wc11

Nothing surprising but an interesting read just the same.

http://driving.ca/tesla/auto-news/news/314908

SToronto

Ha! Good call out and interesting info. Thinking about my vehicle use during winter months over the years, it doesn't consist of long trips where charging would be a concern due to heat use.

Agreed it would be nice to not think about it at all.

Torontoworker

Its a huge issue in both northern and southern climates. The battery pack has to be protected by a heater from freezing. If it freezes - you may find a lot of cells, if not the majority, never come back to life afterwards. So heaters/plug in's are involved - 24/7 in winter no matter if you drive it or not. While driving in sub zero conditions, the system delegates energy to keep the battery pack warm from its current output. While parked and not plugged in - this current flow continues to maintain a minimum heat level for the batteries. As you know, at most northern Ontario hotels and motels they do have plug in's for normal car's block heaters to keep the coolant semi liquid - although having spent a week in Cochrane in February, I can tell you that its still 50/50 if your car starts in the morning at -40C even plugged in. So there is that requirement. Lets not forget what happens when you need cabin heat in -40C - and you DO need it. The driving with a coat on and zero cabin heat won't work up north - you'll run off the road as soon as the inside of the windshield frosts over from your breath. Then you almost freeze to death waiting four hours until the next car comes by... So you can drive around town but no further with cabin heat on. There would be no expectation that you could drive to North Bay in winter from Cochrane or the other direction Wawa. So pretty much a useless car if its not at least a Hybrid.

Then the South...

The reverse happens. Cooling pumps to flow coolant around the battery pack to keep it from overheating while its parked and while you drive it. Cabin air? Same deal - keep the humans alive that make the car payments for this thing. A reasonable person is going to want to use air conditioning in 120 degree heat. That comes out of the energy bank limiting your distance between charging stations. Palms Springs to Phoenix in July? That would be a chore - impossible without aircon.

Battery only technology works well inside cities with lots of recharging stations and in moderate temperature zones. Cities like London and Paris can make great use of these cars but as I explained to a friend in the UK, the driving distances in Canada and seasonal temperature variations make all electric cars really impractical unless you have the perfect driving use for them. The people promoting this brave new electric car world are like X Files groupies - 'I want to believe'.

The 'perfect car' is the car that generates its own power as you drive it. THIS is the technology we should be developing instead of replicating gas station like infrastructures, new power station building and open pit Li mining...

wc11

I would kill the batteries in no time anyway after installing a crazy *** stereo.

ronnie993tt

"What me worry?" As far as I can tell a new battery is only $45K for the bit and $15K to install it......oh ya, US dollars! Turn up the bass.

Gregster

They work fine in and around Montreal and MTL - QC. A **** ton of charging stations. Toronto lacks them

Torontoworker

1. The data provided by independent testers on 'winter' distance vrs 'summer' distance doesn't jive with your they work fine statement.
2. Its not about the number of testing station locations in around Canada's second largest City. Its about usefulness across the 'whole' of the country outside the two largest centers of Canada's navel gazing universe...

JimV8

The MB museum in Stuttgart has the very early petrol engines and they don't look at all like the ones in the cars today. I think about electric cars the same way. The most interesting aspect I think is the battery technology which started with lead acid/ lead /Iron and now Lithium Ion is at the forefront. The issue with batteries is energy density and compared to a tank of gas the energy in a current ( bad joke) battery bank is much lower. But what if? Not long ago I saw a demonstration of a Lithium Ion battery that had a solid polymer electrolyte. That overcame the issue of runaway discharge and overheating. Thats important as the current technology of building Lithium Ion batteries involves layering plastic film, much like 35 mm film rolls, with powdered lithium to overcome the runaway discharge and just like film rolls those become the cells and a electric car battery contains many many battery film rolls. It's a cumbersome way of harvesting energy but the only way using a chemical electrolyte. But with the Polymer electrolyte the lithium is a solid sheet many times thicker than the deposition on the plastic film so the end result is many multiples of energy density per cu/cm. That would go along way to resolving any other issue and commercialization of that technology is near term. Also, and I too had to start a car in Kirkland Lake in January and thats serious business, but there are not that many cars in Kirkland Lake, at least compared to Toronto and the other cities where most of the people live. But I do notice there are several Tesla charging stations at the Mall in Huntsville. The times they are a changin.

vetfever

Not the point of his post...