this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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[–] [email protected] 191 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, this data doesn’t adjust for the age of the vehicles. Older gas-powered cars fail at a higher rate than the new ones and electric vehicles are obviously much more recent on average.

Duh.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 10 months ago (2 children)

We have GM to thank for that.

#stillbitteraboutEV1

[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Imagine a world where EV1 kicked off the EV revolution in the 90s and 2000s, and we were living 15 years in the future.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago

In For All Mankind the EV1s were released in the 1980s.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (17 children)

For 90% of driving, EVs are great in the winter. Even if it only had 100mi range, and it's so cold that it loses 40% of that, it's still better. You can get to work, do errands, and make it home to charge just fine.

Its going to warm up the cabin faster than an ICE. Not only that, but if you know when you're going to leave, you can set them to warm up ahead of time while still attached to the charger. You'll pop right in to a toasty warm cabin. Once you have that, you don't want to go back.

If the positions were swapped and ICE was a new thing, people would be writing op-eds about how cold they are for most of the drive to work.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 10 months ago (3 children)

You know that remote start is a thing for ICE vehicles too right?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago (3 children)

You can, but not in a closed garage. Granted, if you had that the cabin wouldn't be quite as cold.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

It's not really the same. My last car with remote start would only run the car for ten minutes before shutting down, which was hardly enough to warm the engine up on cold days. Meanwhile my EV fully heats the cabin in about 5 minutes and will melt a few inches of snow off the car in ten.

Also, when I run errands I leave the heat/AC on basically the entire time. Can't really do that with an ICE even in places where it's not illegal to idle for extended periods of time.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Yeah but I’ve only seen start ….

I went from a ln ICE car where remote start would have been a subscription item. It only started the engine, although a warm engine is the most important part of heating the car. You had to remember to set everything

My current EV has that included among many features in the app. I can schedule when the car is warm or have dedicated buttons for on and defrost. Clicking on, I have complete control over every part of the heating system, including which seats to heat.

For me it’s a much better experience, although admittedly because the car is more computerized and the manufacturer is not trying to nickel and dime me with subscriptions, and could happen in an ICE car

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

TBF you can turn on an ICE car and let it warm up a bit before you drive it. Some ICE cars also allow you to remotely pre-start or there are after market options so you can use an app to do exactly that. Hell, Russian far east they simply leave the car on for the cold months.

It's just that it's incredibly wasteful/polluting.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago (14 children)

Some ICE cars also allow you to remotely pre-start

But you cannot do that in the garage (unless you like huffing exhaust fumes).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And if you spend a couple hundred bucks on insulation, you don’t need to preheat anything in your garage either.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It's just that it's incredibly wasteful/polluting.

Which actually makes it illegal in some countries, too

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Welcome to my morning walk with the dogs every morning where its colder then 35F. Every fucking car in my neighborhood does this bullshit and when there's little to no wind, all that exhaust doesn't go anywhere and just sits at ground level where I get to breathe it in for an hour. It stick at the back of my throat for the rest of the day. Add to that snowblowers after even less than an inch of snow.

I can't fucking wait for EVs to gain market share. Its fucking disgusting what my neighbors find acceptable.

The only enjoyment I find in this situation is people that back into their garages then warm up their car while still parked in their garage, spewing that exhaust into there instead of outside. I'll never understand what brain logic leads them to that solution but it's the same people doing it every morning.

Edit: I should add that the other great thing about people doing this is the rise of car thefts since some of these people also just turn their car on, leave the keys in the car, leave it unlocked and go back indoors because it's cold

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

IIRC you can fit an ICE vehicle with an electric engine block heater which will use mains electricity to heat the water and circulate it through the engine. So you run an extension cord out to your car, leave it plugged in and turn it on half an hour before you leave.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (17 children)

The peak version of this that’s kind of sold me is you can pre-condition in the garage. Like, why wouldn’t anyone want to do that.

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[–] [email protected] 57 points 10 months ago (5 children)

First: It's a site dedicated to electric vehicle promotion. So it might be a tiny bit biased.

Second: Their criteria was for their claim was, "13 percent of the cases with starting difficulties are electric cars". Well, golly gosh gee, how surprising that an electric car would be easier to start in cold weather, since as long as you have any juice left in your battery, it's gonna go. You don't have problems like diesel fuel gelling, or oil turning into molasses. (If it gets cold enough, your battery might freeze solid, and then you have real problems.)

Finally: "[...] electric vehicles are involved in roughly 21% of all its cases so far in 2024" Given that Norway is roughly 25% electric vehicles--they don't give the exact percentage in the article--that's... Pretty much in line with overall percentages. It might even be high, given that EVs are more likely to be new than ICE vehicles.

If we're going to do cars--and I don't think that there's a reasonable alternative that can be brought to bear in a reasonable time--then I'm all for electric. But this isn't a great way to promote them.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Your second point is basically agreeing that electric cars are better at starting in the cold, where all you're doing is explaining why. Maybe I missed what your second point of disagreement was.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Because the problem with ev is that the battery drains charge faster in the cold, charges slower in the cold, and struggles to charge at all if its too cold.

So if you have juice, starting is fine. But the cold problems for ev is that the cold is functionally drinking your gas for you, not that the engine cant turn over.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 10 months ago (2 children)

People seem to forget that gas cars have a battery in them too and that fails in cold weather.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (19 children)

Lead-acid batteries aren't lithium ion? And the car starter battery isn't equivalent to that of an EV?

You might as well say that I have trouble starting my gas weed wacker, therefore cars are hard to start.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I can pull my 12V out and bring it inside to warm up though

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

Bullshit.

Tesla forums and my own experience call bullshit on this.

The 12v battery of my own M3 died less than 3 years in from sale in moderate to low cold temps in Canada (Only like -30c max)

[–] [email protected] 27 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Teslas are not the only EVs. They're also not the best EVs.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

"Computers are pretty good for gaming"

"Nuh-uh, I saw a bunch of people complaining that they can't play games on a Mac. And I had a computer once that wouldn't play Breath of the Wild"

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

have affected the chargers themselves rather than the vehicles, according to local sources.

I can't find any news that confirm that?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

https://insideevs.com/news/705075/uber-lyft-rideshare-electrify-america-charging-ev-disaster-chicago/

It was partially a failure in the charging networks to plan, and also rideshares where people were unfamiliar with EVs not knowing how to plan.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Yeah when I saw the pictures with all the white 3s, I guessed they were hertz rentals used by ride share drivers (because hertz is renting them at really low rates) who either don’t know much about their cars or deliberately run them down to near zero to max their fares.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Everyone is arguing about how they should fuel their cars, but I just want to see more electric powered transit.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (8 children)

My mum's 2019 Toyota Yaris has to have its engine run every few days or the battery dies from just sitting on the driveway. It could be a faulty car battery but considering this car isn't even that old and has barely driven 30k miles, it's not doing so great. I discovered yesterday that my EV charges better after I've driven it around and the battery's warmed up a bit. The car goes a bit haywire when you cold start so it seems like it needs some prep time before a drive.

[–] darkevilmac 25 points 10 months ago

You probably have some parisitic power draw somewhere, my old Ford focus had the same issue. Was just a bad relay causing a fan to run when the car was off.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Some car batteries only last 3 - 5 years. It might be due for a replacement. They are fairly easy to change yourself too if you want to keep the costs down.

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