What if your car was at half power or less when you got stuck?
That was a lot better than I expected.
Can’t you just set the car on fire to stay warm?
Idled??
How do you idle an electric car?
Very impressive
6 a.m.: 100% charge, 186 miles of range, outside temperature 13 degrees
9 a.m.: 92% charge, 164 miles of range, outside temperature 14 degrees
12 p.m.: 87% charge, 157 miles of range, outside temperature 18 degrees
3 p.m.: 81% charge, 144 miles of range, outside temperature 22 degrees
6 p.m.: 75% charge, 132 miles of range, outside temperature 24 degrees
precondition the car while it was still plugged into the wall, which is standard practice for EVs. Basically, you want to warm up the battery and the car interior while you’re drawing power from the electrical grid instead of the car’s own battery.
did use the heated seats and steering wheel, but I also tried to keep the cabin warm enough that even backseat passengers would be comfortable, so I played around with using only the footwell heating as well as the full-on blast from the footwell and dashboard vents, toggling between 70 and 75 degrees.
Beyond the heat, I tried to replicate the in-traffic experience as much as possible, driving around the block a few times over the half day to simulate spurts of moving traffic, using the lights and radio at certain intervals, and even turning the car off for periods of 15-30 minutes a handful of times to conserve energy.
6 a.m.: 100% charge, 186 miles of range, outside temperature 13 degrees
9 a.m.: 92% charge, 164 miles of range, outside temperature 14 degrees
12 p.m.: 87% charge, 157 miles of range, outside temperature 18 degrees
3 p.m.: 81% charge, 144 miles of range, outside temperature 22 degrees
6 p.m.: 75% charge, 132 miles of range, outside temperature 24 degrees
How do ICE fare worse in freezing temperatures? Their thermal efficiency goes UP with the colder environmental temperature. Remember the Carnot efficiency: (Th - Tc)/Th. The lower the cold system temperature (Tc), the higher the efficiency.
Ok. I appreciate this kind of test. Lost a lot less than I thought.
Someone should do a test with a car that:
1. Does NOT have the “extended range battery”
2. Isn’t brand spanking new, but old enough so that the battery is no longer at peak efficiency. Say, five years old or so.
I would recommend that those with six year old Nissan Leaves should stay out of risky situations.
I would imagine a older Toyota 4runner with full tank could idle for 3 days in cold weather without an issue. Is that supposed to be a big deal?
Based on my experience with that model Mustang, when the traffic cleared, I would have driven it away going 0-80 in 4 seconds...
That would have been the real battery test...
Survive the cold, but can I get my 88-year-old body home in time before the bladder bursts...
It’s all fun and games until you popsicle out...
Rule #1: Mother Nature is vastly more powerful than any government and all its assets.
Rule #2: See Rule #1. You need to plan to be on your own.
I know a lot of freepers won’t like this..
Just about all of the problems an EV have are outside the car.
The generation of power to the charger, increased emissions and supply issues at the generation and driving around on an electrical hazard.
I drive gas powered because I can afford the actual car, I like to shift gears and I like the sound. I also like to modify it.
If you get an EV all of those are gone. That said they are simpler, faster and frankly nicer.
Tesla is a trusted company because they test their firmware, and build in safety software if there is an error. I wouldn’t trust a company like, say, Microsoft or Ford to do the same.
I admit I expected these things to have endless issues.. but I was wrong. EV is a good option.
“When I got in the car to start the test at 5:45 a.m., the charge read 100% but only 186 miles of range on the instrument cluster.”
I double that many e-vehicles caught in the I-95 traffic were at 100%. Also, 186 miles seems borderline for interstate traffic.
Lithium mining is going to be the dagger in the heart of moving to an all e-vehicle future - for both availability and environmental reasons. Throw in Cobalt mining for a twist of the dagger.
here’s a more realistic scenario, not just ONE EV but thousands:
well the scenario with chain-reaction dead EVs is that several thousand EVs take off to evade a disaster at the same time, but many don’t have a full charge and so those give out first, causing the whole gaggle to stall, with the next poorest charged ones giving up the ghost next, and so on until there’d be miles of dead EVs stalled essentially forever, as there’d be no way to perform a mass charge or a mass tow ... especially if all of the emergency vehicles themselves were EVs ... and even if bunches of them did manage to get some distance away, there’s be no way at whatever destination they did mange to reach to recharge that many all at once ...
and that scenario would still get worse: operators in CA are already talking about limiting EV charging to night-time when demand is otherwise lower ... can just see the scenario when grid operators put automatic switches on home charging stations that don’t turn the juice on until a certain time in the evening, and the disaster hits right before or about that time and almost NO EVs are fully charged, and perhaps most are even nearly empty ... and of course there’s the scenario when the grid itself is wiped out early in the disaster ...
can you idle in it for 2 weeks after a hurricane strikes?...
Makes sense that the battery would last a long time when not being driven, other than those short times the person wrote about. It would be interesting to keep records of traveling the same specific route in very cold weather, balmy weather, and very warm weather. It would take some searching to find such a place, but they exist.
The tale of acceptance of EVs will be told by watching the percentage of EV owners who buy an EV again when they trade. I recently read the current figure is 80% buy another EV.
When your battery gets cold it loses half of its available charge.
That is not a Mustang.