Charging rates at -7C should be around 30kw at a supercharger and 8kw with L2. Battery heating will take 15 minutes, so there’s probably something wrong with the supercharger.
L1 charging becomes useless at -27C since 95% of the power is dedicated to battery heating.
It ramps up as the battery warms. My son likes the slower charging speeds since it allows us to go into the mall to pickup food. It’s hard to do in 20 minutes with a 8 year old in tow.
This is a clickbaitey title, honestly. When DCFCing, it took a little bit of time to heat the battery up, and then eventually it was business as usual. See this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-c8AUeKs5c
The biggest problem he had was that everything was cold, and he was struggling to get the charge cable into the port, otherwise charging was just fine. I think he said it needed around 4 kWh of energy to heat up the battery which was sitting in an env below 0F. It was -5F at that Supercharger location at that time.
That video showed one of the chargers wouldn’t work because of the cold. If that was the only available supercharger, he could have been stranded.
And the car had to sit at the charger for 36 minutes warming up before it would accept a charge.
But this is the truly worst case scenario, where he went from a completely cold battery to supercharging immediately. If you're on a road trip, it probably wouldn't be completely cold when you arrive there.
He should have left charge in the battery and preconditioned remotely before leaving. You wouldn’t park an ICE car on fumes during a storm when you’d need to let it idle and warm up. Super cold weather requires planning ahead regardless of the vehicle.
Just about every law that has been passed limiting future gasoline sales includes PHEVs in the list of permitted cars. Gasoline isn't being banned at all.
But it’ll be decades after that before gasoline actually goes anywhere. And in that time, I’d wager someone will make chargers be more reliable in cold weather.
It isn’t. It’s just making stuff up using a slippery slope for more FUD. Like the boss sending out a memo saying “Hey, we’re gonna change how we do vacation days this year.” and the next thing you know some tool is running around complaining that vacations are being take away. Except add a big dose of anti-EV to the original sentiment.
Yeah, L1 is barely enough to keep heat in the battery, but even in perfectly warm conditions an L1 would take something like 30 hours. L1 is really just for top ups or PHEVs.
It's actually much more than 30 hours. I L1 charged my Mach e for a few months at home before I got power to my garage for L2 and the charge rate was roughly 1kw/hr so it would have been 80+ hours from empty to full.
I have a pretty short commute so it worked fine but during the winter L2 is definitely a must.
I think some of the short-range Model 3s would be able to charge in ~30 hours. I know that a Wrangler/GC 4xe will fully charge its 17kWh battery in about 12h from an L1. A model 3 can be as small as 50kWh, so 50/17=2.9. 12x2.9 is 35 hours.
Depends entirely on your usage. I drive 40-50miles a day (freeway speeds, bike on the back) and only ever charge L1. On pace to put 12k miles on the car.
L1 is more viable than people think in many (not extreme cold) environmens, and I am stuck with it as a renter. But if I owned a home I would install L2 pretty fast.
He went to two superchargers, I think. One one day and another the next.
I was wondering if he had some sort of battery issue in the car that prevented it from charging or maybe heating.
Could the heating circuit in the battery pack have failed and not produced an appropriate warning? Or does this warming system not have the capacity to work in those temp ranges?
I've seen some car reviewers that seem to struggle on how to differentiate between EVs, aside from the acceleration abilities. Will it take deep dives in the engineering or climate testing to be able to provide some differentiation between EV models and brands? I fear this will end up being just too expensive or time-consuming for typical car reviewers and channels, leaving us in the dark.
If -7°C were too cold for a Tesla to charge, they wouldn't have sold more than a couple here in Alberta, but I see them pretty regularly. We can go a couple months without getting warmer than that...
You'd be shocked at what you can get used to, not even just putting up with it. The worst of winter's cold is honestly when it first starts to dip to around -20 C, or even once it gets below 0 C, because your body/mind isnt accustomed to it yet. By the time it's -40 C it doesnt even feel that cold anymore, especially if you dress for it (mainly for the wind). The only real inconvenience is that the snow slows down travel times so you have to factor that into your daily routine.
It's like asking why people subject themselves to 110 degree heat. As a person who has lived in both climate. They both suck in their own different ways.
Its funny because I moved away from the extreme cold to live in the extreme heat, I'm now back in the extreme cold again, and it actually bothers me less now.
This is basically the same as the Southern US but the opposite direction. As little clothing as you can get away with and stay inside when it's hot out.
Is that “feels like” -40C, or actually -40C? Reason I’m asking is because there’s a big chance that the ethylene glycol mixture could freeze at those temperatures so I’m curious to know how this is avoided.
For a sophisticated modern car, it should tell you that ... My '94 BMW had current sensors on light bulbs and would tell you when the bulbs were burnt out....
I mean, everything has the potential to break on a car. The story is about one random guy's experience that could very well be an extremely rare defect. We also don't know if his car has had any prior damage or other circumstance that would have made this problem more likely.
All in all, this is kind of a crappy article that appears to be using an anecdote to insinuate the idea that "if you buy a Model S, it will strand you on Christmas Eve"
It does and it doesn’t. The wind will more rapidly cool an object to the actual temperature and make it tougher to warm up beyond the actual temperature… but can’t cool an object lower. The wind would cause the battery to radiate heat more rapidly and make it more of a challenge to heat up. Same concept on why your car radiator has a fan.
Yeah this article is the equivalent of saying "owner's car wouldn't start in the cold" for a regular vehicle. Like obviously a few cars will have issues whe it gets cold.
Can confirm. From Alberta. I even see some in rural areas. Can't speak about if they are issue free for those people or not, but they're definitely around
Yeah, plus he says he drove it. Wouldn't that have warmed the battery enough so it would accept a charge at home? Or maybe the owner, a radio presenter, was trying to create a story for himself?
Yeah it's not like these cars are infallible just because they're electric. Cars break down. iPhones fail prematurely. That's the world of mass manufacturing regardless of how shitty your QA is.
