by Samantha Foster
Electric cars have been increasing on American roads, partly because of massive government tax-incentives, and also because of looming mandates to ban gasoline-powered vehicles from states such as California.
While total vehicle sales fell in 2022, EV sales grew by a whopping 65%.
About 5.8% of the new cars Americans bought last year were electric with roughly 800,000 leaving the lot over the course of the year, according to the Kelley Blue Book. And Cox Automotive, the parent company of the Kelley Blue Book, is forecasting that EV sales will hit 1 million in the U.S. for the first time in 2023
Widespread discounts and goverment incentives for EVs has also led to more demand, with EV sales growing by 10% in January over last year.
Last August, California banned the sale of all gas-powered vehicles by 2035, in a stunning move meant to force a national mandate for electric vehicles.
But the massive problems with these vehicles is giving many Americans pause, even as “green” activists and leftist politicians push harder than ever to remove all gas-power cars from our roads.
Last week’s nationwide cold weather brought by the arctic blast has delivered a blunt reality check to some EV enthusiasts.
And one TikTok video posted in December that is just going viral shows exactly why.
Domenick Nati from Virginia, tried to charge his Tesla Model S ahead of Christmas but encountered some problems.
“I tried to charge it at my house, it won’t let me. So there’s no way to charge this battery or let it warm up in the cold.”
He then took the car to a Tesla Supercharger station and plugged it in but it failed to charge again.
The vehicle showed a message that the battery was heating and the car had a range of 19 miles at 1:11 pm.
“3:03, almost two hours later — battery is heating, 19 miles,” Nati read from the vehicle display with frustration later that day.
The temperature was reportedly around 19°F, or -7°C, at the time.
Nati’s video — titled “Tesla S will not charge in the cold. Stranded on Christmas Eve!” — has now amassed roughly 113,000 likes on TikTok and nearly 1.7 million views – most of them as it went viral last week.
WATCH:
Range reduction
There’s a term called range anxiety, which refers to the fear that an EV might not have enough battery charge to reach its destination. To resolve the issue, manufacturers are now making EVs with longer ranges.
But that “range” means absolutely nothing when it comes to the cold.
According to AAA, cold temperatures can substantially reduce the range of electric car batteries.
The organization found that at 20°F (-6.7°C), the average driving range of EVs fell by 12% if a car’s cabin heater was not turned on. The driving range would be reduced by 41% if the heater was on full blast.
“This means for every 100 miles of combined urban/highway driving, the range at 20°F would be reduced to 59 miles,” AAA said in the study.
“When colder temperatures hit, AAA urges electric vehicle owners to be aware of a reduction in range and the need to charge more often to minimize the chance of being stranded by a dead battery.”
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Longer charging time
Cold temperatures can not only reduce an EV’s range, but also affect its charging time.
This is because the electrochemical reactions inside the battery are slower at lower temperatures. And EVs’ battery management systems also limit the charging rate to avoid damage to the battery.
A study by the Idaho National Laboratory found that when the temperature drops to 32 °F (0°C), an EV battery took in 36% less energy than when the battery was charged for the same amount of time at 77°F (25°C).
“This indicates that the performance of [Direct Current Fast Charger] can largely vary across the United States due to the variation in regional climate,” the study said.
The cold is just the latest major issue with electric vehicles, as RNN has documented:
- Ford HALTS Production of Electric F-150s After Battery Fire During ‘Quality Check’
- Man Buys $115k Hummer Electric Truck – It Immediately Left Him Stranded in Middle of Road
- Review of Ford F-150 Lightning Electric Pickup: Road Trips Are the Truck’s ‘Kryptonite’
- Man Plugs His $115k E-Hummer in to Charge on Sunday, Finds Out It Won’t Be Done Until Friday
- Report: Ford Electric Truck Battery Replacement Costs Over $35,000
- EV Owners Pay Up: It Costs $6,100 Just to Replace Taillights
And that list leaves out the spate of disastrous battery fires in electric vehicles of all sorts that have filled the news in the past two years.
Perhaps it is stories like this that convinced Toyota Motors to refuse to commit to only electric vehicles – for which they have been relentlessly attacked by infantile environmental activists:
Toyota’s CEO has said that EV cars make no sense for places like “desert climates” or “artic cold” where gasoline-powered cars or hybrids would be the only alternative — yet every other car company has already committed to 100% electric by some future date.
Green insanity!
That’s what happens when you listen to the Government, Just remember what Reagan said, we’re here from the Government and we’re here to help.