Wouldn't batteries have poor performance in these conditions anyway?
I've seen a number of reports that Tesla ranges specifically are quite low at this temperature. I don't know if battery life rebounds when the weather improves.
Gas engines also struggle to start in this weather and gas lines freeze, though they obviously throw off enough heat to eventually grudgingly function.
But on the other hand, heating the cabin is and remains much quicker than ICE engines. If you drive short distances the driver's experience is much better.
Warming up the car of course costs some energy but it's a reasonable tradeoff. Some cars actually have heat pumps that make warming them up a bit more efficient. And of course a nice feature is that you can use an app to turn on the car so the car is nice and comfy by the time you get in.
So, it's not that black and white and EVs are pretty popular all over Scandinavia (Norway especially) and in the arctic circle where they have some pretty extreme temperatures every winter. Teslas are pretty popular there and have been for many years.
ICE cars also are affected by cold weather of course. You get range issues; maybe not as extreme as with EVs but 15-20% less efficiency is pretty normal. And they have all sorts of fluids besides fuel (brakes, coolant, oil, etc.) that can become problematic if it gets cold enough. Reliability is a much bigger concern than range with cold temperatures. And ICE cars have a lot more things that can fail when it gets cold.
That's why EVs have a system to keep the battery pack warm.
(My personal experience with EVs in the cold only goes down to -10C, with the vehicle parked outside overnight, no charger connected. I saw no issues expect for increased energy consumption.)
The range is bad in winter but fast charging produces a lot of heat in the battery, you can see steam going from below the car while charging, that can then be moved to the cabin after. So long trips aren’t that bad. But you spend more, for sure. And you need a good winter EV. A lot of EVs on the market are terrible winter EVs.
Also, you don’t keep the battery warm all night as it would waste too much energy, but you should pre-heat the battery if you want descent battery performances immediately after you drive. On my car, it takes a few minutes while connected to the wall. I can start it from the phone or program it.
Around here it's -5 to -7, so much less severe and if I understood my wife correctly, the Ora has a ~20% drop in range. Still good enough for our use case, but when I'll replace my PHEV with a proper BEV this might be more relevant.
About the worse EVs for winter, that would be the ones with no or small battery heaters. The old imiev for example.
A 20% drop of range by -5 is pretty good. Your wife may enjoy a cold interior or trust the temperature display of the car AC.
And oh well, ours would be pretty good then, but sadly I just got new data from her: 30% or 260km down to 160km, and the lowest temps for the last days were only 0 to -5 degC. Still good enough for her daily total of 60km. One big factor: The dealership didn't want to add the heat pump, and we didn't want to pay that extra in full for a car we would not keep anyway (plus we were lucky and could get the car from their stock).
In those situations, how likely is someone to want to use potential vehicular range during a crisis and instead use it on juice for their home?
Most, if not all new builds have attached garages in the Edmonton area.
It looks like most Albertans live in a place where they have access to a garage for their car.
I would imagine that many Albertans who live in an apartment also don't drive, or have access to a parkade.