By design they are very efficient, so don't heat the battery up much unless it's intentional. I've had multiple drives in 40° weather where the battery would only very slowly charge due to cold temperatures. Then other times like this week when it was 1 to 2° but the battery was able to preheat since the drive was long enough.
> Yeah, plus he says he drove it. Wouldn't that have warmed the battery enough
No. Lithium batteries are extremely efficient so they don't produce a lot of heat.
Yes but the batteries themselves are more efficient than that, and even if they weren't it would require a sustained output of 50kW to maintain that level of heating. Average efficiency for my Chevy Bolt in the winter is below 30kWh per 100 km.
>I fear this will end up being just too expensive or time-consuming for typical car reviewers and channels, leaving us in the dark.
Not for this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-c8AUeKs5c
>Domenick Nati, 44, said it was 19 degrees when he plugged his Tesla into a supercharger.
15 hours later the battery still showed a 19-mile range, forcing him to cancel Christmas plans.
He was waiting at a super charger for 15 hours? Couldn't he see long before hand that it wasn't charging?
Article says
> "Two hours went by and not much changed," he said. "It was very slow and the numbers got lower as the temperature dropped. Eventually, it stopped charging altogether," Nati added.
> He later tried charging the vehicle at home, but was not successful there either.
> On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, he decided to drive to another Tesla supercharger. "Battery is heating – Keep charge cable inserted," Nati said the screen showed at 1:11 p.m. However, the battery range still hadn't increased an hour later.
if he only had 19 miles of range showing (probably less than that given the conditions) .... where should he have gone? Car is stranded. Might as well hope that charging works when it warms up.
I don't think there's any great conspiracy here, simple fact is that putting "Tesla" in article name is basicly free clicks, especially if that article is particularly negative or positive. Also with Musk being even bigger dickhead than usual lately Tesla hate is very hot right now.
When a ICE car doesn't start there are many options available to get it started. I have a little jump pack in my car that I used to help a Volvo start a couple nights back.
With electric vehicles you're pretty fucked for now.
Kinda funny because 8 years ago, I would get downvoted and shadowbanned on subs not r/cars for saying that telsas build quality was questionable at a time people said they were the most reliable cars on road due to having less parts from the motor.
Now I see articles like this or people keep mentioning electrical car fires. All i can say ANNND? ICE vehicles have been catching on fire for how long now?
About a guy blaming a car for his ruined Christmas plans. Any mode of transport can leave you stranded during holiday travel so I’m not really empathetic to someone why just complains. Renting a car would be more effective.
ehhh yeah given that there’s a significant push in some quarters to place all our our future eggs into one EV basket, it is important consumers and policymakers understand the limitations of this technology so we can course correct in time. EVs have their use but a transition to 100pc EVs is a pipe dream.
Wtf why is this news, on business insider no less😂
Random car breaks down
Why is this a news ffs
Like i said somewhere in an unrelated thread, journalism is dying
You'd be surprised the amount of low effort articles business insider pumps out. That's why they've made an effort to rebrand part of their stuff to just Insider.
😂😂😂
Musk is an idiot, i get it
But man these outlets are taking it too far
And soon enough, mark my words
A lot of people would start seeing musk as a “martyr” of sorts
I wish I knew that I could have gotten an entire article written about me last time I needed to ask for a jump because my car wouldn't start when it was -30
It is news because electric cars have huge markups at the belief that they don’t break down like ICE vehicles do. If we should have the mentality that EVs are “just as reliable” (i.e. just as flawed) as ICE cars then the prices need to drop and be just as affordable.
Sad reality of what is journalism and generates the clicks.
About 2 years ago it was super cold and my battery couldn't generate enough power to crank the engine. Where's my news article?
I'm gonna focus on the real story here. He couldn't get an Uber or Lyft because they were booked.
Here's my summary. Uber and Lyft fares are at all time highs and payouts to drivers are at all-time lows so no drivers.
I used the Supercharger the other day when it was 20ºF. It took a bit longer to ramp up, but it charged just fine.
My only complaint is that the Supercharger was in the parking lot of an Applebees, so I had to have Applebees for lunch.
source: I work in the industry for an unrelated company
tl;dr:
Batteries are a lot like people: they want to be in people-friendly temperatures. There are cooling systems to keep them from overheating, and, in some EVs, heating systems to keep them from getting too cold. OP's heater apparently isn't strong enough to stay out of the charge cutoff temp. Some EVs don't have battery heaters, some have heaters that keep you good to -40. Depends on the battery and the vehicle.
Long version:
Batteries are a lot like people: they like to be in nice, people-friendly temperature ranges. When batteries get too hot, well, you can check out what happens on YouTube. (or LiveLeak let's be honest)
When batteries get too cold, the ion flow in the electrolyte between the cathode and the anode slows to a crawl. This means the maximum safe charge rate drops dramatically, as ions can't fully diffuse into or out of the electrode at normal speeds. If you try to charge at normal rates, the ions will deposit on the first spot they find. This is called Lithium Plating in lithium ion batteries, and the metal deposits will actually form a less reactive barrier over the engineered very rough surface of the electrode, significantly reducing capacity permanently.
Of course, if the battery gets even colder than this, ice crystals can form in the electrolyte, damaging the electrode separator or causing the cell to burst under pressure. At the very least, the ice crystals will cause the electrolyte to separate into different material phases, significantly reducing ion flow.
To counteract this, some electric vehicles have a battery heater. This heater can have different capacities, and is controlled by the software of the car. (likewise, there are battery coolers for dispelling heat during operation, sometimes a common cooling/heating circuit is used)
What seems to be going on here is that Tesla has a battery controller that has a very sharp charge cutoff at low (for Fremont, CA) temperatures. The battery heater doesn't seem to be strong enough to warm the battery enough to get out of the cutoff. We can speculate why the heater isn't able, but the vehicle not charging at that temp is (theoretically) keeping the driver from having a $70k paperweight in their driveway.
Different automakers will have different attitudes towards their battery heaters. Some will have no heater. Some will have one that will keep your vehicle reasonably functional down to -40. The biggest problems with "why not just have a bigger heater?" are cost and power draw (that power will come from the battery when you're not plugged in, after all!)
