep the battery from cooling off. I will plug up when home (to prevent losing heat / damage), then throttle the amps to time it to match when I am going to leave. The battery will heat as needed. Completely avoids the "turtle" warnings, and better than preconditioning (especially if using range mode). It also limits the drain on the battery if max charge was hit well before preconditioning. Kind of wish there was a bypass for vehicle loads directly through the EVSE so that the ABC method worked better (not cycling the battery).

My '23 Bolt is avg about 2 miles per kwh. Bolt counts all energy used since last full charge and I have a 4 mile commute, so most of my energy use is preheating 15 minutes for my 10 minute commute 😂. I plug in at home with maximum charge setting of 40% so the battery can heat itself as needed through the night. (It seems to like 40F once the coldest cell gets to 32F). During preconditioning the battery will heat itself to 40F regardless. I charge at work to 80% once a week cause it is free!!

I have have been educating people where I live. I take people on rides in my Leaf and they are sold like I was when I went for a ride in a converted ICE vehicle in the 80. One has Mustang Mach E4, another has a model Y who has influenced others to drive electric. One guy was scared spitless when I put the Leaf in drive mode. If you're addicted to convenience an EV is not for you, so if you're not up for the adventure don't.

I agree with Dave. If you want to pull a trailer to remote locations in the mountain west the Dodge Ramcharger may be the best option until infrastructure greatly improves. This is coming from a current R1T owner.

If thrush mufflers bother you file a complaint with DMV

I have a front wheel drive Chevy Bolt. Does ABS help the rear wheels from locking up in ice when using REGEN?

50 years ago i has vw ubeatle with a gas heater under the driver seat. Just open the door,pull the switch and go back a drink another coffee. Toasty warm

My rule of thumb, below 32 degrees F, don't plan on any trip longer than 50% of the estimated range.

Haha i see a theme here! Y'all wearing hoodie/beanie hats! Great video btw, helpful stuff here for the newbies

Great video. Keep up the Great Work

I appreciate the costuming effort.

Look for Björn Nyland and his artic circle runs with EVs.

For the forty minutes of listening to all this , it just reminds me of rearranging your whole life to drive an EV . Like my daughter said after selling her 2015 model S ' I dont have to schedule everything around my car being charged' .

At a 12 stall supercharger in sub zero temperatures, it only takes 12 mistakes to ruin everyone's day

I can preheat and cool the cabin of my ICE from the comfort of my home too. And the engine is fully warmed up.

I have a 2014 BMW i3 REX. I live in MN and drove 6000 miles in 2023 and used 4.5 gallons of gas. I can precondition the cabin and battery and that makes a big difference in winter. Plus, more places I go have Level 2 charging which awesome because I can leave the heat on, plug in, and come back to the car with more range and it's warm. And that is with a car that does 40 to 50 miles in cold weather.

Stealing Lithium is like kidnapping

I hope Dave gets the roof leak fixed

Question: The Model Y manual states not to leave the battery unplugged in -22^F ambient temps for more than 24hrs. Why is that? I assume that it’s because you won’t be able to discharge the battery (ie drive the car) at those temps until it’s warmed up?

Thank you guys for the information your team and close associates provide. It was the main reason I purchased a EV. I’ve only had ☝🏾 issue but it dealt with a EA station so no surprises there. I just hyper mile it the rest of the way home. God knows I have a fleet of cars but I drive my EV 99% of the time if I leave the house for anything.

Thanks, this debating helps

Nice, warm knitted hats!

I've had an EV6 GT-Line AWD for nearly two years, and my wife drives a Tucson PHEV. We have a garage with a level 2 charge station and do ALL of our charging at home. My daughter and son-in-law recently bought a Rav 4 Prime PHEV, and they don't have a level 2. Level 2 is kinda a must for a pure EV ownership. However, as our "kids" experience with the Rav 4 Prime has shown, you can get by with a level 1 if you have a PHEV. Having said that, if you don't have the ability to charge at home overnight, I honestly don't think the national infrastructure is ready for mass EV adoption. Give it a few more years and the story will be different. PS: We live in Parker, Co, so our daily driving experience is similar to much of the Out of Specs team - with the exception of road tripping, as we don't do that very often. If we do, we'll take the Tucson. PPS: We're "Boomers" and I'd love to share our experience with anyone on the Out of Spec team.

03:15 hahahaha

Do you need to pre- heat OR pre-cool in Florida? Thanks

Would have loved to hear some winter road tripping tips.

But yea

So all gas cars don’t have push button start on remote

I see a lot of sensational news which try to find ways not to make EV's work vs trying to make them work.

The thing about the plugin hybrid argument where you have the gas engine as a security blanket...most multi-person households in the U.S. have multiple cars. As long as one of the cars runs on gas, even if you replace the other with an EV, you still effectively have the plugin hybrid experience anyway. Charge the EV exclusively with home charging. Anytime you want to far enough where the EV might require public charging, just take the other car. It's that simple.

Only problem with EVs is forcing them on people. We never have range anxiety but we always have broken charger at the next stop anxiety and our fears are usually reality.

