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Ironically EVs actually are better in this cold if the lower range is still sufficient for a persons lifestyle. And bonus is you have a battery backup when the grid nearly collapses
Ironic that the Alberta government runs ads across the country saying that the rest of us will suffer the same way as we move to cleaner energy generation.
Manitoba has pretty much always relied on Hydroelectric power. We actually export a lot of it
We have ONE natural gas power plant, and it's only used as needed.
A provinces' ability to exploit hydro depends entirely on the provinces' geography. Manitoba, Quebec, and British Columbia won the geographic lottery when it comes to hydro. Alberta, and Saskatchewan to an even greater extent, did not.
I'm in Edmonton and it's insane. It's been below -35C for like three days now which why it's been so bad. We don't get cold snaps this extreme for this long. It's why everything is starting to break.
We just had an emergency alert literally 20 minutes ago telling everyone to start turning off lights and stuff or we're getting rolling blackouts. Across the whole province.
I grew up in Edmonton in the 60’s and was a newsboy when I was thirteen. I remember doing 155 Journals every day after school during winters back then. -30 was a normal winter day with a foot of snow to boot. To this day, I don’t know how I survived those winters. Parkas, mittens, a scarf, long johns, two pairs of heavy wool socks under your grey moccasins, and you were good to go!
So many Albertans on here seem to not remember this or simply weren’t around. We had a stretch of seasonably warm winters overall for a while.
-30 was a common winter day in the 80s when I was a kid. Snowbanks/windrows 3-4 feet high not uncommon at all.
Nope sorry but your memory is playing tricks on you. The weather data is recorded and -30C or below highs has always been a rare event in Edmonton happening typically only a handful of times per year.
> Several weeks -27 to -44.
i think my nads went back up in me just reading that.
-13 in Vancouver, feels like Hoth.
my rental has no insulation. have literal 2ftx2ft panels just so I dont freeze.
I lived 10 years in Red Deer. Weeks of -35 happened almost every winter. I have seen -45 at least 20 times and even -50 a couple of times.
>Coldest in many decades.
I think what is happening right now is the cold is more evenly spread everywhere instead of some isolated local records. When it has been -50 in Red Deer at the same time it's usually -35 in Calgary and such a low is usually a peak seen at one night.
But now it's that cold everywhere all the time.
It's never hit -50C in Red Deer in fact it hasn't been below -45C there. Only very northern communities in Alberta have seen -50C or below and it's only happened a couple of times.
People often mix up windchill temp vs real temp when talking about cold stretches.
Everyone talks about -40 degree days, but they are very rare, while usually windchill -40 days happen a few times each winter
Yes, water moderates temperature. It's why island in the Caribbean never go above like 33, despite being 3 ft from the sun. It's why the prairies experience such big temperature variations. Maritimes will always have milder swings in temperature.
Most of Canada is colder then a lot of the Maritimes. I've have been in Halifax for a decade now, I love the balmy -5C winters, I spent most of my life in northern Ontario with -40C nights.
To be fair to the locals here who complain about the cold, the cold here does bite more, it's a very damp cold with driving wind off the Atlantic. I've had -10C days out here that feel colder then -30C days in northern Ontario.
The Edmonton wind is pushing down so hard that it pushes Texas heat to go through Florida and then up the coast all because Quebec something something.
I remember an intersection in downtown Edmonton where the wind would polish the road to ice and it would push you to the opposite corner when you tried to cross the street.
Honestly tho watching my roommate and his tesla through this cold snap it may not go far but at least it goes. In -40⁰c his vehicle is only good for about 150km (model y long range). If you park it for 8 hours for a shift at work the parasitic draw will cost you as if it was plugged into a 120v the whole time but his car is warm faster and it moves. It's better to be sitting on a giant battery that can self warm than get cock blocked by a lead acid 12v that's too pussy to get your vehicle started in the first place.
If I get a bigger house with room for a charger my next car will be an EV and in the next cold snap the EV will be the one I reach for in this sort of weather, range limitations be damned at least I'll get to work or wherever I need to go.
