EVs and Cold Weather Performance
00:00:00
Speaker
So this episode we're going to talk about, our main story at least is going to be about EVs and cold weather. There's been a lot going around lately on that. But before we do that, Brian, you're not anywhere near cold weather. You're in sunny Arizona. What are you doing? I'm out here for the auctions, the Barrett Jackson, the Bonhams, the Gooding auctions. So it's actually not sunny right now. It's like 58 and cloudy. So I think it just follows me wherever I go.
00:00:29
Speaker
At the end of the week, it's supposed to be 70 and 70. So I'll tough through the 58 cloudy for a couple of days. Yeah. So let's, let's talk about cold weather charging with someone who's in warm weather. That sounds perfect. Well, like, so this was my idea for this podcast because I got in five or six arguments last week with people about this topic, including my mom.
Introduction to Plug In For More Podcast
00:00:54
Speaker
Welcome to Plug In For More, brought to you by evuniverse.com. EV Universe is your one-stop shop for all things related to the electric vehicle. Here on this podcast, our goal is to educate, inspire, and hopefully make your transition into the electric vehicle marketplace a lot less intimidating. And now, here are your hosts, Mike, Tom, and Bryant.
Tesla Exhibit at Petersen Museum
00:01:21
Speaker
I'll tell you guys, I was two weeks ago out at the Peterson Museum in LA, and they have the Cybertruck there that supposedly was shot by the Tommy gun.
00:01:31
Speaker
And I was actually really impressed seeing the timing gun bullets in the door. It's definitely more of a publicity stunt, in my opinion. Obviously, we've talked about it. If you really want to shoot a car, you're probably not going to shoot it with that. But it was really cool to see. And if you're in the LA area, I would highly recommend going to the Peterson and looking at it. And they have a whole display on the first floor of Tesla, which is only going to be there, I think, until May or April.
00:01:56
Speaker
But it dives into, there's a Tesla Roadster there. It talks about Elon Musk shooting the Roadster into space. Then it dives through the 10 years of Tesla's evolution or 12 years or whatever it is of Tesla's evolution as a Tesla that's been sliced in a million different pieces where it shows the construction of the battery. And then they have the Tesla semi-truck that we talked about in the last episode out in the
00:02:20
Speaker
in the parking garage. So a lot of Tesla happening at the Peterson Museum, which is really cool, is the Peterson Museum, in my opinion, is one of the top four, maybe take out the two classic automotive museums in the world and for them to have Teslas. Anyway, pretty cool. So there's a plug for the Peterson out. It'd be highly worth going to check out the Tesla exhibit there before it leaves.
Kia EV9 Test Drive Discussion
00:02:42
Speaker
So I have scheduled a test drive for a Kia EV9. We've got one driver city here that I'm gonna go take a peek at.
00:02:49
Speaker
the one that I'm going to try to drive as a GT line. And just kind of feeling it out, because for about a year of ownership in the Mach-E, it's a little small for the family of five, till all of us get around to go do stuff together. So having that little extra space, I think it'll be nice.
00:03:05
Speaker
But I'm kind of at a sticking point with prices on things. So the sticker on this GT line I'm going to drive is 79,000 roughly, which is obviously a lot of money. And you start comparing that to maybe a Rivian or even, you know, Model X, like it's getting up there.
00:03:29
Speaker
And since I bought that Mach-E, Ford dropped the prices on them like $5,000 since I bought it. And we know the EV market's been doing. So I don't think I'm upside down necessarily right now, my Mach-E. But I'm not in a position where I'm going to make money if I try to sell it. And then to go to a vehicle that's going to be a lot more expensive, I'm struggling with that if it's worth that extra $20,000 for a third row.
Experience with Kia EV6
00:03:58
Speaker
Brian, you've got the EV6. How have you liked that car? I know we've talked about it before, but obviously it'd be a bigger, not the exact same version of it, but you know the Kia line. What are your thoughts? Yeah, I've loved my EV6. It just turned 30,000 miles. I've had it 18 months. I've had zero issues.