I spontaneously drive my EV to do a short drive, am I damaging my battery if I have not preconditioned it? Ie I have no pattern of using my EV.

HEV/PHEV (with the exception of a range extender) gives you the worst of both worlds!

It might be good to require (Federal/International mandates) features in EVs which preserve usable range (such as heated seats [all seats] and steering wheel, heat pump, ...) and make user experience better than ICE. What do you think?

Although I’m in the PNW where it doesn’t get as cold as some parts of the US, I’m gonna be keeping an ICE car on the side for certain missions that I don’t want to risk with an EV. At least that’s my plan. I am looking for a cheap old ICE beater.

Out of Spec episode, “News from Chicago…” near the 12 minute 27 second mark from Kyle Conner rings true: “You should be able to drive any car in any environment with very little information. There needs to be rapid improvement on electric vehicle cold weather performance for this to work at mass scale.” This feeds into the Diffusion of Innovation. The complexity factors in: the easier it is to learn or grasp, the faster it is to diffuse. EVs are too quirky and not easy to operate as gas vehicles in these extreme situations. I will wait to buy an EV until they are simplified for the majority of the public.

As showned by national media, Tesla are not design to be used in cold weather conditions!😂 That why they are popular only in warm weather states such as California.

BEV for 11 years, but considering PHEV for road trips since CCS is getting worse and I don’t want to give Tesla $ for charging.

It took over 100 years for the love of ICE cars to mature. It may take as long for everyone to love EVs.

Thank you Jordan......MSM loves to focus on the negative. I guess it sells news more readily. Would be nice if they educated themselves a LOT more on pretty much everything before reporting. FUD does nothing to to further the EV transition, although I also dislike nothing but Unicorns and rainbows info. So, does anyone in the group (ahem...Kyle....ahem) have info on the US version of the Ford Explorer EV? Last I heard was Ford will probably come out with a three row, and it might be the Explorer. Love the knowledge in this group.

Really annoying there even needs to be a conversation around this in 2024. Seeing how smart these ev cars are, they’re all actually pretty dumb. Maybe 1% of all ev owners will ever go out of their way to learn all this nuance with their ev vehicle.

I bet Max and his girlfriend feel like they're punching themselves in the face every day because they didn't get a Tesla

This is really valuable information. But you are preaching to the choir. How does this information get out to people who've never heard of Out of Spec? I really appreciate Kyle's examples of who might not be able to use an EV (infortunately, he described my use case perfectly). Too many EV proponents say that EVs are better in every way than ICE. And that seems to be the thinking of Elon Musk. I sincerely hope that Kyle's opinion is listened to by those trying to mandate EVs, and by the researchers into mobility. We need alternatives that are usable to those of us who need to make long trips regularly (for me, 12-15 trips per year between 600 and 1,400 miles one way), and the millions who will never have level 2 at home, like many of my friends and coworkers. On the disagreement between Kyle and Dave: I see both points of view. 90% of my miles are long distance, and 50% of those are in the mountains of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Utah. Winter is brutal. And in our mountain properties, there is no electricity at all. We have to go to town 20 miles away (and back). I will disagree with Kyle about diesel being as bad as he says: getting our GLK 350TD up to temperature in -20 Fahrenheit only takes a couple of minutes. We only see about a 3% decrease in range on that beast. When we Turo'd a Model X (nominal range of 380), all we got was about 200. That was a 40% loss of range. When we contacted the owner, we learned about the cold and its effect. About once a year we try Teslas again, and we've tried other EVs, but so far none is of any use to us. We make do with the GLK, a Camry Hybrid (not about to carry a charger around with us, we tried, dumb idea), and a naturally aspirated Fusion. The Fusion does really well in the cold, too. No cranking, just turn the key and go, nothing to think about but where the needle is on the gas guage. For the environment, I would like a workable solution, but as far as I can tell, everyone just wants to say that we don't need what we actually do need. It is cost-prohibitive to take an extra day each direction just because ranges are so small and charging takes so long.

My wife and I have a Tesla MY so I’m not ignorant on this topic. The people on this podcast are comfortable with tech. But you are still outliers. OOS Dave understands that the move to EV’s feels risky to some people…especially some of my peers (early 60’s). They aren’t stupid, just cautious. They may need the bridge of a hybrid. It doesn’t have to make sense. It’s the only way they are going begin to feel comfortable with the tech.

The simple solution for us is to live in Fl. Problem solved

EV’s in winter? 😳🤣 Not so much 👎 ICE IS NICE 👍💪

I think you’re missing a hybrid market segment. I’d like a Boxster with a NA 1.5L-4 or 2.0L-6 with a 40-hp/60 lb-ft flywheel/starter/helper motor, ~120-160 hp front motor, and ~12-15kWh battery. This would give good performance for 90% of my driving, which would be all-electric, and great fun for the other 10%, as well as extended range. It would even have great petrol economy. Sure, it would be complicated, particularly because I’d want a manual transmission, but honestly, I have _no_ idea why Porsche isn’t going in this direction, at least for the 911; it could give new meaning to all the Carrera 4 variants.