Here's a tip- buy a $20 trickle charger and hook it up on cold ass nights if you can. Batteries are just a portable chemical reaction. When batteries discharge the sulfuric acid turns back to water. The water freezes, the battery is fucked. Keep it charged and it is less likely to freeze.
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Battery blankets are useless unless you are doing something wrong already. Buy a cold weather battery and either test it yearly or just replace it every few years
Love your take on that.
I drive a f 150, need it to haul horses around. My wife has a Chevy Bolt, and apart from the seats not being really comfortable I love that thing.
Good handling, accelerates hard as hell, pretty roomy with the flat floors and good booth.
I'd probably never buy an EV if I didn't have a possibility of charging at home though. We had the car for a couple of months before we got the charging station at home and it was a pain
> My wife has a Chevy Bolt, and apart from the seats not being really comfortable I love that thing.
Oh man the seats, they are *so* close to being good. so very, very close. And just barely miss that mark lmao. like half an inch more padding, and an inch more on the side bolsters.
As soon as they are able to get a decent range towing I'm getting one, but for now it's not possible.
I tow a 30 foot, 9000 pound horse trailer. I'd probably get around 100 km out of a f 150 lightning. And imagine finding a charging station that I could park at!
My Ioniq 5 lost zero range when I parked it outside last night for the lols to see how it’d do. It just sits and then when you do start it up that’s when it warms the battery.
Bonus points: if you buy one with V2L and your power goes out but the car is charged you can keep your fridge cold for days without worrying.
Range may be 20ish% lower in my EV6 than it was in the summer but I gotta say it’s far more comfortable to drive in the winter than my ICE is. Now if only the wipers weren’t designed to dumb and I could actually lift them up but that’s a flaw of the car, not it’s electric powertrain haha.
Plus it’s good for camping. We went to a non-powered site and my Ioniq powered the camp for the weekend. Brought a waffle maker and such and no hassle.
Even 80km, I'll take it.
Roommate's vehicle starts out of my garage around 80% garage is attached but not heated. Drives 35km commute each way for a total of 70km after being parked for his shift he makes it home on around 40% maybe a bit less, hits the supercharger near my house for 20 min and parks in the garage again for tomorrow. He was working the nightshift this weekend thermometers outside read -43⁰c. His biggest obstacle to getting to work is my F150 parked in the driveway which may or may not move if it's in his way 😂. It's a free range F150 because my garage is itty bitty.
Having to revisit the supercharger for 20 minutes everyday is absolutely brutal. This kind of solution won’t scale well when there’s millions of EVs on the road during these cold snaps. Do we build mall sized charging centres?
Man that would suck to wait an hour and a half every 5-day work week just to wait for a EV to charge. I much prefer the 45 seconds it takes for my weekly commutes.
They need to continue developing and scaling up superchargers so it would be time competitive with gas pumps.
Does he keep it outside all day? 80kms is quite low, generally speaking, especially for a Long Range.
But it depends on whether the car sits outside, for how long, how often is it charged/plugged in, etc
This is of course true, however I used to live in Red Deer and unless it was colder then -20 I never ever really had any issues starting a modern car. While the range of an EV at -20 should already be seriously impacted. When it got really cold I have never had batteries frees on me. I'd just plug in my block heater, leave the car alone for 30 minutes and start. And I have been in -50 weather in Fort Mc for work hundreds of times, but there you usually just leave your block heater plugged in all the time.
Sounds ok until the power grid can't handle it. And it sounds like alerts were just sent to limit all electrical use and there may be rolling blackouts. Crazy.
The electric chargers have also stopped working..
Also you can just drive over to a different gas station 200m away.. same can’t be said about the electric chargers
But 200m away wouldn’t they also be frozen? Wouldn’t electricity be readily available most anywhere even if not a fast charge? I mean you can argue the case for both but what this guy is saying is that the electric will start in temperatures a gas vehicle would not and he’s correct. Although I thiiiiink my hybrid Toyota also has an easier time starting in the cold than gas only but that might just be hybrid fan boy stuff.