00:04:18
Speaker
at all with the car. So I'm really impressed with it. And to go back and listen to our episode one, first season, or maybe the first couple episodes when I actually bought the Kia, I was really not expecting to like it, to be honest with you. And driving a Kia, I was kind of embarrassed through all of those things now. I don't try to say EV6. I say Kia EV6. So I think you can't go wrong. I do think to your point, you maybe don't need the GT line, which is the high performance version.
00:04:48
Speaker
the normal all-wheel drive one I'm looking at right now. There's a new one, $65,000 is MSRP, which is still expensive, but there's a $3,500 Kia customer cash incentive, which brings a final price down to $61,000. If you want to lease it, I'm not saying you should lease it, but if you want to lease it, it's $575,000 a month for a two-year lease. Maybe a little bit more affordable version,
00:05:16
Speaker
The EV6 I have is the middle line. It's the all wheel drive wind. There's a couple of basic versions below it and the GT line above
EV Model Pricing and Market Impact
00:05:23
Speaker
it. You're going to get into the GT line. I'm curious to see how you like it, but that's the performance version of it. That's probably why it's a little bit more expensive. Of course, and I know that. Personally, if I had a choice and money wasn't an option,
00:05:36
Speaker
I wouldn't, I would go for the GT line because I want that extra speed and I would turn off old man mode and all that good stuff. But, um, I, it's just, it's a lot, you know, and frankly, like I would rather find myself an R1S for that price point. And I think you're going to get a lot more from that, perhaps. Yeah. I mean, to get a, yeah, you're going to get a dual motor with the Rivian to get into that price point. I mean, so it's.
00:06:06
Speaker
Definitely something that's closer, but I mean, you're still talking. Here, let me pull them up right now. Obviously, with my Rivian, my R1T, when I got it, it was before the price change. And so I essentially got a heavily discounted truck.
00:06:31
Speaker
And so that was normally would have been, or 96,000 would have been the MSRP on that truck. I got it for 73 versus 96. It's a huge difference there. But like, for example, right now, let's see that R1S, when you're really looking at in the mid nineties to a hundred K for most of available ones right now, those are all quad motors. Now you could get, if you're going to do a motor is going to bring it down some as well, but you're still going to be talking.
00:07:01
Speaker
a little bit higher than the GT line, so it's going to be expensive. Now, like the Tesla Model X, I mean, let's start out with a long range for 79.9, and that'll give you 335 miles of range. Again, it's Tesla, so is that really going to be real world? Probably not. I think that Kia, even 9, is probably going to charge a little bit faster as well.
00:07:30
Speaker
The new Model X, that's a premium vehicle. That's a really nice car. There's a lot of different good options out there.
00:07:39
Speaker
I was hoping that the EV9 would be a little bit less expensive though. I think it's interesting, Tom, that I'm just looking at the ranges. The EV9 that you're testing out obviously has a smaller range, 270 miles, which still isn't bad. Just like the EV6 lineup, their entry-level EV9 comes with a rear-wheel drive version, smaller range, 230 miles, equivalent to mine, if you want to call it that, the long range.
00:08:08
Speaker
All wheel drive version has a bigger battery and it's 340 miles, which is 304, excuse me, miles, which is very, very much in line with the EV6 is supposed to get. And then the one you're driving 270 miles is still good. I just think it's interesting to see the different ranges based on the different types of trim levels as well. Yeah. And like the Mach-E, the one I have is 225.
00:08:37
Speaker
the S1 is, so it's not great. And then the charging speed's another thing to consider, too, because the Kia's gonna get you up around the 300 kilowatts per hour charging speed, where the Mach-E, the best I've seen is 120, and I think 150's the most capable of, but I'm not seeing that. Yeah. Yeah, I've never got above, the best I've ever gotten on mine is a 273. The K1 arms are just fast, don't get me wrong.
00:09:07
Speaker
But I've never got the 350 that EV or Electrify America says that the chargers are capable of never been able to do that.
Myths about EVs in Cold Weather
00:09:15
Speaker
But I'll take 270.
00:09:17
Speaker
You're listening to the plug in for more podcast. If you're looking for information on electric vehicles, electric vehicles components, or information on how to reduce your carbon footprint, look no further than evuniverse.com. evuniverse.com is your one stop shop for all things related to electric vehicle. So I took multiple phone calls, debate probably 40 minutes or so with my mom about EVs and cold weather.
