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Comment by ggreer | Hacker News Reader

I think people are working off of outdated information. I have a 2020 Model 3 and it's been fine in subzero temperatures. Yes, range goes down by about 20%, but if anything it's more convenient than a gas car in the cold because you don't have to wait for an engine to heat up before the cabin gets warm. Also you always wake up with a full tank (so to speak) because you don't need to go to a gas station to refill. And EVs tend to be AWD, so they're easy to drive in the winter. During one snowstorm I had to help dig out trucks that got stuck, but my car was fine.

Newer models have heat pumps that greatly improve efficiency in cold weather. They also have better battery chemistries that store more energy in the same form factor. Unless you live in a very remote, very cold location (eg: rural Alaska), an EV is a fine choice.

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theres cold and theres cold

EVs are already better in climates that need separate block heaters for ICE cars.

Is Norway cold cold? 88% of new cars last year there were EVs.

Norway is not cold: its temperature is very heavily moderated by the ocean. Trondheim's lowest mean daily minimum is 24.6 degrees F. The coldest place I could find there is Lomen, which mininums out at around 20 degrees F.

I am strongly pro-EV, and think they're broadly fine in every part of the US, and having just gotten back from Norway they're 100% on the right track, but they're nowhere near comparable to even my hometown of Minneapolis (8.8 degrees F lowest mean minimum).

This is just more "it's different for us, somehow" American exceptionalism. Norway is much further north than any part of the continental US and the vast majority of new vehicle sales are BEVs.

Montana is colder than Norway in the winter. Norway gets a lot of warming from the coasts. There's not much coastline in Montana. It gets hit pretty hard by polar winds without the mediation of the oceans.

Turns out there's more to climate than just latitude. Lots of the US is colder than Western Europe on average despite mostly being far further South. NYC is colder than London in the winter even though it's coastal and a much lower latitude.

london isnt even cold compared to the US. i was amazed to learn this but its true… and these idiots dont take into account that most people in norway are not only driving in warmer conditions but almost always in the city… whereas in the US we are driving across vast frozen tundra hundreds of miles away, the literal width of norway on either side, from any kind of help. EVs barely make it during summer time

I've taken my EV through rural Idaho and Montana during the winter. I never worried about range or charging. My biggest annoyance was that the proximity sensors would alert if the snow was deep enough for the front bumper to become a plow.

I mean, it's true Montana and Maine and what not are colder than most highly habited areas of Norway and what not, but at the same time the extreme majority of the US population isn't in Montana or Maine. And even then, it's still possible to operate an EV well in such conditions, but just like with a gas car you might need special considerations to safely operate them in the extreme cold. And maybe they should be better about selling EVs better tuned to the cold.

A massive chunk of the US population wouldn't have any cold related struggles to EV adoption. Nobody is really losing a massive amount of range in Phoenix or Houston or Dallas or Atlanta or San Francisco or LA or Raleigh or Austin or Oklahoma City or Kansas City or Nashville or Tallahassee or San Antonio or Asheville or Richmond or...

EVs are fine for massive chunk of residential car owners. Not everyone, sure, but a massive percentage. Most suburban households could easily make their next car an EV without a hassle.

Many of the Northern European countries have capitals that are north of the northernmost point in the US, but those places are significantly warmer than similar latitudes in North America due to the North Atlantic Current.

Canada is cold. Every major city in the country is full of Teslas. I’ve been driving mine for 6 years and have the same experience as the Montana commenter. In fact so much better than a gas car that freezes up and takes time to warm up.

It’s simply not a concern. Only a range reduction. A non-issue.

> major city

montana is very spread out

you live in a city and never leave it. its been noted that people in stockholm have actually collectively forgotten how to prevent, recognize and deal with frostbite because all they ever do is walk from a heated car cabin to a heated building. so you might say that these gloves are goid for cold because people wear them in stockholm… but youd get frostbite immediately in the same temperature when youre outside the city and the wind is blowing hard. people in stockholm drive from one charger to another and return home every 10 hours. and during their journey they are never more than 2 minutes away from help/rescue. during a midwest storm, tens or hundreds of miles away from anyone who can help, in temps lower than stockholm ever sees, with high wind sucking the heat out of anything it touches, you do not want a battery electric vehicle. you want hydrocarbon whether its ice or a range extender.

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