Do electric vehicles not work in cold weather?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

Electric vehicles in the cold.

As severe weather swept the United States last week, electric vehicle owners in Chicago faced a harsh reality.

WGN NEWS: Sub-zero temperatures apparently draining Tesla’s electric car batteries faster.

FOX 32 CHICAGO: Public charging stations-turned car graveyards over the past couple of days. We got a bunch of dead robots out here.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: With a low temperature of negative nine degrees, not including windchill, EVs were losing charge faster, and taking longer to recharge. Even worse, charging stations were going kaput too, leaving some drivers stranded even as they waited in line for a charger.

BROWN: So what happened in Chicago, and is it a problem for EV drivers in other cold places?

WORLD Radio’s Mary Muncy has the story.

MARY MUNCY: While Chicago EV drivers tried to figure out what to do with their dead cars. Mark Hurd and his family were road-tripping from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Tampa, Florida in their Tesla Model Y. They were supposed to fly down to meet their cruise ship, but their flights were canceled because of a storm.

MARK HURD: We didn't anticipate that we were going to be driving my Tesla or anything like that. So I didn't have it to 100 percent charged.

They stopped to charge the Tesla in Kentucky where it was negative 6 degrees.

HURD: We did have to stop and charge more often. We probably lost about 20 percent—meaning we used probably 20 percent more energy than normal.

A study released this month by Recurrent Auto analyzed 18 EV models and found that cold weather reduced range by an average of about 30 percent. That’s mostly because turning the heat up in the car makes the battery work harder, and the battery chemistry is also less efficient in freezing conditions.

But even with sub-zero temperatures, the Hurds didn’t have any trouble finding a charging station that worked when they needed it even with the reduced range, and they made it to their cruise ship on time.

So what was different for EV drivers in Chicago?

Kyle Conner reviews EVs with Out of Spec Studios and posted a video from Chicago on his channel last week right after the cold snap.

KYLE CONNER: I thought we were going to charge up Merchy’s very cool Mustang Mach-E but you will notice this charger shows, unavailable. And then if you come over here this is another charger completely unavailable. Which means only one DC fast charger is working at this site.

Drivers in the area reported waiting for hours for a charger because many were broken. The problem was compounded by more people using the chargers for longer. The cars need time to warm up before they can take a charge, and since EVs lose charge faster in the cold, more people needed more electricity.

Another problem in Chicago is that many Uber and Lyft drivers rent EVs for their jobs, and unlike an owner, they usually don’t have a charging station at home.

But while Chicago got the most news coverage, Conner also found that about half of the chargers at a station in his home state of Colorado weren’t working during the cold snap either. He says temperatures there got down between negative 10 to negative 15 degrees which is warm compared to the negative 35 degrees he’s experienced there in the past with no problems.

CONNER: Very rarely do I have issues with Tesla charging, you guys know that I’ve been in way colder environments than this up in Canada in the middle of winter with no issues maybe it had to do with the wind, with the placement, maybe owners leaving them on the ground. Ultimately, we are able to charge, which is good.

But even at that station in Colorado, with only a fraction of the chargers working, drivers weren’t lined up waiting for a charger.

So what went wrong in Chicago?

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is the Director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment with the Heritage Foundation.

She says the problems in Chicago have less to do with EV technology, and more to do with Chicago’s infrastructure.

DIANA FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: In the United States, the quality of charging stations is very much dependent right now on the municipal government, or the state government, and Illinois just does not rank very high in the provision of services in anything.

Furchtgott-Roth pointed to Indiana which has similar temperatures to Illinois but did not have the same issues. Other countries like Norway and Canada use EVs in cold weather that lasts most of the year and they are not reporting those issues either.

FURCHTGOTT-ROTH: When you leave something up to your state government, then you depend on the quality of your state government.

Some Americans seem to be factoring in cold weather when they consider buying an EV… But 2022 data from the US Department of Energy shows the states with the highest percentages of EVs aren’t necessarily the warmest.

Colin Priest lives in New York, an hour and a half outside of New York City. He and his wife both have Teslas. His wife works part-time and her commute is about an hour each way.

COLIN PRIEST: We do have to consider the cold as a factor because we do know it—it's going to take away some percentage of the battery. So we just charge more. So in the summer, maybe 80% would get her there and back. But during the winter, we'll do 95 to 100.

Even though cold does affect an EV's battery life and charging speed, Priest says it just takes a little bit of planning to avoid any inconvenience.

He has a shorter commute and a charger at his work, so for himself, Priest only factors in the cold as far as heating up the car in the morning which saves the battery and his fingers.

PRIEST: Even if I forgot for whatever reason one morning, I'll just be cold and uncomfortable driving to work is basically what's going to happen. And the battery I guess, will get a little mad at me that one time, but that's it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.