Welp…winter. It’s already tapped the freezing mark for us a couple of times here in the beautiful FL Panhandle, but we don’t have to live with it. We just get a taste, more’s the pity.

But for folks who live in areas where that thermometer takes a nosedive, I guess owning an EV takes some serious thought if you’re planning on doing any serious driving or hauling, and that’s one of the biggest knocks against them in the mind of consumers at the moment (Pricing and charging being the other two).

A chart popped up today that finally put some numbers to anecdotes from people online and various published accounts about the effect of cold on those EV batteries. It was pretty interesting.

Cold temperatures dramatically reduce an electric car’s range.

The colder it is, the more a car’s range will suffer.

18 popular EV models analyzed lost an average of ~30% of their range in freezing conditions.https://t.co/giOJfui1ps pic.twitter.com/i0dKvGty3j

— Brian Gitt (@BrianGitt) December 17, 2023

Cold weather affects everything adversely (except me – I LOVE IT), and good old-fashioned ICE engines are not immune to the wintry issues it produces. But EVs bring with them a unique set of factors that magnify the problems being really cold causes.

Cold weather and winter driving conditions can significantly reduce fuel economy. Fuel economy tests show that, in city driving, a conventional gasoline car’s gas mileage is roughly 15% lower at 20°F than it would be at 77°F. It can drop as much as 24% for short (3- to 4-mile) trips.

Cold weather effects can vary by vehicle model. However, expect conventional gasoline vehicles to suffer a 10% to 20% fuel economy loss in city driving and a 15% to 33% loss on short trips.

The effect on hybrids is typically greater – with fuel economy dropping about 30% to 34% under these conditions. For hybrids, fuel economy typically decreases by 20% to 40% in city driving and 25% to 45% on short trips.

For electric vehicles (EVs), fuel economy can drop roughly 39% in mixed city and highway driving, and range can drop by 41%. About two-thirds of the extra energy consumed is used to heat the cabin. When the cabin heater is not used, EV fuel economy is 8% lower at 20°F than at 75°F. Driving range is about 12% lower.

That’s a catch – “when the cabin heater is not used.” Yikes. We drove back from Indianapolis to North Carolina one wintery trek in our Audi. Oh, we had heat, but no defrost as our mechanics had worked a last minute miracle on that cranky system so we could leave town, and stay safely warm. A day-after-Christmas snow storm meant having to drop the front windows on the freeway to bang slushy snow and ice off the wipers and windshield. Even at reduced speeds thanks to the conditions, it was not a fun experience at 35° outside. But we DID have heat inside.

Anyway, range is the key, and being able to use all the features of your vehicle you might need when you need them – like the heat – is optimum.

So the data in the chart above was culled from vehicles on the road, not laboratory test runs or manufacturers’ experiments, and they’ve got a couple years’ worth now.

Electric Cars React to Winter in Very Different Ways
This chart compares 12 popular EV models to show range loss in freezing temperatures, as compared to the ideal driving temperature. Note that the ideal driving temperature is defined as the temperature at which a specific model sees its highest average range. This exact temperature varies from car to car.

This analysis includes aggregated and anonymized data from over 10,000 vehicles in the Recurrent community from across the United States as well as tens of thousands of data points from on-board devices that provide data on energy usage.

Pretty neat to see it all put together, and handy if someone is considering a purchase, and they have a long list of tips to help deal with winter in an EV.

Why Does Cold Weather Affect Electric Vehicle Range?
Winter range loss occurs for a few reasons. We cover them in detail in our hot and cold temperature article but the two main contributing factors are chemical and mechanical.

• Chemical and physical reactions in the battery occur more slowly in cold temperatures. Cold temperatures inhibit chemical reactions and act as resistance that slows down the physical processes. This reduces the EVs available power.

• The major reason that EVs lose range in the winter is due to cabin heating to keep the driver and passengers warm. Unlike in a conventional car, electric cars have to use energy to produce cabin heat. In the internal combustion engine (ICE) that powers traditional cars, the “waste heat” generated by the engine can be pumped directly into the car to warm people up. On the other hand, an EV has a much more efficient motor which does not generate nearly as much heat. The heaters that keep the car warm generally draw energy from the high voltage battery, reducing how much capacity is left for driving.

The article mentions that heat pumps are becoming standard in many models as they are proving essential for extending EV range “above 14F.” And they highlight the Audi e-tron as being one of the first cars designed from the beginning and released with a heat-pump aboard.

The e-tron was Audi’s first all-electric vehicle and even though it never had the sales volume of a Tesla or Chevy, it was built with intent and tons of comfort features. Since the e-tron was first released in 2019, Audi has been able to fine-tune its specs to preserve range in wintry conditions.

But for all of its technical innovation Audi finds itself falling prey to the general trouble besetting the majority of manufacturers in the EV market, with the exception of Tesla, some Chinese models, and maybe one or two others – the entry price point is killing sales. Audi’s announced they’re taking a pause on the e-tron.

Audi will hit the brakes on its rollout of electric car models as consumer enthusiasm wanes in the face of high prices compared to petrol models.

Gernot Döllner, the boss of the Volkswagen-owned brand, said that he wants to avoid flooding dealerships and factories with the vehicles as sales slow.

“The advantage of EVs (electric vehicles) is becoming visible to consumers step by step,” Mr Döllner told Bloomberg News.

Official forecasts for electric car take-up in the UK were slashed by almost half last month. Sales of new battery-powered cars were expected to grow steadily until they accounted for 67pc of the market by 2027, under a prediction issued in March.

But that figure has now been revised down to just 38pc by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which said the take-up of EVs has been slowing.

The entry price for one is a bit steep.

… Audi, whose electric models include the £69,480 Q8 e-tron, faces cheaper competition from China, which is also a key market for Volkswagen’s brands.

The Germany economy is heading for the basement and Volkwagen, Audi’s parent company, has already declared that it is “no longer competitive,” with an unrealized boom in EV sales and Chinese competition cutting them off at the knees. They are going to start slashing jobs.

… Much of the 17pc EV sales drop from last year was due to a glut of deliveries in 2022 following months of supply problems.

But the percentage of electric cars being sold has fallen compared to the rest of the year, according to the figures, with EVs taking only 15.6pc of car sales in November compared to 16.3pc in the first 10 months of the year.

Volkswagen is likely to cut jobs in order to protect its profitability, it emerged last month.

On Monday, managers told VW brand employees of the plans for job reductions.

In fact, I haven’t heard anything but dreary news for VW lately.

More EV disaster:@VW's $2 billion EV charging network doesn't work.

"My experience with Electrify America is that out of any four chargers, one of them is completely dead, one or two of them are downrated, and there might be a fourth charger that is working."… pic.twitter.com/PRWPIcFEkU

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) December 19, 2023

But that’s another post, right?

Time to get seriously ready for Old Man Winter whatever you drive.

And make sure to bundle up.