00:09:46
Speaker
I purposely actually last week left my EV at the airport for seven days to prove that you can do that because people think you can't. Like my mom called me and was like, hope you didn't leave the EV at the airport because it's going to be there for seven days and it's really cold and your battery will be completely dead when you land. And I was like, no, I actually started up the car from Chicago before I left about the time I landed.
00:10:09
Speaker
The car was heated up and I didn't have to scrape anything off of it. It was amazing. And the battery when I left it was 71%. When I came back it was 70%. So that just goes to show you like, not bad, leaving it for seven days in sub zero. But the article going around the internet was all these Tesla drivers supposedly they couldn't charge and were stranded in Chicago. Did you guys, did you guys see this? Cause I saw like every syndication pick up
Challenges for EV Drivers in Cold Weather
00:10:35
Speaker
the same article. It was like everywhere I looked.
00:10:38
Speaker
Yeah, I saw it and there's a couple things that stood out to me. Number one was that some of these drivers did not know about preconditioning. Number one, they didn't understand what you just discussed, so letting your car warm up, putting it on a charger before you didn't get to go anywhere. Two, a lot of those
00:10:58
Speaker
folks were apartment dwellers. And so they had to use a supercharger. And so a lot of those folks, they were like, Oh, I got 30 miles of range left. And then they would go to a supercharger. They'd sit in their car. It was zero degrees out. By the time they got, you know, they're waiting in line to use this charger, it didn't work. Or it took forever because they couldn't precondition their battery to get to the optimal temperature to take the charge at the temperature. It took way longer.
00:11:29
Speaker
So there's just a multiple different things. I think from education standpoint and infrastructure standpoint, they were fixed or people were more well aware of them to begin with. It wouldn't have been a problem, but it kind of all came down at once. I think they did have one or two chargers that went out as well. Um, and that just compounded the issue because people were so low on range, but, um, they really made a big deal out of it. But if you look at Norway.
00:11:53
Speaker
And I think we were planning to bring that up. I mean, it's 25% of their new vehicles or 25% of their vehicles in general are EVs. And I think it's 82% of all new vehicles are electric. And they obviously do it. They've been doing it for years. So it's kind of whose fault is it? Is it the operator or is it the device?
00:12:19
Speaker
I think it's the operator in this case. And I think on the whole, that's pretty fair. And lots of people run out of gasoline in their gas cars. I'll admit that I have done that.
00:12:31
Speaker
And it's just a matter of paying attention to what works for you in your setup. Now, gas stations are plentiful. They're almost on every corner. So if you get low on gas and your light comes on, like, oh, man, I should stop and get gas. It's easy to do. And you look at efficiency of a gas vehicle versus an electric vehicle.
Preconditioning EVs for Cold Weather
00:12:51
Speaker
And we can call it fuel efficiency, or we can call it range expectations. Whatever you want to call it, it's all synonymous.
00:12:57
Speaker
your gas-powered vehicle is also going to have a degradation of range or fuel efficiency in the cold weather, very similar to an electric car, maybe not quite as severe. I've been in my Mach-E now for a year, and I can tell you that in weather like what we're having right now in January that's hovering into that 15 to 20 degrees temperature range, I'm losing about 30% of
00:13:25
Speaker
The electricity that I'm using is going to heating my battery. It's going to heating my cabin. And that's even with preconditioning. Maybe a gas car, you're looking at like 15%. Yeah. I mean, it happens. You know, and I think some of the questions too are with some owners that are
00:13:45
Speaker
You know, they're not preconditioning their car ahead of time or like you, Brian, they left their car at like an airport and it drained the battery. Well, it's making sure you know the car and what it's capable of, but also what your settings are. And a lot of Teslas, like some of the articles point out, these people left their car, sit outside and it drained the battery really quickly. Well.
00:14:05
Speaker
A couple of things probably were going on. One is they had century mode, which is the surround cameras. The alarm system was activated. That does eat about 1% of battery. I think it's per hour. It does quite, at least that's what it used to be. I had to double check and see what it is now, but it's quite a bit.