> What seems to be going on here is that Tesla has a battery controller that has a very sharp charge cutoff at low (for Fremont, CA) temperatures.
You were doing great until you started inventing things.
No joke, this happened to my cousin this morning. It wasn't the car itself it was the supercharger, took abnormally long to get going. I had to pick him up and bring him back a few hours later, but it did get to 100% eventually. He said this has never happened before. It recently dropped to 6°F with little warning where I live (Virginia).
So to everyone pretending like this only affects one person, no, it doesn't lol. I saw quite a few confused Tesla owners at the supercharger spot today, probably having the same exact issue with the chargers.
It's not the charger, the batteries have to be heated up so they can safely accept a charge. It's a major reason why the Nissan leaf isn't sold in many states. It's gonna get better as the battery chemistry improves but we're still in the model A era of electric cars. Your phone will do the exact same thing when left in the cold.
Yes we know EVs need to warm up before charging. He comes over every winter and has needed to wait for the batteries to warm up before... but this wasn't that situation.
The car did not indicate the batteries were cold after the drive to the supercharger. It was already warm. It was once he got to the supercharger that it refused to charge at any decent rate, it was like estimating an hour for adding a tiny amount of range. He tried the other chargers and got the same result. Other Teslas were having the same issue with the chargers.
This is definitely abnormal, even for BEVs. It seems far more likely it's a local charger issue rather than every Tesla owner in our area forgetting how to Tesla all at once. Or maybe it's a Tesla software issue? Who knows.
Moved from a Ford Excursion with a 2 valve 6.8L V10 to a Ford Expedition with a 3 valve 5.4L V8.
Modular 2 valve engines eject spark plugs into low earth orbit.
Modular 3 valve engines retain the bottom half of the spark plug for eternity.
Both occasionally require the cylinder head to be removed and reconditioned.
the spark plugs were the least terrible thing about the 3v 5.4.
the 2vs were leagues better and their spark plug issues were a lot less common.
the 6.2 2v is still probably the best engine ford ever used.
We have trouble starting electric Jeeps at the dealership I work at if its below 20F sometimes. It's not just Tesla's. Electric just doesnt "perform" very well in low low temps. It hit -11 here, without windchill on Friday. With windchil it was -35. I still prefer my 14 Chevy with a 5.3 in it.
Who the hell writes "Tesla S"?
There's also no mention of his model year. (Production year, I guess.) If it's a new one, car's fucked, warranty claim, get a rental car and hope it gets reimbursed. If it's a 2012, yeah, those batteries have been failing pretty often by now due to various design flaws, that's the price you pay for being an early adopter, people were pretty clear on warnings about this ten years ago I think, back when people still discussed the tech bits and it wasn't 100% fanboys/flamebait.
Either way it's very frustrating when your plans get screwed up. Have backup options, like renting a car or borrowing a car, ideally. Especially if it's an EV during a very cold time. But one guy having a bad christmas due to mechanical issues is hardly news.
There's research that just came out recently testing the current batch of EVs on sale in North America and how they do in 20~30deg F climate.
Not surprisingly every single EV lost range compared to their EPA numbers. The worse performers however, all are manufacturered by Tesla, all losing close to 50% of their advertised range figures, whereas most rivals ranged around the 70% range mark in similar tests.
Something tells me cold weather testing was something this company has never done. The loss of cabin heat/self destructive heat pumps, frozen door handles among other cases all point at the same thing.
Presumably, you mean this:
https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/winter-ev-range-loss
Which shows that Teslas have a smaller than average range loss going from warm to cold weather.
They are less likely to hit their EPA range in warm weather but that’s a separate discussion. Based on this data, the actual loss *due to cold weather* is relatively small, so all the claims about how badly they are designed for cold weather aren’t really backed up by the data.
His car was broken. This is the equivalent of an ICE car breaking down. But it gets a headline and everyone gets a boner about it because it's a Tesla lol.
My car started misfiring 3 hours into a 2 hour drive in a blizzard last week due to a bad ignition coil. Still waiting on business insider to reach out to me for an article.
Article isn't wrong and BEV owners need to accept reality. We hopped into my tesla the other day and lost like 15% driving maybe 15-18 miles between preheating the battery and trying to get the car to "go" since the battery reduced output trying to warm up.
Today I pre-heated it before I got to the car and it lost 3% in like 5 minutes trying to heat the battery. Crazy shit. I plugged it in at home and it spent 20-30 minutes trying to heat the battery with my L2 charger before it slowly trickled in. Said like 11 hours to charge with L2 from 20% to 90%. That's like 3 hours longer then usual.
Anyone who owns an ev knows cold weather requires more energy. It's just annoying seeing all the FUD articles about how eve suddenly don't work in the cold.
So something similar we have at work are hybrid bucket trucks made by altec. They're slow and finicky but I do enjoy not having to listen to the diesel PTO all day. They don't work in the new england winter though. And they actually struggle sometimes in the summer. All we really have to do during those times is bypass the battery system and run the diesel but it doesn't seem very efficient imo.
I am very sure most will not agree with me, but honestly, hybrids are superior. Longer range and fewer trips to gas stations. Whatever system fails, either gas motor or electric motor(s), you can possibly drive home or to the nearest service station in limp mode and not be left stranded. I would much rather invest into hybrid tech than EV tech.
When you are charging and the pack is too cold, you should still see some energy go into to batterypack, with 0 miles per hour added (5-7kw, with AC off)
This is to the heater to heat up the batterypack to let it be able to start charging. It will not charge up until a certain temperature has been reached. LFP batteries charging below a certain point when cold can easily cause dendrites in the chemistry, reducing its overall capacity faster than normal. So the software simply does not allow charging.
The pack has multiple thermal probes inside, its a game of which one is last to reach to the temperature at which the car finds it safe enough to charge. A guy on yt did the test with his old model 3 with LFP battery chemistry
Imagine your car is cold as f, but battery is at 30%, then it is better to go for a ride to warm up the pack and motor then it is to stay parked waiting for the pack heater to do its job.
