Cold weather will affect the efficiency of the battery and yes, energy will be used to warm both the battery and the cabin.
But the efficiency of an electric motor still outperforms an IC engine as a lot of the heat produced goes to waste, even though some of it is used to warm the cabin.
The other side of the story is that batteries needs to be cooled in warm ambient temperatures too. So summers up here actually means better efficiency compared to warmer climates. I don’t know if that means that summer efficiency even out the winters completely, but it is part of the equation.
Edit. My Volvo has got a heat exchanger installed, to help with this issue.
I’d read that this is directly tied to how the software in the ECU was able to “cheat” the emissions test, mostly around the cold start portion (that’s a typical Achilles heel for diesels when it comes to emissions), and there’s something with resultant higher thermal stresses on the unit or something.
Let us know how the Volvo is! I’ve been following the development of the Polestar with great interest.
Of course, but when range is a concern with your driving - then it doesn’t matter as much. I can drive 400-500+ km on a tank of gas without concern. Once electric hits that range, despite the weather, and for a more reasonable price I see no further reason for ICE so long as charging power is reliably available.
My coworker factored in all the ICE exclusive maintenance before buying his Tesla, as he bought the extended range model.
Absolutely! EV is not for everyone. Not yet, anyway. You have to consider your need. I would never buy this car if I had to commute an hour or two, to work. A car like this requires a home based charger so I can trickle charge at low cost, a little every day. If you have to base your charging on expensive fast charging, you might as well get an ICE.
Do you get a EV discount still? Last time I looked in BC Canada we get $8,000 off the base price for a full EV (less for PHEV) etc, and then they give you $6,000 if you scrap an ICE (like literally crush it in a machine and get someone to say you did). Of course the dealerships now sort of factor in that $14,000 over the price so less of a deal, but it does mean pretty much half the cars I see on the road today are battery thingys.
Things like the plug-in hybrids are being held back in production numbers it seems, as the main brands try to squeeze the last gasp (literally?) out of the ICE ICE RANGE BABY fear consumers. Canada BC got for example ‘6’ RAV4 PHEV’s in 2020.
Yes. Tax and duty free, although there is a symbolical road tax for EVs as of this year. That makes EVs a very economical alternative. I never considered hybrids. I would’ve if I needed the range of the ICE car, but I don’t. If I did, I would’ve kept the diesel Skoda Yeti.
It’s a funny time for them, as they might be a weird stop-gap where you get all the expense but none of the benefit. Absolutely if you commute hard I guess.
My wife won’t go back from a Tesla or EV now (she drives more than me and likes cars more), and the lack of dealership bullcrap, oil changes, noise, performance etc on a new car is in her distant past as ‘I can’t believe we ever did that’.
A plug-in hybrid with a 50 mile EV range etc sort of makes a bit more sense, but there’s still that feeling of cramming in everything that can go wrong into a single chassis for an interim design that most car makers will probably even deny making in about 3 years time. There’s a ‘Laser Disk Is Happening!’ feeling for me about them.
Yeah, the only benefit I can see is that they help reducing the pollution in populated areas.
I have that feeling about the battery cars that we buy today too… In a few years people will laugh at the ranges we get today. The price of progress, I guess.
I tried to get the police department (I was in charge of driver training at the time, and am again now) to get a few Tesla’s on T&E back in 2012. Tesla was interested, we probably could have been the first department in the nation to have electric patrol cars, and probably could have had a good partnership with Tesla. Alas it didn’t happen.
The city had a bunch of Pruis’s which we could use for business purposes, I took one to a training class. I can see the utility of a hybrid for something like a city fleet. 95% of the time it’s within the electric range and speed of being an EV, but everyonce in a while you need to take it on the road for 200+ miles. At the time, no EV had that kind of range at highway speed. No days as the batteries and motors get better and better I can only see having an ICE in a hybrid to act as a back up generator for last resort charging.
Recently the city picked up a bunch of Nissan Leaf’s for run around vehicles, they’ll do about 50-80 miles depending on how you drive them. I think they handle that role quite well.
What I’m waiting on is when the big boys finally decide it’s worth making full EV’s at full production scale. I can’t wait to get an EV for the same price as a sub compact car.
That is true, and less burning is always good. We are lucky where we are that our power company is called ‘BC Hydro’ as it uses just hydro-electric generation (and it’s not just to confuse BC immigrants when they arrive that the ‘water bill’ is really expensive! ). Mountains and lots of rain help a lot, but that isn’t the case for everywhere
Some of the big makers hybrid’s feels for me is sort of designing the first car and then starting off with a ‘Where is the horse going to sit on this wagon we have, as we’ll need that with us as well?’. There’s lots of games by the main ICE makers to transition to different builds and markets, and it helps them if we all do this a bit slower. My wife has had Tesla build quality issues over the years (which they fixed, but it’s never fun), so they’ve been handy to disrupt markets but they still aren’t as good as they could be. Early adopters paying the price a bit.
I too agree that battery tech is probably going to change a lot. I guess leasing something for 3 years is the way to go.
Cars are funny though, as it’s about identity and fun etc, so the financial answer is always ‘13 year old beige Corolla’ but then that’s like saying the most efficient food to eat is ‘only oatmeal’. It’s an area where it’s ok to be illogical I think.
Agreed!
The purchase and running cost of a car, especially if you factor in the realestate needed to house it, would pay for a lot of uber or even regular taxi rides…
But where’s the fun in that?
Welcome to the EV club @Troll, thats a real nice car by the looks of it!
While theres a bit of a learning curve when going electric, it’s really not that bad with todays EV tech. But man, the first movers 10+ years ago really had to be hardcore enthusiasts, with the lack of charging stations and short range.
I’m 9000 km in with my Peugeot e-2008 now, and I don’t see myself going back to a combustion engine again. I’m driving 100 km a day, to work and back, and for that it’s pretty much perfect. I find consumption is around 10-20% higher, now where we are hovering around 0 C
). Mountains and lots of rain help a lot, but that isn’t the case for everywhere 
