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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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