EVs Are Snowbirds at Heart

The cold, hard truth about electric vehicles in the winter: less range and longer charging times, according to recent reports.

🌡️ The deets… Lithium-ion batteries that power EVs (and cellphones and laptops) are very temperature sensitive. Cold temps slow down the chemical reactions in battery cells, which saps range and increases charging times.

EVs also don’t have heat-producing engines, which means they have to siphon battery power to warm the cabin.

• All of this translates to a range loss of around 20% in winter conditions, according to a report from the Norwegian Automobile Federation, which also concluded that cold weather causes EVs to charge slower.
• New research from AAA indicates that when the outside temp is 20° and the HVAC system is used to heat the inside of the vehicle, the average driving range is decreased by 41%.

🔋 The bottom line: “Batteries are like humans,” Anna Stefanopoulou, director of the University of Michigan’s Energy Institute, told Wired. They prefer the same sort of temps as people do; anything below 40° or above 115° Fahrenheit and you’re not going to get peak performance.

Longer term, scientists are working on solid state batteries that don’t have the same detrimental performance quirks, but those are still a few years away from commercialization.

+In the know: Buying an EV soon? Some do better than others in the cold, according to battery analysis firm Recurrent.