00:14:23
Speaker
So you have that going. Every time you open up the app, you're looking at the car, it does wake it up. So that does get things moving. And again, does use some more electricity that way. There's cabin overheat protection. And I think it's kind of a freeze protection thing too. So it gets too cold or too hot. It will warm up the car, cool it down. So it maintains a particular temperature. Well, if you're going to be warming up your car every morning, keep it at the right temperature. But yeah, it's going to drain the battery, of course.
00:14:53
Speaker
knowing your vehicle and what it's capable of, and again, what your settings are. And if you don't have them right, yeah, I mean, it's just like if you leave your car on with your gas, I mean, you're going to run out of gas if you leave it on. It's just not as easy to tell with some of these electric cars. Yeah, I think there's a bunch of comments in some of our Facebook groups about people apprehensive about leaving their car and stuff that they checked to your point.
00:15:19
Speaker
It was one gentleman. He was like, I've checked the app seven times in the last three hours and you're like, dude, you're going to kill your 12 volt battery first, let alone your main battery. Just stop checking stuff. Like leave the car alone. Um, Mike, I'm always curious cause I've heard two different things on this and I actually don't know the answer. People debate. If you're going to leave your car for like a month, I've only left mine for 16 days and it lost like 2%. But.
00:15:47
Speaker
People are advocating online on some of our Facebook groups, Nike AV6 groups, accessories and chargers group for specifically, you should leave it plugged in for those two months. I've always been told to leave it unplugged, but what's your guidance on that? Yeah, it's ABC, always be charging. So if you're going to leave it somewhere, and again, if you're dropping it off at an airport for long term, that's a little bit different scenario because you're taking up a charging spot that someone else may use, especially for two months.
00:16:18
Speaker
Now if there's like a 120 outlet you can use and you can really just kind of trickle charge, that would be the best scenario in that spot.
00:16:25
Speaker
But there's not a lot of those out there. A lot of them are level twos. And if you don't really need it, you're just kind of topping off all the time. It's kind of a waste. But for example, if you're going to go on a two month vacation at your house and you can just leave it plugged in, leave it plugged in. I mean, and that's what has been, I would say, sort of like gospel since like the Tesla Roadster days. And that's what, you know, my car, that Roadster is just on a charger 24 seven.
00:16:51
Speaker
And it just keeps it at about 80% or so. And you just maintain it there. And that's really the best thing for that battery. I had a debate with multiple people about this. They just think I couldn't drive my car in the winter, and I had no trouble charging. And I showed them texts of the battery's charging. I took a video and sent it to them. It was negative 2 degrees or whatever. But Mike, you talked a lot about pre-conditioning. I know it's a little bit different every vehicle. So with Mike, he automatically
00:17:21
Speaker
set up preconditioning when I put in the charger destination. It has to recognize it's a charger. You can't manually in my car, at least I don't believe so. I can't find a spot where I can manually, quote unquote, precondition the battery. I can precondition the heat and I can precondition everything else, but I can precondition the battery. I have to put in a charger destination in the nav and it has to recognize it and that'll automatically
00:17:45
Speaker
precondition. So you talked about Tesla, I mean, you've had a million Tesla's. So what are these people doing wrong, specifically in Chicago, that they that they how would how would they precondition their battery?
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, so the precondition of their battery that really, like the scenario I mentioned before, I think a gentleman showed up, he had 30 miles of range.
EV vs Gasoline Efficiency in Cold
00:18:05
Speaker
One is he didn't put in that destination into his charger. It's probably one that he was used to it. That was a normal one. He goes down the street and he charges his car. He doesn't need to put it into the car so it knows where it's going and what it's going to be charging.
00:18:19
Speaker
Two is you do need enough battery to precondition your, your car as well so if you don't have enough battery you're just hanging on the last little bit it's not going to precondition because it doesn't have the power to do so it doesn't want to run out early so it's kind of that in between spot where you have to charge we had enough charge to
00:18:38
Speaker
get the battery to the correct temperature. So those couple things are kind of what happened. The same deal with Tesla is there really is no, at least I don't know about the newer cars because it's been a little bit since I've had one. There may have been a software update, but previously it was the same scenarios you're talking about where you have to set the destination. It has to recognize it's a supercharger, which then the car just handles it by itself.
