The United States of America has been in the middle of a cold snap due to the recent polar vortex. With below zero temperatures being experienced in almost half of the US, an interesting analogy has come into picture involving electric vehicles (EVs) but no, it is not a desirable one.
EV owners in the US have been experiencing a drastic reduction in the range of their vehicles due to the extreme cold. What’s more, the issue does not seem to be restricted to any one particular make. Be it Jaguar I-Pace, Tesla Model 3, Chevy Bolt EV or any other such car, the drop in the range is easily noticeable and in some cases, even alarming.
Now there are some factors that have a considerate impact on the range of EVs, just like in the case of mileage given by gasoline vehicles. Terrain, driving style and even switching on the car’s AC or its headlights at night can bring down the overall range of an EV. In the case of sub-freezing temperatures though, this drop is much more drastic.
Reuters
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The problem lies with the lithium-ion batteries powering the EVs. The batteries perform in an optimum way around the same temperature as humans, i.e. 70 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures above or below this can negatively alter the working of the batteries. Above this, the batteries can potentially overheat. While at colder temperatures, the internal components of a lithium-ion battery offer higher resistant to passing current.
As per the Tesla Model S owners manual, "In cold weather, some of the stored energy in the battery may not be available on your drive because the battery is too cold." The issue also extends to the charging time of these batteries, taking much longer to charge irrespective of the charger, due to the aforementioned resistance to passing current.
The decrease in range has taken multiple forms for the drivers in the US. In some cases, the range gauges display a lower range than the normal for a vehicle, while in others the range figure suddenly drops down at an alarming rate.
Reuters
As a solution, there are a few steps which can be taken by the car owners to avoid the issue or at least lower its impact. Some EV experts suggest that keeping the cars in a garage or such enclosed spaces, instead of in open, can help lower the cold’s effect to batteries. Additionally, most of the EVs come with a preconditioning feature, which is used to set the car cabin’s temperature as per the need. Using the feature while the car is plugged in to the grid can help bring down the use of battery for the same.
Auto majors have been finding ways around the problem since long now and there are some strong perspectives in pipeline. Solid state batteries are one of them, expected to do away with such limitations of the liquid state batteries. Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that the company will soon be releasing an OTA update for its users to tackle this problem of reduced range. ‘How?’, hasn’t been made clear as of now and will be interesting to note once it rolls out. Stay tuned to this space to find out what Musk has in store for the problem.