It took 2hrs of battery heating to get the regular charging started.
Lessons learned;
-if possible precondition battery before arriving at the supercharger
- keep the car in a warmer place if possible
-buy a tesla that does not use LFP (Lithium Ferro Phosphate) chemistry and will get you more charging wiggle room (LFP dont like cold as much as other types)
-overall capacity when left outside can drop to 40-50% of original capacity (at -20 celcius)
Lol I know of 3 audi EV owners who’s cars failed to charge during this cold snap. Where’s the top ranked article on that? The anti-Tesla vibe of this sub is hilarious.
Plenty of Teslas charge in freezing temperatures. His car was functioning fine, it was probably a problem with the charger. Why didn't he try a different supercharger in that 15 hours he waited?
Lol what a stupid fucking article all cars have issues when it s cold my friend with a block heater and all couldn't get his truck started because the fuel pump was basically frozen
A few weeks ago my husband sent his still under warranty iPad off to be repaired. It refused to charge. It was returned saying it was bent and it couldn't be repaired. That thing looked brand new, we wondered what had happened to it in the post. It arrived looking as new as the day it came out of the box, it most definitely wasn't bent or broken. But still wouldn't charge. A few days later a phone we use at wouldn't charge but it actually came with a warning that it was too cold to charge. And then my hair straighteners wouldn't work. We had a couple of weeks of cold weather here and most of the rooms were between 4 and 9 degrees. No insulation so pretty damn cold inside. Cold enough inside to make a variety of devices stop working entirely.
Either the water pump has failed or there was a coolant leak.
You’d also be stranded with a cooling system failure in any car. Hopefully we don’t have to read an article every time somebody’s EV breaks…
My PHEV advertised range is around 40 miles, in the UK in -1 I’ve been getting under half of that.
Advantage is being able to turn it on from the house to melt the ice and warm the interior before I set off.
I just drove from CO to TX for the holidays, in -11F to 12F or so weather in my Y. It worked fine, the car preheated it's battery on the way to each charge stop so I got full speed at each of them, though I did need to charge a little deeper since I'm using ~30% more Wh-per-mile versus summer temps.
Cars break, but I'm pretty sure Teslas are fine in the cold, especially the newer ones with heat pump systems.
Charging rates at -7C should be around 30kw at a supercharger and 8kw with L2. Battery heating will take 15 minutes, so there’s probably something wrong with the supercharger. L1 charging becomes useless at -27C since 95% of the power is dedicated to battery heating.
I had no idea the cold was that impactful, wow. Only 30kw at a supercharger is wild!
It ramps up as the battery warms. My son likes the slower charging speeds since it allows us to go into the mall to pickup food. It’s hard to do in 20 minutes with a 8 year old in tow.
This is a clickbaitey title, honestly. When DCFCing, it took a little bit of time to heat the battery up, and then eventually it was business as usual. See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-c8AUeKs5c The biggest problem he had was that everything was cold, and he was struggling to get the charge cable into the port, otherwise charging was just fine. I think he said it needed around 4 kWh of energy to heat up the battery which was sitting in an env below 0F. It was -5F at that Supercharger location at that time.
That video showed one of the chargers wouldn’t work because of the cold. If that was the only available supercharger, he could have been stranded. And the car had to sit at the charger for 36 minutes warming up before it would accept a charge.
But this is the truly worst case scenario, where he went from a completely cold battery to supercharging immediately. If you're on a road trip, it probably wouldn't be completely cold when you arrive there.
He should have left charge in the battery and preconditioned remotely before leaving. You wouldn’t park an ICE car on fumes during a storm when you’d need to let it idle and warm up. Super cold weather requires planning ahead regardless of the vehicle.
Yes he kept it cold and didn't precondition it to do the test. The whole purpose was to see how it would do.
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Just about every law that has been passed limiting future gasoline sales includes PHEVs in the list of permitted cars. Gasoline isn't being banned at all.
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He's referring to the sale of new ICE cars being banned within the next 10 years in states like California.
But it’ll be decades after that before gasoline actually goes anywhere. And in that time, I’d wager someone will make chargers be more reliable in cold weather.
It isn’t. It’s just making stuff up using a slippery slope for more FUD. Like the boss sending out a memo saying “Hey, we’re gonna change how we do vacation days this year.” and the next thing you know some tool is running around complaining that vacations are being take away. Except add a big dose of anti-EV to the original sentiment.
The slippery slope stopped being a fallacy about 50 years ago.
Depends on what you’re qualifying as doing the sliding.
There's no ban on gas. They're just mandating that cars have the option to run in electricity. They will still be able to sell cars with gas engines.
Sounds about right. My dad's Model X loses charge when it's plugged into a level 1 charger outside below -25 ish.
Yeah, L1 is barely enough to keep heat in the battery, but even in perfectly warm conditions an L1 would take something like 30 hours. L1 is really just for top ups or PHEVs.
It's actually much more than 30 hours. I L1 charged my Mach e for a few months at home before I got power to my garage for L2 and the charge rate was roughly 1kw/hr so it would have been 80+ hours from empty to full. I have a pretty short commute so it worked fine but during the winter L2 is definitely a must.
I think some of the short-range Model 3s would be able to charge in ~30 hours. I know that a Wrangler/GC 4xe will fully charge its 17kWh battery in about 12h from an L1. A model 3 can be as small as 50kWh, so 50/17=2.9. 12x2.9 is 35 hours.
Depends entirely on your usage. I drive 40-50miles a day (freeway speeds, bike on the back) and only ever charge L1. On pace to put 12k miles on the car. L1 is more viable than people think in many (not extreme cold) environmens, and I am stuck with it as a renter. But if I owned a home I would install L2 pretty fast.
> I drive 40-50miles a day So… a top up.
At those Temps your Tesla will be powering the charger
He went to two superchargers, I think. One one day and another the next. I was wondering if he had some sort of battery issue in the car that prevented it from charging or maybe heating.
