AAA: Electric car range cut 57% in cold weather, 33% in very hot weather

[Bill USA]

I knew that the range estimates for electrics were for more or less 'ideal' conditions and that cold and hot weather would cut into those ranges significantly. But until somebody (other than auto manufacturers who kept this info to themselves) did some actual testing, the actual amount of degradation would remain unknown. Now we have some empirical research to put some numbers on it. BTW, since they didn't mention this, I'm assuming the hot weather test was done without the A/C on - something which hot, sweating humans are prone to preferring. Turning on the air would drop hot weather battery performance even more - perhaps as much as the cold weather results - perhaps worse.

This makes the estimates of time to recover initial investments (if, as I assume, they are based on optimal conditions) optimistic. A large percentage of our population has to deal with cold weather (including colder than 20 degrees) andor hot weather for part of the year, so this will have an impact on the sales of these cars.

To make estimates of what can be accomplished with a given technology it doesn't do any good to pretend real world eventualities don't exist. It just leads to bad decision-making.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/03/20/cold-sharply-cuts-range-of-electric-vehicles/6622979/

The range of electric vehiclescan be greatly reduced, by up to 57% , depending on the temperature outside, auto club AAA says.

The AAA Automotive Research Center in Southern California found that the average range of an electric car dropped 57% in very cold weather – at 20 degrees Fahrenheit – and by 33% in extreme heat, a temperature of 95 degrees.

"We expected degradation in the range of vehicles in both cold and hot climates, but we did not expect the degradation we saw," said Greg Brannon, AAA's director of automotive engineering.

AAA conducted a simulation to measure the driving range of three fully-electric vehicles – a 2013 Nissan Leaf, a 2012 Mitsubishi iMIEV and a 2014 Ford Focus Electric Vehicle – in cold, moderate and hot weather. It tested the vehicles for city driving to mimic stop-and-go traffic between December and January, fully charging each EV, and then "driving" each on a dynamometer in a climate-controlled room until the battery was fully exhausted.
(more)

Let the firestorm begin.....

[lumberjack_jeff]

1. The challenge with electric vehicles is that they don't waste energy.

80% of the energy goes into propulsion.

Liquid fueled cars are comparatively wasteful; they are about 25% efficient at turning the energy in the fuel into mechanical energy. Most of that waste is, conveniently for those of us who live in cold climates, heat.

Liquid fueled vehicles are heat generating devices that can inefficiently produce mechanical energy. Electric vehicles are mechanical energy producing devices which can inefficiently produce heat if necessary.

[Bill USA]

2. you stated the advantage of Electrics. The challenge is getting enough of them sold quickly enough.