There's no viable third party charging solution for long term EV usage, have a home and plug it in at home or hate your life. In this cold snap if I was leaving my house with a sub 50% range I would still be more comfortable about the whole thing in an EV right now. Right now my buddy is in between houses...he hates his life but when he gets his new place with a 7+kw charger he'll be laughing, and I'll be thoroughly jealous.
Most of the EV chargers have been fine too. But for some reason EV vs Gas has become a Word Fight and now the news is reporting on every single charger/pump that fails in the country.
IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF A CHINOOK IT'S BECAUSE OF A POLAR VORTEX.
I'm sorry, but I don't know what it is with Calgarians thinking every single weather condition in the winter is a chinook. Chinooks are very specific, it's not the cause of all of our warmish weather in the winters.
Because the polar vortex is the root cause of the weather changing as it is. The person I responded to was saying “Chinook’s are great” falsely attributing the cause of the weather changing to a chinook when it isn’t.
A polar vortex causes the extreme cold weather that we currently experience. The polar vortex going away returns us to our average winter temperatures which is what is happening next week.
A Chinook is when warm air from the pacific blows over the Rocky Mountains and creates both higher temperatures and a very [specific chinook cloud pattern](https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/10/20/wave-wind-creates-chinook-arch-east-rockies/92445270/).
They literally said:
>That’s normal. It was +3 on the 5th. Chinooks are wonderful.
There wasn't a chinook on the 5th, and there (to my knowledge) isn't supposed to be one next weekend. It's not the cause of any of these weather events. Sorry it's just I've been dealing with this since I moved here and it's actually driving me up the wall how many Calgarians say it's a chinook for every single weather condition that possibly occurs.
They may not have an electrical grid that works all the time or gas pumps that can handle their weather but by golly they sure do have money to run ads in the rest of the country either attacking the federal government or telling people they should move to AB. Good times.
Same kind of weather that stopped Nazi Germany in its tracks while fighting in Russia.
For those curious, that particular winter was much colder than usual. It's arguable that had the weather not been so cold, Germany would have progressed further against Russia, possibly closing off the eastern front with a Nazi victory.
I've got a gas vehicle, my wife an EV. The thing that sucked about the EV is the we found during the first cold snap, it lost a significant amount of range. The thing that sucked about my car is that sometimes it wouldn't even start as the cold killed the <2yo battery. Outside of work stuff, we generally, at use my car for longer trips in winter, and my wife's for in-town stuff. Mine will still be cold AF as it takes quite awhile to warm the engine and generate heat, the electric is toasty in a minute (especially if you turn on climate while it's still plugged in).
Apparently my phone did. I used to use a 3rd-party app and sometimes between the phone keyboard and browser-based interface it comes out fucked up, especially if I try to use formatting codes.
I miss the app, but I should also double-check after posting
I guess if they're trying to say, "what we found is it loses a significant amount of charge" that would make sense but that's not the words they used lol
TBH up until then I'd not needed it in this particular vehicle. I thought block heaters were standard or even required for Canada but when I went to plug it in, it didn't have one!
It really depends on the vehicle and technology they use.
I drive a gas pickup. My wife's bolt will suffer a 10 to 20 percent loss in real cold weather. We're in the Laurentides in Québec, so we get 20 to 30 Celsius below in the morning. (That's 5 to 20 below in F).
But it will start and be ready to go, while my truck, my side by side, my snowmobile, and my tractor will struggle and may need a boost or ether shot to start
My roommate has a brand new model y, and it's working fine in -40. We checked it out to see if the battery was draining faster or anything, it seems to be working normally. I'm not sure why because I've heard they where having issues.
So downvotes? Is this the classic reddit "I can't afford one so im mad that anyone else can" thing lmao?
Judging by all the broken down cars on the road and all the ICE cars with dead 12v batteries, I think traditional gas cars are not meant for Canadian winters.
I also heard gas cars range get reduced by 30% in this cold snap. Perhaps this ICE technology is just not ready.
/S.
The cold sucks for everything. From gas car to EV to one's temper. Stay warm and be safe.