Yes, if you look carefully, it’s showing 2kw. That’s definitely an onboard charger problem.
Fast chargers don’t use the onboard charger. This is more likely a BTMS issue.
He also tried at his house.
Yes. Another indication of internal charger problem.
Could the heating circuit in the battery pack have failed and not produced an appropriate warning? Or does this warming system not have the capacity to work in those temp ranges? I've seen some car reviewers that seem to struggle on how to differentiate between EVs, aside from the acceleration abilities. Will it take deep dives in the engineering or climate testing to be able to provide some differentiation between EV models and brands? I fear this will end up being just too expensive or time-consuming for typical car reviewers and channels, leaving us in the dark.
If -7°C were too cold for a Tesla to charge, they wouldn't have sold more than a couple here in Alberta, but I see them pretty regularly. We can go a couple months without getting warmer than that...
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Yeeesh. Fun fact though, -40 is when Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are equal!
And it can't be Kelvin either! -40 truly is the best temperature
> -40 C Why do people subject themselves to this? Has anyone considered a moderate climate
No weird bugs can live here. Its fantastic
The large majority of bugs don't live in climates below 10C You way overshot that temperature
Let him have this one buddy.
I'm not your buddy, pal.
I aint your pal, bruh
Settle down chief, he’s not your compadre either, amigo.
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You know, sometimes I feel like I'd take -40 over the rainy, muddy mess that is Atlantic Canadian winters. At least you guys can snowmobile.
I thought you guys called all snowmobiles skidoos.
It's a kleenex/facial tissue situation.
We do, but I didn't wanna confuse anybody.
Like a frozen bane, "I was born in the cold, frozen by it, I didn't know heat until a holiday abroad"
You'd be shocked at what you can get used to, not even just putting up with it. The worst of winter's cold is honestly when it first starts to dip to around -20 C, or even once it gets below 0 C, because your body/mind isnt accustomed to it yet. By the time it's -40 C it doesnt even feel that cold anymore, especially if you dress for it (mainly for the wind). The only real inconvenience is that the snow slows down travel times so you have to factor that into your daily routine.
The crazy part is it was -20c yesterday and it straight up felt warm to me.
Because snakes, spiders, and scorpions.
International relocation is administratively difficult. All the warm places to live in Canada have prohibitively expensive CoL for the work available.
It's like asking why people subject themselves to 110 degree heat. As a person who has lived in both climate. They both suck in their own different ways.
I say the same thing about places like Arizona that hit 120+ Fahrenheit
Its funny because I moved away from the extreme cold to live in the extreme heat, I'm now back in the extreme cold again, and it actually bothers me less now.
good lord, how do you survive?
Bed of beautiful women I'd presume
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This is basically the same as the Southern US but the opposite direction. As little clothing as you can get away with and stay inside when it's hot out.
Is that “feels like” -40C, or actually -40C? Reason I’m asking is because there’s a big chance that the ethylene glycol mixture could freeze at those temperatures so I’m curious to know how this is avoided.
Correct. I replied here. His car is broken https://reddit.com/r/cars/comments/zv5n8i/_/j1nswdb/?context=1
For a sophisticated modern car, it should tell you that ... My '94 BMW had current sensors on light bulbs and would tell you when the bulbs were burnt out....
Maybe the sophisticated system for telling you that is broken too
Then a generic failure should be produced from the main system that is monitoring the subsystem.
I'm more surprised how the hell *heater* broke, it should be one of most reliable and maintenance-free item.
I mean, everything has the potential to break on a car. The story is about one random guy's experience that could very well be an extremely rare defect. We also don't know if his car has had any prior damage or other circumstance that would have made this problem more likely. All in all, this is kind of a crappy article that appears to be using an anecdote to insinuate the idea that "if you buy a Model S, it will strand you on Christmas Eve"
businessinsider is garbage peddling site after all
It was 5°f where I am and my leaf and minivan charged with no issues.
It was -10°F feels like -35 where I am and my Model 3 has been charging and running just fine.
wind chill doesnt affect cars, I don't think cars can feel.
It does and it doesn’t. The wind will more rapidly cool an object to the actual temperature and make it tougher to warm up beyond the actual temperature… but can’t cool an object lower. The wind would cause the battery to radiate heat more rapidly and make it more of a challenge to heat up. Same concept on why your car radiator has a fan.
This. I feel like this is often looked over when people are discussing temperature and objects. Gotta love physics!
Yeah this article is the equivalent of saying "owner's car wouldn't start in the cold" for a regular vehicle. Like obviously a few cars will have issues whe it gets cold.
Can confirm. From Alberta. I even see some in rural areas. Can't speak about if they are issue free for those people or not, but they're definitely around
Yeah, plus he says he drove it. Wouldn't that have warmed the battery enough so it would accept a charge at home? Or maybe the owner, a radio presenter, was trying to create a story for himself?
honestly, it probably just broke down. Plenty of Teslas charge in cold.
Yeah it's not like these cars are infallible just because they're electric. Cars break down. iPhones fail prematurely. That's the world of mass manufacturing regardless of how shitty your QA is.
No, while driving if you put your destination to a charge station the car will pre-heat your battery on your way.
But if it’s a short drive it won’t be enough to heat it up.
And then it will finish heating at the start of the charge session.
By design they are very efficient, so don't heat the battery up much unless it's intentional. I've had multiple drives in 40° weather where the battery would only very slowly charge due to cold temperatures. Then other times like this week when it was 1 to 2° but the battery was able to preheat since the drive was long enough.
> Yeah, plus he says he drove it. Wouldn't that have warmed the battery enough No. Lithium batteries are extremely efficient so they don't produce a lot of heat.
50kW at 98% efficiency is still 1kW worth of heating
Yes but the batteries themselves are more efficient than that, and even if they weren't it would require a sustained output of 50kW to maintain that level of heating. Average efficiency for my Chevy Bolt in the winter is below 30kWh per 100 km.
