While ‘range anxiety’ used to be a factor in purchasing an electric vehicle years ago, consumers have less to worry about when it comes to how far their EV can go, experts say.
While ‘range anxiety’ used to be a factor in purchasing an electric vehicle years ago, consumers have less to worry about when it comes to how far their EV can go, experts say.
How does the heating work in the winter? Is there a pre-heat setting so you dont get into a cold car? Do the heaters keep up with -30c or worse weather?
-30C (real negative 30 celcius, not real feel or wind chill) is so exceedingly rare in PEI that I couldn’t tell you.
What I can say is that I need to commute to work everyday, and for a bit every year that’s - 15 to - 20 C or worse, and I’ve never driven cold.
Yes there is a preheat. It works fine, cabin warms up quick while it’s plugged in. For 2 years I was parking it outside and now I have a garage, in either case it was no problem.
Mine has a precondition option that can both heat the cabin and warm up the battery while still plugged in (a warm battery will give you better range). The heaters keep up, and in fact can warm the cabin faster than on ICE: The latter uses waste heat from the engine, the EV just uses a heating element like a space heater for home would.
Some of the newer cars have a heat pipe from the batteries to the cabin, so waste heat from discharging the batteries also keeps the cabin warm and improves winter ranges.
Does that only work while plugged in?
You can precondition the car plugged in or not. If it’s really cold you will want to plug it in, so you use wall electricity to heat the car instead of the battery.