Do EVs Have a Cold Weather Problem? Ask a Norwegian.

As I’ve written recently, there is a new effort to kill the electric car, – it’s a scorched earth drive by the desperate fossil fuel industry to cling to its near absolute political power. The nihilistic campaign is being waged despite the potential to seriously damage the US auto industry, which has shot itself in the foot numerous times historically during times of transition.
Sadly, the media loves “dog bites man” stories about electric cars bogging down in the cold, but seem to have forgotten that standard issue emergency kit for any driver in northern climes includes jumper cables, for those inevitable cold morning clusterfucks.
Are EVs uniquely vulnerable to cold? We asked some Norwegians – who as readers here know, are well on the way to transitioning their national auto fleet.

Electrek:

Electric vehicles fail at a lower rate than gas-powered cars in the extreme cold, according to a road assistance service in Norway.

Electric vehicles often get bad press about their performance in the cold. Just yesterday, we reported on dead Tesla vehicles piling up at supercharger stations across Chicago.

It now looks like the extreme cold conditions have affected the chargers themselves rather than the vehicles, according to local sources.

But it mainly gets attention because it’s a new technology and it fails for different reasons than gasoline vehicles in the cold.

Now, we get actual data comparing failure rates of EVs versus ICE cars thanks to our friends in Norway.

Everywhere in the world, internal combustion engine vehicles fail in the cold a lot more often than electric vehicles, but that’s mostly due to the fact that there are a lot more of them.

In Norway, almost 1 in 4 cars on the road is electric, which makes it easy to adjust per capita.

Teslarati:

According to a local media outlet, car insurance companies and car recovery services in Norway have been busy with the issues arising from the frigid cold weather this winter. In the first 14 days of January, Norway experienced temperatures between -7 °F (-21.7°C) and -2 °F (-18.9°C).

In 2024, so far, most Viking missions relate to vehicles with battery problems or drivers having trouble starting their cars. Setrom noted that 13% of starting difficulties are linked to electric cars, while 87% are from fossil fuel vehicles. He added that 23% of the cars on Norwegian roads are EVs. 

Tesla was the top-selling automaker in Norway three years in a row. It holds an overall market share of 20% in Norway. 

The Tesla Model Y was the best-selling car model in Norway last year, followed by Volkswagen’s ID.4. Tesla sold 23,088 Model Y units in Norway in 2023. The Volkswagen sold 6,614 ID.4 units. 

Dr Richard Pence in Electrek:

I’ve been driving Teslas for over 10 years, since they were introduced. The problem with very cold batteries is that they don’t like taking a charge or won’t take a charge. The solution with Teslas is to precondition the battery prior to charging. When I’m heading to a super , I’ll tell my navigation which one I’m going to, and it will, in cold weather, say ‘starting battery conditioning’. Then I arrive at the supercharger with a warm enough battery to charge. New adopters of EV‘s will also realize regenerative breaking doesn’t work in very cold weather for the same reason.

Look for another post soon where I will discuss new sodium ion battery technologies that are already being implemented in the industry, and include among their advantages lower price, good performance in cold weather, and zero fire risk compared to lithium based batteries.