this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Electric Vehicles

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What happens to very cold but unused batteries? (lemmy.sdf.org)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I'm considering buying an EV to replace my aging diesel. I live in a very cold country where temperatures regularly dip below -30C in the winter.

I understand that EVs lose range in cold temperatures and that they need heating to use and charge without damage.

My question is this: if I plan on not using my car for several weeks, can I leave it unplugged and/or tell it to stop managing the batteries' temperature to save energy and not damage the batteries?

I'm okay with spending half a day preheating it when I plan on using it again regularly, but I don't want it to draw current all the time for nothing when I'm away on long missions.

For some reason, I can't seem to find out if it's safe to keep a fully unpowered EV in the cold for a long time...

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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

ICEs are also less efficient in traffic, but they heat the car with excess engine warmth

Not mine ๐Ÿ™‚ My car has a very small turbo-diesel (1.3L), I tend to hypermile so I drive slowly and in higher gear, and in the winter, below -15C, the temp needle only gets close to normal operating temperature and starts warming up the car on the highway.

That's also something I learned when I moved here in northern Scandinavia: bigger engines are better because they reach normal operating temperatures in almost all conditions. My little underutilized engine just plain can't get warm enough to heat the cabin significantly.