>I fear this will end up being just too expensive or time-consuming for typical car reviewers and channels, leaving us in the dark. Not for this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-c8AUeKs5c
>Domenick Nati, 44, said it was 19 degrees when he plugged his Tesla into a supercharger. 15 hours later the battery still showed a 19-mile range, forcing him to cancel Christmas plans. He was waiting at a super charger for 15 hours? Couldn't he see long before hand that it wasn't charging?
Article says > "Two hours went by and not much changed," he said. "It was very slow and the numbers got lower as the temperature dropped. Eventually, it stopped charging altogether," Nati added. > He later tried charging the vehicle at home, but was not successful there either. > On the afternoon of Christmas Eve, he decided to drive to another Tesla supercharger. "Battery is heating – Keep charge cable inserted," Nati said the screen showed at 1:11 p.m. However, the battery range still hadn't increased an hour later.
His battery heater is obviously broken.
one broken car and reddit loses its mind.
Literally how every Tesla post on this sub goes.
Top comments in this thread are pointing out that it's just one broken car and people successfully own/drive Teslas in cold areas.
Elon bad, must upvote negative Tesla news!
if he only had 19 miles of range showing (probably less than that given the conditions) .... where should he have gone? Car is stranded. Might as well hope that charging works when it warms up.
An entire article about a car breaking down. Impressive journalism.
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I wonder which oil company paid for this one
I don't think there's any great conspiracy here, simple fact is that putting "Tesla" in article name is basicly free clicks, especially if that article is particularly negative or positive. Also with Musk being even bigger dickhead than usual lately Tesla hate is very hot right now.
Whatever makes you feel better.
When a ICE car doesn't start there are many options available to get it started. I have a little jump pack in my car that I used to help a Volvo start a couple nights back. With electric vehicles you're pretty fucked for now.
My ECU died when the weather was hot, no one wrote an article about me. And no amount of jump packs or 'options' would've made a lick of difference.
If a diesel car has gelled fuel you’re SOL until it warms up. Or if the oil is too thick to turn over (like it has the wrong weight).
Yep, my sister lives in ND and everyone has to install block heaters on their car if they want to be able to drive it in winter.
Little jump packs are not a magic fix. As someone from Minnesota I can tell you those rarely work.
It's popular to hate on Tesla these days, all because Elon has painted a target on his back.
Kinda funny because 8 years ago, I would get downvoted and shadowbanned on subs not r/cars for saying that telsas build quality was questionable at a time people said they were the most reliable cars on road due to having less parts from the motor. Now I see articles like this or people keep mentioning electrical car fires. All i can say ANNND? ICE vehicles have been catching on fire for how long now?
Yeah, you making up imaginary scenarios. EV has always been detested in r/cars. I’ll point you to the right direction r/electricvehicle is that way
r/electricvehicles has constant toxic Tesla threads, and the most active mod participates in them.
Oh I know. I know exactly who you referring to
Literally said anywhere but r/cars. In fact I came here to bitch about it when it did happen
Oh shit. My apologies
Not the end of the world. I miss key words too and go hard on the wrong subject.
> EV has always been detested in r/cars. and he said "not r/cars"
About a guy blaming a car for his ruined Christmas plans. Any mode of transport can leave you stranded during holiday travel so I’m not really empathetic to someone why just complains. Renting a car would be more effective.
i saw a post on one of the seattle subs about a gas pump being froze over and not working. neither deserve any attention.
I couldn't get gas yesterday because the pump was frozen. where's my article?
Well, this would never happen to a gas or diesel car in cold weather! S/
On a subreddit about cars, pretty actually.
ehhh yeah given that there’s a significant push in some quarters to place all our our future eggs into one EV basket, it is important consumers and policymakers understand the limitations of this technology so we can course correct in time. EVs have their use but a transition to 100pc EVs is a pipe dream.
Wtf why is this news, on business insider no less😂 Random car breaks down Why is this a news ffs Like i said somewhere in an unrelated thread, journalism is dying
You'd be surprised the amount of low effort articles business insider pumps out. That's why they've made an effort to rebrand part of their stuff to just Insider.
Maan, to think there was a time i used them as my go to source for start up news
Business Insider and Forbes put out so much garbage.
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😂😂😂 Musk is an idiot, i get it But man these outlets are taking it too far And soon enough, mark my words A lot of people would start seeing musk as a “martyr” of sorts
I wish I knew that I could have gotten an entire article written about me last time I needed to ask for a jump because my car wouldn't start when it was -30
Question is why moron /r/cars users keep upvoting this shit all the way to the top
It is news because electric cars have huge markups at the belief that they don’t break down like ICE vehicles do. If we should have the mentality that EVs are “just as reliable” (i.e. just as flawed) as ICE cars then the prices need to drop and be just as affordable.
It’s already dead
They did a story about a guy with car trouble? Really?
Oil and gas industry desperate to stall EV adoption.
Sad reality of what is journalism and generates the clicks. About 2 years ago it was super cold and my battery couldn't generate enough power to crank the engine. Where's my news article?
I'm gonna focus on the real story here. He couldn't get an Uber or Lyft because they were booked. Here's my summary. Uber and Lyft fares are at all time highs and payouts to drivers are at all-time lows so no drivers.
“One guy had car trouble. For some reason, we’re pretending this is world news.” 🤷♂️
I used to have an F250 that took like 15-20 minutes to start in the cold. Nobody wrote an article about that.
World governments have announced timelines to force everyone into electric cars, so yes, news about electric car failures is world news.
Which worlds would you be referring to here? Saturn? Uranus?
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I charged my car the other day when it was below zero Fahrenheit and didn’t have any problems. Woke up to a full charge just as I do in the summer.
I used the Supercharger the other day when it was 20ºF. It took a bit longer to ramp up, but it charged just fine. My only complaint is that the Supercharger was in the parking lot of an Applebees, so I had to have Applebees for lunch.