00:19:03
Speaker
But again, if you don't have enough charge, it will actually tell you can't precondition, not enough state of charge. And then Tom, you're obviously on the Ford platform. How does preconditioning work for Ford? Well, I think so with preconditioning for if you're traveling, you're on a road trip and you're going to show up to a charging location, you have to be using the Ford navigation app.
00:19:33
Speaker
And if you're using the 4Navigation app, then the car will start to warm the battery for arrival at that charging location. If you're using Apple Maps, which I've grown fond of, it won't do that for you automatically. So that's kind of a tricky spot with that. Gotcha. And then I also cited this article
00:20:00
Speaker
when I was arguing with people about this gentleman in Canada that owns Model Y, who purposely drove his car negative 30 degree Fahrenheit and went to three different chargers using preconditioning. And guess what? He could charge his car. Weird. Yeah, weird. So anyway, I think I convinced all of the naysayers that my car actually would drive in the cold weather and that I could charge in the cold weather.
00:20:30
Speaker
And then like, well, it's because you have a key and it's not a Tesla. It's like, well, Tesla's been around a little bit longer than the key 86. Yeah. I mean, like, I think it really has to do with the education standpoint. People are used to their gas cars, like diesel trucks, right? If you have a diesel, there's super cold weather. That's like sludge. It's not going to get there. The reason there's heaters on those and they warm up the diesel so you can run it or it just won't, won't work.
00:21:00
Speaker
I mean, there's other things with gas cars that we've kind of learned over the years and what it can and can't do. And if you get moisture in the tank, that's going to be an issue, misfiring and all that kind of stuff. Again, people are used to it because they've owned these things forever and it's been ingrained from when they had the cars with their parents and their parents have talked about it. And then now it's just second nature. Well, we're starting over.
00:21:25
Speaker
And so the education has to start from somewhere and that's where it's at right now. Cold weather is harsh on everything. Yeah. Period.
00:21:40
Speaker
I found with the Mach-E, if I were to get into the Mach-E where it's completely cold, it's been frozen over, it's not plugged in, and I start driving in that car and it's 25 degrees outside, the car will probably average like two miles per kilowatt hour.
Maximizing EV Efficiency in Cold Weather
00:22:00
Speaker
if I, or less, depending on the temperature, depending on how warm the cabin is, all these things, there's lots of factors that play into it. But if I have preconditioned the battery, if the car's been plugged in, and I've given it a departure time, the car warms the cabin, it warms the battery, all that stuff happens off of my home charging, and it doesn't take away from the battery pack. So all the car has to do is maintain that juice going down the road.
00:22:28
Speaker
I'm looking at maybe two and a half to three miles per kilowatt hour for my expected usage, which you get an extra mile of kilowatt hour. You're that's a third of range right there. And that's it's all various. It depends on how far you're driving, how cold it is, how warm your cabin is going to be. All these things play into it. Yeah, it's that's pretty accurate. Same. I'd say in the key. It's same. It could even be as bad as 1.4 1.5. I forgot the heater blasting and heated seats and everything on.
00:22:58
Speaker
Versus if I, if I started, started by precondition it with the charger on, let it run for 10, 15 minutes before I leave or to your point, schedule it in the night before. Yeah. I'll get 2.6. Then we got three here. That's pretty good. I've gotten like 2.6, 2.9, um, something like that.
Tips for EV Drivers in Cold Weather
00:23:18
Speaker
I can get close to four in mind in the summertime. Like if it's 70 degrees outside, it'll, it'll hover up there. It's very doable.
00:23:29
Speaker
Yep, I would agree. So, Mike, just, sorry, I'm so passionate about this, just to beat this to death. If you were an Uber driver in Chicago and you lived in an apartment, what would you do differently with your Tesla to not have this happen?
