Hacker News Reader

Comment by smackfu | Hacker News Reader

That doesn't make it seem like the charge should go down overnight, just that you should top it up whenever you can because the range is pretty limited.

View on HN

I think it should be common knowledge among anyone reviewing an electric car that battery performance degrades in cold weather.

And if you don't know this information, you have no business reviewing electric vehicles, because you clearly haven't done your homework.

So no one is to ever review the car from the perspective of a neophyte owner?

I seriously doubt anyone is going to spend $60-100k on a car that's well known to be different than all other cars and take it out on a road trip without any planning. If the author had charged the car when he had several opportunities to do so he would not have had any trouble.

I got a new car recently (gas powered) and I have not tried to test its range indicator by planning a trip to its capacity. If I did I would not take a detour through the largest city in the country or test out the acceleration. I also wouldn't stop at multiple gas stations and decide to not fill the tank. But hey, my article about sensibly using a vehicle wouldn't have made it into the NYT so what do I know.

If your neophyte owner never owned an object with a battery before and no one told him/her that battery charge drops if it is cold ... I fear he/she is no part of the modern world.

Surely you wouldn't buy a $65,000 vehicle based on a new technology without at least reading about the pros and cons of that technology first?

Right?

The charge will go down if it's cold out.

But Tesla explicitly says that even while they recommend it, you don't have to plug in over night: "The Model S battery will not lose a significant amount of charge when parked for long periods of time. For example, Model S owners can park at the airport without plugging in." And that the temperature make no difference: "Model S is engineered to perform in both hot and cold climates." (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts)

That does not state that the temperature makes no difference.

Of course not. Why would they want to highlight a negative??

Reply on news.ycombinator.com