What nonsense. One Tesla charging station goes down, and suddenly it’s the “hard truth about EVs”. Did you know that gas pumps froze up in this weather as well? I don’t see The Register running a story about the “hard truths” about driving combustion engines in the same weather.
It’s not that one charging location was down. It’s that the current battery tech can’t charge in cold conditions without using some of its own power to heat the battery cells. This means people need to anticipate the cold and charge earlier and more often than they typically do.
Those who didn’t were stranded.
This is a real limitation of the current technology. Not a deal breaker for most people, but it’s a learning curve and a potential inconvenience.
That’s also true of ICE (heh) cars. I know modern ones don’t need to be warmed up like the old ones did, but they absolutely use more gas in the cold.
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/fuel-economy-cold-weather
It’s probably worse for EV’s though.
It’s strange because most people don’t need to charge at a public charger unless they’re on road trip. And it would be really stupid to take a road trip in a -40 degree blizzard.
And if the charger isn’t down, I’d expect it to power the car’s battery heating/cooling system for a bit before starting the charge. Is this not the case?
Edit: After reading two more articles on this and thinking about this some more — is this “traffic jam” at the charger caused by the design of the heat pump used by Tesla to warm the battery? Can it not exchange enough heat in -40 weather?
It’s almost like, as users we need to actually pay attention to things and know how our tools operate. Weird. Cold batteries don’t charge. Know what the limits are and make sure you have some kind of charge before you’re on 0% and it’s -40.
“I want Elon Musk to do something about this, it’d probably help us out,” said another hopelessly optimistic Tesla owner.
Hopeless is right. That person is clearly too stupid to be operating a motorized vehicle. Or walking a dog. Or dressing unattended.
How many engines didn’t start this morning because it was cold and the user subsequently flooded it and had to wait?
You’re just used to thermal engines
This is the best summary I could come up with:
This week’s frigid winter conditions in North America exposed the shortcomings of certain electric vehicles, particularly Teslas.
In the Oak Brook suburb of Chicago, Illinois, where temperatures have routinely dipped way below freezing, local media reported public charging stations turning into “car graveyards” because motorists were unable to power their vehicles.
Seriously," said another Tesla driver, Chalis Mizelle, who had to ditch her ride and get picked up by a friend because the car wouldn’t charge.
“We got a bunch of dead robots out here,” quipped another, while Kevin Sumrak landed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on Sunday night to find his Tesla unresponsive.
In Canada, Mark Bohaichuk made a widely read observation on hellsite X after meeting a Tesla driver stranded in -45°C (-49°F):
Meanwhile, Korean company LG Chem is developing new electrode chemistry and architectures with a view to improve charging times and temperature performance.
The original article contains 645 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
…on hellsite X after meeting a Tesla driver stranded in -45°C (-49°F)
Nice to see some honest reporting on the state of Xitter.