Cold Weather Tips & Tricks For Your First Electric Car

[@tonys9413]

Happy to see you back after TG break! Keep-up the non-Tesla centric coverage on EVs; very few take this approach in the EV world.

[@trinitonv8]

I live in Norway,and i can confirm polestar2 is a awsome winter car.Fantastic traction with its 4x4 system.

[@goldencedi5016]

I love all the videos ya'll do. I look forward to it.

[@EV-Darryl]

Great video, thanks guys!

[@randallspringfield7400]

Thanks , all good stuff. We live in a distant Nordic country called New Hampshire. Cold weather defensive driving can be helpful here.

[@wendellcrim8647]

Regen braking is like using Jake brakes of a heavy diesel. Commercial drivers are taught to never use the Jake is slick conditions. Specifically icy overpasses - coast across them. No accel no brakes. Let the wheels turn.

[@DaveGrimes-i4s]

Hey Max! Another excellent video! You and Ryan put out some of the most thoughtful and helpful advice. Always comes across genuinely too. Keep up the amazing work!

[@royd63uk]

Very useful guide thanks

[@jm9371]

Great video. I am going into my first winter with my 2023 EV6. I live in Canada and have gone with Nokian All weather tires.

[@jeremymuther8656]

Extremely helpful thank you 🎉🎉🎉

[@carlsmith5545]

I have been driving for 40 years and never had any problems at all in winter conditions. I never lost any range, even in the deepest of freezing. I guess this adds to the list of improvements needed in the EV besides short downtimes and longer ranges..

[@Wasabi9111]

We have a polestar and rivian and both lose a lot of range in cold weather. But it’s more annoying w the polestar bc the range is pretty low to start with.

[@carlsmith5545]

That's why i love my jaguar XJl, no matter the weather or the season, i always have 570 miles of range.....

[@TheTruth-dy8ze]

A little lacking in the planning department? You have two battery powered carts, didn’t you learn from the first purchase?

[@Wasabi9111]

@@TheTruth-dy8ze the polestar is mainly for local trips and we take the rivian for longer trips. But yes, if we want to do a longer trip we have to plan ahead of time to remember charging the cars the night before. The good thing w the rivian is that the range is usually long enough for a typical long day trip wo needing to deal w the hassle of fast charging.

[@BensEcoAdvntr]

While trying to charge a very cold battery is not good for its health, I wouldn’t worry about the longevity of the pack just from being at high or low SOC in the cold. Heat is what kills batteries

[@egg399.]

How do you only lose 20% in the Tesla? I reckon I was 40% down from MYLR I did 178 miles from 90% drain.

[@ab-tf5fl]

Range loss depends a lot on driving conditions. It's much worse when driving in the city at slow speeds and stopping to open the door every few miles. On the highway, the energy per mile to move the car is higher, the energy per mile to heat the car is lower, so the impact of heating is much less noticeable. The good news is, unless you're Uber driving, city driving trips are probably short enough that winter range loss simply doesn't matter. And the highway trips where it does matter, the actual winter range loss is much less than the 40% figure often cited on the internet.

[@egg399.]

⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠​⁠@@ab-tf5flI suffered the range loss 45% so it’s not what the internet says. I almost filled the battery 96%, I then drove 174 miles over a weekend (-2 C) and I was back at the same charger 2 days later with 4-5%. Admittedly I did have the heating in at 20C, steering wheel and seat heater with only me in the car for the majority of the mileage but it’s still pretty poor. Most of the journeys was done at 70 or below.

[@paull3179]

Get a big heated blanket and wrap the car storing it in the garage and drive a regular one for winter. I see Teslas owned by relatives that plugged in 24/7.

[@paull3179]

The speeds I drive at I would get50% range or less and even worse in winter.

[@FameyFamous]

My Bolt's range is supposed to be 259. My Saturday routine is to drive about 170 miles. That's a round trip from Ann Arbor to Lansing and back. It can get cold! If I lose 40% of the range, I won't make 170 miles without public charging. I don't think you said that I should aim to get home with 20%. You just want me to get home and plug in for battery health. Do you think I should aim to get home with 10%? Or how much of a safety margin would you recommend?