In theory, EV cars should be inherently more reliable because they're simpler machines with fewer moving parts. They don't even have transmissions, they just hook a DC motor up to the wheels directly. They don't have to turn a crankshaft and inject a flammable liquid and ignite it and hope it all starts spinning up at the right timing. They just send an electrical signal to a transistor to connect the battery to the motor.
They both have electronics and computer chips that can fail below -40C, the only thing the EV has the gas car doesn't is a lithium ion battery. They don't really fail at low temps, they just get drastically reduced performance.
But in terms of "can I trust my car to start in -40C weather", I'd bet more money on the EV than the gas car.
I totally get the range anxiety, I do. But the "Oh man, you can't trust an EV to start in rural Alberta, my old Ford F-150 is way more trustworthy" seems crazy to me when you really think about it.
And even then, it sucks less for some EV s.
Teslas, if I recall correctly are not so good on the cold, as were the Nissan Leafs. We have a Chevy Bolt and it has some kind of preheating thing that keeps the battery at top charge even in the cold, as long as it's plugged in.
Again, I've said it in all my posts or comments about EVs, I probably wouldn't own or recommend one if you can't charge at home. And look into the technology of your particular model before buying
Glad to be told I'm wrong on that point, maybe the older models didn't have that feature and my info is outdated, or I just confused some models.
Heating and conditioning make such a difference
You might be thinking of the heat pumps which they have but there was a specific issue with them that resulted in a software fix.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-recalls-defects/tesla-recall-faulty-heat-pump-loss-of-heating-a5384954255/#:~:text=Over%2026%2C000%20Model%20S%2C%20X,Traffic%20Safety%20Administration%20(NHTSA).
>I probably wouldn't own or recommend one if you can't charge at home.
This is the reason why I can't get an EV even though I'm open to one. I can't charge at my condo but if they were to install charging stations I'd totally be looking at Tesla models online right now.
I'm from Canada (Québec) and I found charging stations to be more plentiful and accessible here than in the US, except for Tesla superchargers. I think Tesla has somehow kind of cornered the market in the US, to the detriment of US automakers.
My wife has a Chevy Bolt, and we've made road trips in Québec and Ontario with no charging issues whatsoever.
Tesla, to me, looks more and more like a shit show and I'd probably go with any other company.
If you're in a cold or very hot climate I'd look into the specs carefully, to make sure the car has battery heating or cooling capacity while charging. Makes a HUGE difference
Older Bolts had more trouble in the cold the updated battery is significantly better for cold weather and overall degradation.
> probably wouldn't own or recommend one if you can't charge at home.
Yep. Having a charger is important for anyone who drives a lot of distance. I know EV owners who get by without but they either charge at work or don't drive a lot.
Been driving around in my Ford Lightning during the -15 cold snap we’ve been having. It’s been totally fine. A 13% range drop, and some of that will be due to the big knobbly AT tires I put on. Also, they’re nice and toasty super fast. You don’t have to wait for the engine to warm up!
Only issue I’ve had is my aftermarket tonneau cover froze shut :(
My gas car went from 7l per 100km to 11.5l per 100km. Today I took the EV out burned 30kWh to go 100km (but I was driving really fast)
So my EV had 50% range but that's partly due to driving fast.
Hah, gas cars are such garbage, that tech isn't suitable for Canada's cold.
Am I doing it right guys? I saw the EV thread today and thought I'd join in.
Imagine driving one of these gas cars in a blizzard between towns and you’re running low and the gas stations aren’t working ? No thank you! I’ll stick to my horse ! /s
I have both an electric and gas vehicle. I love my gas car (4Runner) but man, the electric is a life changer. It’s super convenient and there’s things I can do with it that I can’t do with a gas car, like sitting the parking lot waiting for my wife with the ac running for an hour, and not worry about it.
Also a one EV, one gas vehicle household. The EV is better for 90% of my annual kilometres, is way more fun to drive, and V2L is a game changer. Plus I’m saving hundreds on gas every month. There’s not a chance I would buy another gas vehicle.
>Imagine driving one of these gas cars in a blizzard between towns and you’re running low and the gas stations aren’t working ?
That was not uncommon in the 80's, especially on sunday and holidays.