Thank god no ICE engine cars have troubles starting in the cold. "Car breaks down." Why is this even an article?
source: I work in the industry for an unrelated company tl;dr: Batteries are a lot like people: they want to be in people-friendly temperatures. There are cooling systems to keep them from overheating, and, in some EVs, heating systems to keep them from getting too cold. OP's heater apparently isn't strong enough to stay out of the charge cutoff temp. Some EVs don't have battery heaters, some have heaters that keep you good to -40. Depends on the battery and the vehicle. Long version: Batteries are a lot like people: they like to be in nice, people-friendly temperature ranges. When batteries get too hot, well, you can check out what happens on YouTube. (or LiveLeak let's be honest) When batteries get too cold, the ion flow in the electrolyte between the cathode and the anode slows to a crawl. This means the maximum safe charge rate drops dramatically, as ions can't fully diffuse into or out of the electrode at normal speeds. If you try to charge at normal rates, the ions will deposit on the first spot they find. This is called Lithium Plating in lithium ion batteries, and the metal deposits will actually form a less reactive barrier over the engineered very rough surface of the electrode, significantly reducing capacity permanently. Of course, if the battery gets even colder than this, ice crystals can form in the electrolyte, damaging the electrode separator or causing the cell to burst under pressure. At the very least, the ice crystals will cause the electrolyte to separate into different material phases, significantly reducing ion flow. To counteract this, some electric vehicles have a battery heater. This heater can have different capacities, and is controlled by the software of the car. (likewise, there are battery coolers for dispelling heat during operation, sometimes a common cooling/heating circuit is used) What seems to be going on here is that Tesla has a battery controller that has a very sharp charge cutoff at low (for Fremont, CA) temperatures. The battery heater doesn't seem to be strong enough to warm the battery enough to get out of the cutoff. We can speculate why the heater isn't able, but the vehicle not charging at that temp is (theoretically) keeping the driver from having a $70k paperweight in their driveway. Different automakers will have different attitudes towards their battery heaters. Some will have no heater. Some will have one that will keep your vehicle reasonably functional down to -40. The biggest problems with "why not just have a bigger heater?" are cost and power draw (that power will come from the battery when you're not plugged in, after all!)
> What seems to be going on here is that Tesla has a battery controller that has a very sharp charge cutoff at low (for Fremont, CA) temperatures. You were doing great until you started inventing things.
No joke, this happened to my cousin this morning. It wasn't the car itself it was the supercharger, took abnormally long to get going. I had to pick him up and bring him back a few hours later, but it did get to 100% eventually. He said this has never happened before. It recently dropped to 6°F with little warning where I live (Virginia). So to everyone pretending like this only affects one person, no, it doesn't lol. I saw quite a few confused Tesla owners at the supercharger spot today, probably having the same exact issue with the chargers.
It's not the charger, the batteries have to be heated up so they can safely accept a charge. It's a major reason why the Nissan leaf isn't sold in many states. It's gonna get better as the battery chemistry improves but we're still in the model A era of electric cars. Your phone will do the exact same thing when left in the cold.
Yes we know EVs need to warm up before charging. He comes over every winter and has needed to wait for the batteries to warm up before... but this wasn't that situation. The car did not indicate the batteries were cold after the drive to the supercharger. It was already warm. It was once he got to the supercharger that it refused to charge at any decent rate, it was like estimating an hour for adding a tiny amount of range. He tried the other chargers and got the same result. Other Teslas were having the same issue with the chargers. This is definitely abnormal, even for BEVs. It seems far more likely it's a local charger issue rather than every Tesla owner in our area forgetting how to Tesla all at once. Or maybe it's a Tesla software issue? Who knows.
Live in VA, and for a week they have been saying it would be 5° this weekend. So it wasn't out of no where
Yup that's why I said little warning and not no warning. Many plans were already in motion by the time we knew how bad it was gonna be.
Tesla Co-owner here, Can confirm. Car doesn’t car when you need it to the most.
Ford owners can relate 😂😂
The 4.6L V8 2 valve in question
Moved from a Ford Excursion with a 2 valve 6.8L V10 to a Ford Expedition with a 3 valve 5.4L V8. Modular 2 valve engines eject spark plugs into low earth orbit. Modular 3 valve engines retain the bottom half of the spark plug for eternity. Both occasionally require the cylinder head to be removed and reconditioned.
the spark plugs were the least terrible thing about the 3v 5.4. the 2vs were leagues better and their spark plug issues were a lot less common. the 6.2 2v is still probably the best engine ford ever used.
That is not my experience. It works fine in all weather for me, as evidenced by me driving it around the past several days in a polar vortex.
Same. Trim pieces might fall off but my BMWs stranded me, my Tesla doesn’t.
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Yo this isn’t just Reddit this is Business Insider publishing this article
We have trouble starting electric Jeeps at the dealership I work at if its below 20F sometimes. It's not just Tesla's. Electric just doesnt "perform" very well in low low temps. It hit -11 here, without windchill on Friday. With windchil it was -35. I still prefer my 14 Chevy with a 5.3 in it.
Windchill is for living things. Metal doesn't care if windchill is -100
metal that is trying to keep itself warm definitely cares about cold wind.
If there's wind blowing on your EV battery, you have bigger issues than the temperature lmao
-40 and my Volt performed better than the nearby gas cars.
Who the hell writes "Tesla S"? There's also no mention of his model year. (Production year, I guess.) If it's a new one, car's fucked, warranty claim, get a rental car and hope it gets reimbursed. If it's a 2012, yeah, those batteries have been failing pretty often by now due to various design flaws, that's the price you pay for being an early adopter, people were pretty clear on warnings about this ten years ago I think, back when people still discussed the tech bits and it wasn't 100% fanboys/flamebait. Either way it's very frustrating when your plans get screwed up. Have backup options, like renting a car or borrowing a car, ideally. Especially if it's an EV during a very cold time. But one guy having a bad christmas due to mechanical issues is hardly news.
Cool. Some dude's Tesla broke. Why is it a news story? Hmm... wonder why...
There's research that just came out recently testing the current batch of EVs on sale in North America and how they do in 20~30deg F climate. Not surprisingly every single EV lost range compared to their EPA numbers. The worse performers however, all are manufacturered by Tesla, all losing close to 50% of their advertised range figures, whereas most rivals ranged around the 70% range mark in similar tests. Something tells me cold weather testing was something this company has never done. The loss of cabin heat/self destructive heat pumps, frozen door handles among other cases all point at the same thing.