[@brady1123]

My Bolt never lost anything close to 40% of range in Maine, even at near 0 F temps in February. Don't run your heat wide open and you'll probably be fine, but it wouldn't hurt to do a bit of charging if you access to it along your route.

[@normt430]

Probably didn't have heated seats or heated steering!

[@FameyFamous]

@@normt430 I do have the seat and steering wheel heaters. I've been running them and the defrost without the cabin heat. So far, I've had plenty of battery for the Lansing trip. I just bought the car a month ago.

[@normt430]

@@FameyFamous once warmed up you can shut off the HVAC and fan and just use the heated seats and wheel as some outaide air still flows in and out of the car at speeds. I'll pulse the defrost on once in while just to dry the windshield. You can watch your consumption on the center console screen. But you'll notice the heated seats and wheel only draw about 50 watts and won't see a % drop from using those two.

[@ab-tf5fl]

My experience with the Bolt in winter is that you can generally expect just under 200 miles of range at highway speeds, but that varies a lot depending on just how cold it happens to be on a particular day. (The 40% range loss figure occurs when running errands around town and constantly opening the door to get in and out; on the highway, it's not nearly as bad). As to your particular trip, I would definitely at least plan on making a charging stop somewhere along the trip, as 170 miles in a Michigan winter is probably cutting things too close. You can always skip the charging stop if, when you reach that point, it's clear you don't need it. But, having a plan and not needing it is always much better than needing a plan and not having it.

[@tazeat]

I do kinda wish Tesla let you dial it back in the snow...

[@mongo64071]

So you lose at least 20% range in winter. Add onto that, the recommendation that for non LFP batteries you should keep the battery between 20-80% charged, means in winter you only have access to 60% of the battery capacity. So a 200 mile car is only good for 120 miles or 60 miles each way, assuming no battery degradation. As the battery ages, these numbers only get worse. I’d imagine this only gets worse if you need to turn on a heater or front windshield defroster. Does anyone else see this as a problem? You need to spec a much larger and more expensive and heavier battery making EV ownership much more difficult for ordinary people.

[@ab-tf5fl]

In practice, it's not an issue because normal daily driving requires only a small portion of a modern EV's battery pack. Those few times you do take the car out on a long road trip, it is ok to ignore the 80% recommendation and just charge to 100%. Most people don't travel far enough to need a 100% charge more than a once or twice per month, even accounting for winter range loss. The 80% charge limit recommendation is really about what to do for your routine driving around town, when you're only going short distances, not big trips. For routine driving, it is better to cycle the battery between 70%-80% than 90%-100%.

[@jayem8981]

Recommendation for Polestar 2 is 90% per the manufacturer. In practice, if you preheat and take sensible measures, the winter range is still adequate (assuming the summer range was adequate). Unlikely the winter range will be a deal-breaker, but I do admit it is a consideration.

[@mongo64071]

@@ab-tf5flI just saw a report on Fox News of one of their reporters who traveled from chicago to New York after Christmas in a Tesla model 3. The range was consistently cut in half for each leg of the trip and the trip took over 3 hours longer than it would have with gas car. People still need to travel long distances by car. If I want a car for short trips, I can get a much cheaper car than a model 3.

[@carlsmith5545]

Want

[@ChristianBuenrostro-c5k]

Dude what are you looking at? Your gaze just wanders and its sort of distracting lol. I'm just a weird guy because i notice stuff like that .😂

[@billcarter5149]

Dude, pretty useful comment. /s

[@steveyoung9687]

I was too distracted by the ridiculous hat to notice. 😂

[@undrachvrsage]

Tftc

[@hike2024]

I have a Toyota Tacoma V6 gasoline engine and I don't loose any range in the winter, nor do I have to turn my AC off in the Summer to drive out of town. I'm just going through all these EV videos and it is INSANE that you have to go through such a juggling act to keep from being stranded with a dead battery with one of these gems.... NOT FOR ME!

[@billcarter5149]

There's a reason so many of us have chosen to drive EVs. One is that we've greatly reduced polluting the air. You are encouraged to consider that - for all of us, including yourself.

[@bob-qi4nr]

@@billcarter5149 Polluting the air? How about all the child slave labor to make the batteries?

[@jorgeluiscorrea992]

Most people don’t drive out of town every single day my dude…. You do your normal driving go home and plug in. You get a full battery every morning to do whatever you like