• @Chriswild
    link
    14 months ago

    It’s not really a problem unless you don’t have the ability to drive the EV. Most people aren’t driving long distances so just heat the battery and lose efficiency. People use more energy just heating the interior for themselves than the battery

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      14 months ago

      It is a plroblem for people who want to trust that their vehicle will work if it’s 5° out and the power’s out, and your vehicle has been sitting in the child all night. The average temperature is irrelevant in that case - you must have a well-insulated battery, and power to heat it.

      The fact is, in the north, the failure case is pretty bad. There’s nobody who can just bring you a can of gas, there’s no chance to recharge it without heating it first, and in order to charge it, you’ll need to tow it. And forgetting to charge realistically becomes a life-and-death situation at worst, and a major hassle at best. To be fair, forgetting to get gas has always been a serious issue in the cold, but the current situation regarding batteries exacerbates that.

      The two main things that are needed to fix this are:

      • batteries that don’t cease functioning in the cold
      • technically-sound, government-enforced interchange standards