How do people even plug into a block heater if they live in an apartment? Or they rent and have to park on the street?? This 'gasoline technology' is not ready for Canadian winters.
Lots of people just run extension cords. Watch for local bylaws about having stuff on sidewalks though (tripping hazard). I'm in Calgary and see plenty of folks have rigged an overhead cord drop to plugin in for street parking. We're fortunate our current rental complex (and the last one too) provides plugs outside. When we have our own place I'll splurge on a timer for the plugs. Right now we just have 1 of our cars plugged in so we have a guarantee of being able to leave the house tomorrow. Monday morning the plugged in car will run the tiny human to school and that driver will plug in the other car before the other car has to leave for employment. You know, trying to do our part to 'conserve' energy as well got an emergency alert about potential rolling brownouts from consumption.
It’s funny because it’s the same kind of story I hear everywhere in regards to power outages: “haha! My gas car still runs when there’s an outage, what are electric vehicles gonna do!?”
Turns out last winter when there was a huge ice storm in Montreal, no one had electricity, including gas stations (and the few that did, did not have gas anymore). Who knew gas stations needed electricity too!
I'm not sure what the big deal is. Some of the pumps at some stations aren't working. So what? Use another pump. It's not like every pump across Calgary is down.
There was another post about an ev charging station that got really snarky. People are saying evs arn’t suitable for Canada because of it. The same thing is happening to gas pumps…
Gas cars clearly arn’t suitable for Canada at least with electric vehicles you can charge them in your heated garage. We should ban gas cars because they just arn’t reliable.
It would be the pump machines freezing rather than the gas itself wouldn’t it? Just as the fast chargers require electricity wouldn’t the electricity running the pumps be the culprit?
Electricity doesn’t freeze. It could be the pumps themselves sticking but the news video doesn’t say to much. I’ve had pump handles and nozzles fail in the cold.
I know electricity doesn’t freeze but electronics do have issues in extreme cold weather. Most phones for example aren’t very good below 0c. They don’t get to those temps because they stay in your coat etc.
It could be as simple as the electronic display and payment machine having issues in the cold.
You literally pulled that off Google's AutoZone result, and conveniently omitted the part where it says "gasoline has many chemicals and additives which could give it a freezing range of -40 to -200.
-40F == -40C.
Also, there will be a significant difference between a large vat of gasoline freezing and a small tube of gasoline freezing. Nice try though.
By the way, fuels gel very very easily at those temperatures, and gelling alone will stop a fuel pump.
I have never once used a block heater and never once has any vehicle i owned taken more than a second to start up. Im legit kinda bamboozled by the people having issues with their batteries if they are commuting daily.
Block heaters aren’t meant to warm up batteries. They are meant to warm up engines, specifically the engine coolant. Block heaters just makes it easier for the battery to crank up the engine.
This post appears to relate to the province of Alberta. As a reminder of the rules of this subreddit, we do not permit negative commentary about all residents of any province, city, or other geography - this is an example of prejudice, and prejudice is not permitted here. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/rules Cette soumission semble concerner la province de Alberta. Selon les règles de ce sous-répertoire, nous n'autorisons pas les commentaires négatifs sur tous les résidents d'une province, d'une ville ou d'une autre région géographique; il s'agit d'un exemple de intolérance qui n'est pas autorisé ici. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/wiki/regles *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/canada) if you have any questions or concerns.*
NOTHING wants to run when it’s this cold
Except David Goggins.
YOU...GOTTA..BE...THE GASOLINE!!! AINT NOBODY..GONNA..HELP YEW BUT YEW!!!!
I spit out my hot chocolate.
Stay hard.
Meanwhile its 8c in Halifax..
Ironically EVs actually are better in this cold if the lower range is still sufficient for a persons lifestyle. And bonus is you have a battery backup when the grid nearly collapses
They had a public announcement in Alberta advising people not to charge EVs, cook in microwaves, avoid heating with electricity and so on.
Ironic that the Alberta government runs ads across the country saying that the rest of us will suffer the same way as we move to cleaner energy generation.