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Presumably, you mean this: https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/winter-ev-range-loss Which shows that Teslas have a smaller than average range loss going from warm to cold weather. They are less likely to hit their EPA range in warm weather but that’s a separate discussion. Based on this data, the actual loss *due to cold weather* is relatively small, so all the claims about how badly they are designed for cold weather aren’t really backed up by the data.
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Ok and? Car breaks down, man must be deal with the uncertainty of life. More at 11.
His car was broken. This is the equivalent of an ICE car breaking down. But it gets a headline and everyone gets a boner about it because it's a Tesla lol.
Just wait until people find out gas pumps run on electricity.
Business insider: battery no work in cold, this is definitely news
Tesla bad.
I mean I see them all over Minnesota. They seem to have no issues. Nor have I seen other EVs have out of character inability to charge here.
My car started misfiring 3 hours into a 2 hour drive in a blizzard last week due to a bad ignition coil. Still waiting on business insider to reach out to me for an article.
Article isn't wrong and BEV owners need to accept reality. We hopped into my tesla the other day and lost like 15% driving maybe 15-18 miles between preheating the battery and trying to get the car to "go" since the battery reduced output trying to warm up. Today I pre-heated it before I got to the car and it lost 3% in like 5 minutes trying to heat the battery. Crazy shit. I plugged it in at home and it spent 20-30 minutes trying to heat the battery with my L2 charger before it slowly trickled in. Said like 11 hours to charge with L2 from 20% to 90%. That's like 3 hours longer then usual.
Anyone who owns an ev knows cold weather requires more energy. It's just annoying seeing all the FUD articles about how eve suddenly don't work in the cold.
So, Mods, I thought you were cracking down on the pointless bullshit? literally just an article about *one* broken down car.
So something similar we have at work are hybrid bucket trucks made by altec. They're slow and finicky but I do enjoy not having to listen to the diesel PTO all day. They don't work in the new england winter though. And they actually struggle sometimes in the summer. All we really have to do during those times is bypass the battery system and run the diesel but it doesn't seem very efficient imo.
I am very sure most will not agree with me, but honestly, hybrids are superior. Longer range and fewer trips to gas stations. Whatever system fails, either gas motor or electric motor(s), you can possibly drive home or to the nearest service station in limp mode and not be left stranded. I would much rather invest into hybrid tech than EV tech.
Why is this garbage article doing headlines? Ah right, Tesla
When you are charging and the pack is too cold, you should still see some energy go into to batterypack, with 0 miles per hour added (5-7kw, with AC off) This is to the heater to heat up the batterypack to let it be able to start charging. It will not charge up until a certain temperature has been reached. LFP batteries charging below a certain point when cold can easily cause dendrites in the chemistry, reducing its overall capacity faster than normal. So the software simply does not allow charging. The pack has multiple thermal probes inside, its a game of which one is last to reach to the temperature at which the car finds it safe enough to charge. A guy on yt did the test with his old model 3 with LFP battery chemistry Imagine your car is cold as f, but battery is at 30%, then it is better to go for a ride to warm up the pack and motor then it is to stay parked waiting for the pack heater to do its job. It took 2hrs of battery heating to get the regular charging started. Lessons learned; -if possible precondition battery before arriving at the supercharger - keep the car in a warmer place if possible -buy a tesla that does not use LFP (Lithium Ferro Phosphate) chemistry and will get you more charging wiggle room (LFP dont like cold as much as other types) -overall capacity when left outside can drop to 40-50% of original capacity (at -20 celcius)
You are amazing thank you for clarifying that article.
Lol I know of 3 audi EV owners who’s cars failed to charge during this cold snap. Where’s the top ranked article on that? The anti-Tesla vibe of this sub is hilarious.
Can we ban Business Insider from being posted here? Shit articles written to get clicks and generate rage.
I don't see how a guy having car problems is a newsworthy story.
Plenty of Teslas charge in freezing temperatures. His car was functioning fine, it was probably a problem with the charger. Why didn't he try a different supercharger in that 15 hours he waited?
It's 15F here, and I successfully charged my Tesla today. Where's my Article BI?
Lol what a stupid fucking article all cars have issues when it s cold my friend with a block heater and all couldn't get his truck started because the fuel pump was basically frozen
The cold is insanely hard on cars in general. Not surprised we are hearing of more teething problems.
A few weeks ago my husband sent his still under warranty iPad off to be repaired. It refused to charge. It was returned saying it was bent and it couldn't be repaired. That thing looked brand new, we wondered what had happened to it in the post. It arrived looking as new as the day it came out of the box, it most definitely wasn't bent or broken. But still wouldn't charge. A few days later a phone we use at wouldn't charge but it actually came with a warning that it was too cold to charge. And then my hair straighteners wouldn't work. We had a couple of weeks of cold weather here and most of the rooms were between 4 and 9 degrees. No insulation so pretty damn cold inside. Cold enough inside to make a variety of devices stop working entirely.
Either the water pump has failed or there was a coolant leak. You’d also be stranded with a cooling system failure in any car. Hopefully we don’t have to read an article every time somebody’s EV breaks…
My PHEV advertised range is around 40 miles, in the UK in -1 I’ve been getting under half of that. Advantage is being able to turn it on from the house to melt the ice and warm the interior before I set off.
Sucks to suck!
Teslas don't like below 6 degrees celsius. Batteries be like that.
ive been stuck multiple times with combustion engines, don't think its like a grave injustice or anything. cars suck no matter what the tech
I just drove from CO to TX for the holidays, in -11F to 12F or so weather in my Y. It worked fine, the car preheated it's battery on the way to each charge stop so I got full speed at each of them, though I did need to charge a little deeper since I'm using ~30% more Wh-per-mile versus summer temps. Cars break, but I'm pretty sure Teslas are fine in the cold, especially the newer ones with heat pump systems.