Electric Vehicles - Models Discussion

[ncbill]

But these current temps in Chicago are common place in other parts of the country. One of the main reasons we didn't buy an EV last summer. Couldn't drive it to Colorado and leave it parked at our cabin. No place to charge it and would have to drive an hour to town just to charge it.
IMO not ready for prime time yet. At least not for me. In more mild areas they may work out better. When we sell the cabin then I may consider an EV.
BTW I've never had any of my ICE vehicles not start in extreme temps like these. This was a problem with carburetors but not with a well maintained fuel injected engine.

No power at the cabin?

 

[joesxm3]

I thought the story of the Chicago situation was the the charging stations were too cold? At the end there is a mention about preconditioning. So, had the Tesla owners did the precondition, their cars should have charged?

The battery needs to be heated in order to charge. Either pre conditioned on the way to the charger or sitting at the charger waiting to start. I seem to remember reading that this could use up to 15% of capacity to do this in cold weather.

I don't know if sitting at the charger can use electricity from the charger to heat the battery instead of from the battery.

In any case, getting too low in cold weather is a big mistake.

I stay in a heated garage but I just switched from charging to 50% to charging to 70% just in case. If I planned a long drive I would charge to 90% to be safe.

 

[aja8888]

The battery needs to be heated in order to charge. Either pre conditioned on the way to the charger or sitting at the charger waiting to start. I seem to remember reading that this could use up to 15% of capacity to do this in cold weather.

I don't know if sitting at the charger can use electricity from the charger to heat the battery instead of from the battery.

In any case, getting too low in cold weather is a big mistake.

I stay in a heated garage but I just switched from charging to 50% to charging to 70% just in case. If I planned a long drive I would charge to 90% to be safe.

My battery use for "Climate" (hot or cold weather conditioning/preconditioning) was at 17% of total use yesterday. It never got above 25 F here yesterday and it was 18 F this morning and I drove about 70 miles yesterday.

 

[Zathras]

I thought the story of the Chicago situation was the the charging stations were too cold? At the end there is a mention about preconditioning. So, had the Tesla owners did the precondition, their cars should have charged?

This seems to have been a half dozen small problems that all snowballed into a big one.

Drivers preconditioning their batteries would have helped. Easy to do, completely within driver’s control.

Better education of Tesla drivers would have helped. Mostly easy to do, both Tesla and owners could help.

There have been reports of charging cords being left on the ground. I suspect slush/snow getting in there, then freezing, is what has led to these being ‘down’. This is on the shoulders of both the owners who didn’t hang up the cable properly & Tesla. The mechanism should have a firmer ‘grip’. Tesla could, and probably is, redesigning this to reduce accidental ‘drops’.

There are a large number of rideshare drivers with recent, easy access to Teslas. Education for these drivers is even more critical.

Better info for drivers as to which stations to avoid would also have helped. Tesla’s navigation has a good deal of info, but this apparently was not up to date, or accurate enough.

What I would love to hear is:

• How long until Tesla had someone onsite.

• What specifically was the issue(s) with down chargers

• How many chargers are there per Tesla being operated in the area?
  If behind other areas, how soon are new stations planned.

 

[audreyh1]

Yeah, the rideshare aspect is interesting.

 

[joesxm3]

I was just reading a thread on TMC where people were reporting their range loss in Model Y at 0 F temperatures.

They seemed to say that over 32 F not much effect. At 0 F there was about a 30% loss of range Preheating in a garage before leaving compared to leaving after sitting out in the cold only was about a 5 mile difference.

One other tidbit pointed out from the owner manual was that setting the acceleration mode to chill can increase the range. The reason is that the heat pump can take more heat from the battery to heat the cabin on chill. When on standard it needs to keep the battery hotter in order to supply maxium acceleration if needed.

 

[audreyh1]

Interesting. I drive chill mode all the time. It’s super peppy enough.

Today I preconditioned my car to drive to the mailbox ha ha. Cabin temperature was 35 degrees, so I scheduled it for later.

 

[freedomatlast]

Any EV owners in the Chicago area?

Is this news article sensationalized or factual?

https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/dead-teslas-oak-brook

Public charging stations have turned into car graveyards over the past couple of days.

"Nothing. No juice. Still on zero percent," said Tyler Beard, who has been trying to recharge his Tesla at an Oak Brook Tesla supercharging station since Sunday afternoon. "And this is like three hours being out here after being out here three hours yesterday."

"This is crazy. It’s a disaster. Seriously," said Tesla owner Chalis Mizelle.

Mizelle was forced to abandon her car and get a ride from a friend when it wouldn’t charge.

Another man summed up the situation succinctly: "We got a bunch of dead robots out here."

 

[Midpack]

^^ The Fox story was by a reporter who knows nothing about EVs, with a clickbait mentality, and many owners caught unaware. It’s certainly not hard to find people to quote who blame others when they’re partly/largely at fault in any situation.