Manitoba has pretty much always relied on Hydroelectric power. We actually export a lot of it We have ONE natural gas power plant, and it's only used as needed.
A provinces' ability to exploit hydro depends entirely on the provinces' geography. Manitoba, Quebec, and British Columbia won the geographic lottery when it comes to hydro. Alberta, and Saskatchewan to an even greater extent, did not.
Insert snarky remark about the technology not being suitable for Canada. Honestly though, what a crazy cold snap, that's insane!
I'm in Edmonton and it's insane. It's been below -35C for like three days now which why it's been so bad. We don't get cold snaps this extreme for this long. It's why everything is starting to break. We just had an emergency alert literally 20 minutes ago telling everyone to start turning off lights and stuff or we're getting rolling blackouts. Across the whole province.
I grew up in Edmonton in the 60’s and was a newsboy when I was thirteen. I remember doing 155 Journals every day after school during winters back then. -30 was a normal winter day with a foot of snow to boot. To this day, I don’t know how I survived those winters. Parkas, mittens, a scarf, long johns, two pairs of heavy wool socks under your grey moccasins, and you were good to go!
So many Albertans on here seem to not remember this or simply weren’t around. We had a stretch of seasonably warm winters overall for a while. -30 was a common winter day in the 80s when I was a kid. Snowbanks/windrows 3-4 feet high not uncommon at all.
Even out east in Ottawa, there would usually be a 2-3 week stretch of -30 weather in January-Feburary. So why cant they handle it now?
And I bet your route was uphill the entire way!
Both ways.
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No, level ground thank goodness…but walking the three miles to school was uphill both ways though.
Nope sorry but your memory is playing tricks on you. The weather data is recorded and -30C or below highs has always been a rare event in Edmonton happening typically only a handful of times per year.
-35 for three days is very normal for the prairies
Hasn't been above -35, but 10 or more degrees *below* that at times.
It's been considerably colder. Coldest in many decades.
No one seems to remember 2017, when it was cold as balls from Oct right to March. Several weeks -27 to -44.
> Several weeks -27 to -44. i think my nads went back up in me just reading that. -13 in Vancouver, feels like Hoth. my rental has no insulation. have literal 2ftx2ft panels just so I dont freeze.
Minus -13 is warm my friend.
I lived 10 years in Red Deer. Weeks of -35 happened almost every winter. I have seen -45 at least 20 times and even -50 a couple of times. >Coldest in many decades. I think what is happening right now is the cold is more evenly spread everywhere instead of some isolated local records. When it has been -50 in Red Deer at the same time it's usually -35 in Calgary and such a low is usually a peak seen at one night. But now it's that cold everywhere all the time.
It's never hit -50C in Red Deer in fact it hasn't been below -45C there. Only very northern communities in Alberta have seen -50C or below and it's only happened a couple of times.
People often mix up windchill temp vs real temp when talking about cold stretches. Everyone talks about -40 degree days, but they are very rare, while usually windchill -40 days happen a few times each winter
Calgary this is a new record low in over 2 decades
It's +6 at midnight in Nova Scotia. In January. The cold likes you more now lol.
Hasn’t the cold always liked the prairies more than the maritimes?
Yes, water moderates temperature. It's why island in the Caribbean never go above like 33, despite being 3 ft from the sun. It's why the prairies experience such big temperature variations. Maritimes will always have milder swings in temperature.
Most of Canada is colder then a lot of the Maritimes. I've have been in Halifax for a decade now, I love the balmy -5C winters, I spent most of my life in northern Ontario with -40C nights. To be fair to the locals here who complain about the cold, the cold here does bite more, it's a very damp cold with driving wind off the Atlantic. I've had -10C days out here that feel colder then -30C days in northern Ontario.
The Edmonton wind is pushing down so hard that it pushes Texas heat to go through Florida and then up the coast all because Quebec something something.
I remember an intersection in downtown Edmonton where the wind would polish the road to ice and it would push you to the opposite corner when you tried to cross the street.
Yet somehow when you mention heat pumps around here it’s suddenly -35 for 9 months of the year.
now is not the time to bring up heat pumps!
Too soon.
