this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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59
How well can Electric vehicles(EVs) handle the heat — and the cold? AAA put them to the test (text.npr.org)
submitted 11 hours ago by Deep@mander.xyz to c/technology@lemmy.world
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Electric vehicle batteries are a lot like people, in one important respect: They're most comfortable in temperatures around 65 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

When the weather gets much colder or hotter than that, a battery works less efficiently. It has to work harder, too, to keep the vehicle's cabin comfortable for its equally picky human occupants.

The result? Electric vehicles can't drive as far or as efficiently in extremely hot or cold weather.

AAA has been testing exactly how big an effect temperatures have on modern EV batteries. In its latest research, shared exclusively with NPR, it found that hot temperatures reduced range by an average of 8.5%. Cold weather cut vehicles' range by a whopping 39%.

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[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 18 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

I haven’t found that hot temperatures reduce the range of my EV, other than turning on the air conditioning. After all, most modern EVs have temperature regulation systems for the batteries to prevent these kinds of problems. I lose about 10 to 20 miles off my range by running the AC. I’m sure something similar happens in a gas powered vehicle, it’s just that you don’t have a guess-o-meter on the dashboard in a gas car showing you the immediate impact.

The nice thing about EVs, is you can pre-cool or preheat the cabin while they are plugged into the wall if you’re worried about it. In colder climates you can also pre-heat the battery while the car is still plugged in.

https://recharged.com/articles/ev-preconditioning-in-winter-explained/

[–] Tango@piefed.ca 9 points 10 hours ago

Ultimately we're just gonna have to switch to EVs whether it's convenient or not. Life is life and sometimes you just gotta suck it up and adapt to changing conditions. We'll figure out all the little tricks for keeping batteries working the same way we figured out all the little tricks to keep diesel engines working: through trial and error and lots of cursing, followed by revelatory "ohhhhhhhhs" and word of mouth - sometimes even intergenerational word of mouth.

And we can talk and talk about which type of engine performs better but at the end of the day, humanity's gonna keep starting wars over fossil fuels for as long as they're valuable, driving the prices up higher and higher, so sustainable energy is the only path forward with any future, not just environmentally speaking but financially speaking. If you're a self-employed haulier and you're approaching retirement age, I could see why you'd wanna try and make your combustion engines last you to retirement. But anyone who's buying, needs to buy electric or they're sabotaging themselves. Because the big companies are gonna kick and scream against EVs and solar for as long as they think they can squeeze a little more profit out of fossil, but as soon as they make the switch to electric they're suddenly gonna start lobbying government to tax the fuck out of anyone still running fossil. If you haven't made the switch by then, you're gonna be fucked.

It happened with the banking crisis: the entire system was geared towards keeping that game of musical chairs going as long as possible. But once one or two big names started to offload their CDO and CDO ^2s, things all changed very quickly and suddenly the players that already had chairs were eager to get the music to stop as quickly as possible. It'll be the same way with fossil fuels: it'll look like it's gonna last forever until suddenly it's dead.

[–] IllNess@infosec.pub 3 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

I have a trip calculator on my car and I reset it everytime I get gas. If I need heat or AC, my MPG goes down between 1 to 3.