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Comment by markkanof | Hacker News Reader

This definitely isn't a road trip vehicle, but as a daily driver it could be great for a lot of people. I work from home, but my wife drives to work and it's about 9 miles round trip. So she could get to and from work and take a bunch of diversions along the way to run errands and still easily be under 20 miles per day.

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The great thing about electric cars is that, as far as I know, unlike ICE vehicles, short journeys do not cause excessive wear on the engine and drivetrain because oil, water and components are unable to get up to correct operating temperature.

How does this square up with the advice not to "warm up" your car that seems pretty common from automakers these days?

If you mean warming up your car by idling before you drive off then yes, that advice is rather stale.

First, by idling you only warm up the engine, oil and coolant. By the time you drive off your gearbox oil is still cold, as are the driveshafts, CV joints, differential, and your brake fluid.

Lots of new cars have something called a cold start where for the first minute or two they run very rich, burning excess fuel to get the catalytic converter and exhaust up to temperature as quickly as possible for emissions reasons.

You definitely should warm up your engine, but strictly before starting it and not by idling it (i.e. use a block heater). This is because it takes a lot of time for the engine to warm up when idling without any load.

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