00:23:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, one is you have to go to a supercharger a little bit early, right? So if you're one of those people that lets it go really low, and I, you know, for example, I saw another comment as someone who let their
00:24:03
Speaker
target down to zero, and then they try to charge it. Well, that's not going to be a good scenario. Even if it's 75 degrees out, it's 50, whatever. That's not going to be a good thing for the battery. And chances are, you're going to be stranded as it is, because EVs don't do well when you bring them down to zero. Just like a gas car, you don't want to be sucking up fuel, the sediment interior, fuel filter, and stuff like that in your fuel pump.
00:24:29
Speaker
So the main thing is just make sure it's got more charge than what you're used to. So that if it does drop below and it is less efficient, you're not going to have that problem. That's probably the main thing. Anytime you can get it charged, if you can find a level one, keep it kind of topped off or let a little trickle charge do it. Yeah, it kind of goes back to the ABC thing, always be charging. So the more charges you can do in the colder weather, the better off you're going to be. That's it.
00:24:55
Speaker
And it's a preparedness mindset. Like, I don't know how many people will look at their gas gauge on their gas vehicle as they're driving around and they'll see the little indicator that says you have five miles to empty. Don't do that. Like maybe fill up your tank of gas when you're at 25% just like an electric car, do the same. Like it's.
00:25:14
Speaker
I think that expected range is probably one of the worst things the automotive industry has done for people, is giving them that score, that number that says you have X number of miles to drive. Because people will try to use that. And then if things go sideways, you don't have it. Yeah, around just a better percentage. And to your point, the preparedness attitude. I've taken a few road trips in the winter, not a ton.
00:25:44
Speaker
It is a little bit inconvenient, but I will always try to go charge at night instead of wait because I would just throw, I mean, the car's warm, battery's warm. I'll go charge at night at maybe 11 30 at night instead of wait till in the morning.
00:26:01
Speaker
I don't know, I've never been stranded. So I'm not saying that's the best thing, but if I'm at like 10% battery, I'm going to charge the night before I go to bed at a hotel, or hopefully the hotel is a charger, which is more and more common I'm finding, but I never will wake up at like six in the morning with 10% and then go find a charger, especially in the winter time. In the summer, I wouldn't mind, but in the winter, when it's five degrees, just go charge before you go to bed.
00:26:29
Speaker
I feel better. That was my therapy session. It's just people. I don't understand people. And how many people did you guys, am I the only one? Did like, did no one text you? Tom would be like, man, are you regretting buying that EV? You can't drive in the winter. Must suck.
00:26:51
Speaker
I didn't get any of that. I just had one friend text and say, hey, what's with all this negative EV news? And just like, yeah, it's just people being people. Everyone hates the technology. You've got to write a story on something. I mean, it's the slow news day. Right? You know, nothing like clicks. That's true.
00:27:13
Speaker
I mean, like to the point I made earlier, it was every single news outlet. It was probably because I clicked on it a few times and so it distracted me everywhere. But it was like CNBC and CNN anywhere. It doesn't mean Fox news. I was like, Oh yeah, it's the same article. It's a guy that moved from Dallas. I already know this.
Cybertruck Delivery Humor
00:27:32
Speaker
So our next episode, is that going to be our cyber truck delivery event?
00:27:41
Speaker
Let's hope, fingers crossed. I'm actively checking my app every few hours to see if any updates have happened. Speaking of which, let me check right now. Do we have anything? You would shit your pants if all of a sudden it was updated, wouldn't you? That would be amazing. We'll catch it live. I'm excited to see that. I have bowel control. Come on, that's ridiculous. No, no updates.
00:28:10
Speaker
No updates, sir. We are out of luck, unfortunately. I think I killed Tom with that guy. Well, I was just picturing you getting all giddy like a school girl that you're, like you got Taylor Swift tickets, but it was a Cybertruck. You'd probably still do that first Taylor Swift ticket, so.
00:28:29
Speaker
I mean, the longest Travis Kelce is going to be there. That's not all that matters, right? Gentlemen, I appreciate the conversation. Bryant, I hope that this was cathartic for you and that you feel vindicated on the cold weather, EV adoption problems. I feel so much better. I look forward to talking to you guys in a couple of weeks.
Podcast Conclusion and Call to Action
00:28:51
Speaker
Thank you for listening to plug in for more. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. In the meantime, check out the one-stop EV Marketplace, evuniverse.com. Until next time.