There were some chargers out of service, and they are all slower when it’s that cold. Unfortunately some owners let their SoC get so low the batteries couldn’t precondition and wouldn’t charge - that’s on those owners IMO. You have to plan better when it’s that cold, some unique but easily manageable practices with EVs but even if you’re driving an ICE you’d better have a decent battery and more than fumes in your tank when it’s that cold. I lived in Chicago for 26 years and saw hundreds of ICE cars that wouldn’t start in bitter cold.

Here’s more info. I’d embed a quote, but this one isn’t answered with a sound bite…

https://insideevs.com/news/705057/chicago-tesla-stranded-ev-charging/

 

[joesxm3]

On TMC they said that some of the dead chargers were because people left the plug on the ground and it got iced up.

Someone also mentioned that you should set the regen braking to use friction braking if the battery is too cold to accept the regen charge. Otherwise you might not stop when you are expecting regen braking to kick in.

 

[folivier]

ncbill, have power at the cabin but none at the winter parking lot where we have to take snowmobiles from there to the cabin. Maybe some day an EV may make sense for me but not now.

 

[aja8888]

Winter driver blues...been going on everywhere since autos hit the scene. Before that, they had horses that went lame in cold weather.

This stuff happens every winter, everywhere, with ICE or EV vehicles.

"Be Prepared" should be more than a Boy Scout motto!

RTM!!

 

[audreyh1]

ncbill, have power at the cabin but none at the winter parking lot where we have to take snowmobiles from there to the cabin. Maybe some day an EV may make sense for me but not now.

So you have to park in a lot separate from your cabin in the winter and take a snowmobile to the cabin. Yes, I’d say that’s not a good situation for parking an EV long term. And for an ICE car I’d say you better disconnect the battery for long term cold storage. Maybe other winterizing things needed too.

 

[Midpack]

Someone also mentioned that you should set the regen braking to use friction braking if the battery is too cold to accept the regen charge. Otherwise you might not stop when you are expecting regen braking to kick in.

+1. That’s the default since mid 2022 and I can’t imagine why an owner would consciously choose to have the brakes behave differently when battery capacity is 95%+ or it’s bitter cold. Another reason not to charge above 90% for daily use.

 

[Dean56]

Yeah, 2 years old and 55,000 miles, that’s a lot!

Even with my long road trips I’m putting on around 12,000 miles or so a year which corresponds well to the long-term warranties.

Did you or will you buy an Extended Warranty for your Tesla?

 

[freedomatlast]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, in cold weather, the battery must be heated before it will start to charge, but if the battery doesn't have enough power to provide that heat, charging won't start. So the only solution is to wait till the weather warms up to charge the battery?

 

[audreyh1]

Did you or will you buy an Extended Warranty for your Tesla?

I’ll consider it. My battery and drive train is already warranted for 8 years or 150,000 miles so I’m not worried about that part.

 

[REWahoo]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, in cold weather, the battery must be heated before it will start to charge, but if the battery doesn't have enough power to provide that heat, charging won't start. So the only solution is to wait till the weather warms up to charge the battery?

Most of us would choose to simply plug in rather than wait for Spring.

IOW, if there isn't sufficient battery charge to condition/warm the battery, attaching a charger will warm the battery enough to initiate charging.

 

[Dean56]

I’ll consider it. My battery and drive train is already warranted for 8 years or 150,000 miles so I’m not worried about that part.

Thanks for the reply. I have 3 friends that own Tesla's and none of them opted for the extended warranty.

 

[Dean56]

IOW, if there isn't sufficient battery charge to condition/warm the battery, attaching a charger will warm the battery and initiate charging.

That's exactly how it works in a Tesla.

 

[braumeister]

Most of us would choose to simply plug in rather than wait for Spring.

How long could it be?

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

-- Ode to the West Wind, Percy B. Shelley

 

[Zathras]

So if I'm understanding this correctly, in cold weather, the battery must be heated before it will start to charge, but if the battery doesn't have enough power to provide that heat, charging won't start. So the only solution is to wait till the weather warms up to charge the battery?

When a Tesla with a cold soaked batter plugs into a DC fast charger the car tells the charger how much power it needs.
So once plugged in, the charger provides the needed power, not the car’s battery.

This is why ‘preconditioning’ is so useful. This will use the car’s battery on your way to the DC fast charger. This allows a faster charge once you plug in.

Does that help?

 

[Midpack]

For the subset here who bought an eligible new or used EV in 2023 and use TurboTax, the Form 8936 interview went live today, easy peasy. Don't forget Form 8911 if you also installed a home charger. Biggest tax credit I've received in my life.

 

[aja8888]

For the subset here who bought an eligible new or used EV in 2023 and use TurboTax, the Form 8936 went live today, easy peasy. Don't forget Form 8911 if you also installed a home charger. Biggest tax credit I've received in my life.

Thanks, I'll need both forms.

 

[freedomatlast]

When a Tesla with a cold soaked batter plugs into a DC fast charger the car tells the charger how much power it needs.
So once plugged in, the charger provides the needed power, not the car’s battery.

This is why ‘preconditioning’ is so useful. This will use the car’s battery on your way to the DC fast charger. This allows a faster charge once you plug in.

Does that help?

That makes sense. Thank you. So I wonder why some quoted in the article were saying even after 3 hours they couldn't charge up in extreme cold?