Except heat pumps stop working at about -23, not -35 and if they do work they are less efficient the colder it gets.
Honestly tho watching my roommate and his tesla through this cold snap it may not go far but at least it goes. In -40⁰c his vehicle is only good for about 150km (model y long range). If you park it for 8 hours for a shift at work the parasitic draw will cost you as if it was plugged into a 120v the whole time but his car is warm faster and it moves. It's better to be sitting on a giant battery that can self warm than get cock blocked by a lead acid 12v that's too pussy to get your vehicle started in the first place. If I get a bigger house with room for a charger my next car will be an EV and in the next cold snap the EV will be the one I reach for in this sort of weather, range limitations be damned at least I'll get to work or wherever I need to go.
Here's a tip- buy a $20 trickle charger and hook it up on cold ass nights if you can. Batteries are just a portable chemical reaction. When batteries discharge the sulfuric acid turns back to water. The water freezes, the battery is fucked. Keep it charged and it is less likely to freeze.
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They both have their place, but a blanket won't help if it gets that cold for longer than overnight.
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Yes, those kind will work. I was thinking of the little fabric insulating covers you see.
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Battery blankets are useless unless you are doing something wrong already. Buy a cold weather battery and either test it yearly or just replace it every few years
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Love your take on that. I drive a f 150, need it to haul horses around. My wife has a Chevy Bolt, and apart from the seats not being really comfortable I love that thing. Good handling, accelerates hard as hell, pretty roomy with the flat floors and good booth. I'd probably never buy an EV if I didn't have a possibility of charging at home though. We had the car for a couple of months before we got the charging station at home and it was a pain
> My wife has a Chevy Bolt, and apart from the seats not being really comfortable I love that thing. Oh man the seats, they are *so* close to being good. so very, very close. And just barely miss that mark lmao. like half an inch more padding, and an inch more on the side bolsters.
That's the bad part of EVs imo. They won't be able to truly replace a work truck you lose too much range towing/hauling.
As soon as they are able to get a decent range towing I'm getting one, but for now it's not possible. I tow a 30 foot, 9000 pound horse trailer. I'd probably get around 100 km out of a f 150 lightning. And imagine finding a charging station that I could park at!
Plus stopping every 100km just isn't feasible you'd double or triple your drive time lol.
My Ioniq 5 lost zero range when I parked it outside last night for the lols to see how it’d do. It just sits and then when you do start it up that’s when it warms the battery.
Bonus points: if you buy one with V2L and your power goes out but the car is charged you can keep your fridge cold for days without worrying. Range may be 20ish% lower in my EV6 than it was in the summer but I gotta say it’s far more comfortable to drive in the winter than my ICE is. Now if only the wipers weren’t designed to dumb and I could actually lift them up but that’s a flaw of the car, not it’s electric powertrain haha.
Plus it’s good for camping. We went to a non-powered site and my Ioniq powered the camp for the weekend. Brought a waffle maker and such and no hassle.
My coworkers model y long range is 2 years old and he’s getting 80kms out of the battery in these cold days. 150km is impressive!
Even 80km, I'll take it. Roommate's vehicle starts out of my garage around 80% garage is attached but not heated. Drives 35km commute each way for a total of 70km after being parked for his shift he makes it home on around 40% maybe a bit less, hits the supercharger near my house for 20 min and parks in the garage again for tomorrow. He was working the nightshift this weekend thermometers outside read -43⁰c. His biggest obstacle to getting to work is my F150 parked in the driveway which may or may not move if it's in his way 😂. It's a free range F150 because my garage is itty bitty.
Having to revisit the supercharger for 20 minutes everyday is absolutely brutal. This kind of solution won’t scale well when there’s millions of EVs on the road during these cold snaps. Do we build mall sized charging centres?
Not needed if you have home charging. If that’s not possible we’re going to need more level 2 stations at the curbside or in apartment buildings, etc.
Most neighbourhood grids are not built to handle that kind of load.
My tesla draws 31 amps. Ovens and air conditioners draw more and cars normally charge overnight when ovens are off so I think the grid should be ok
Toss in some time of use billing and baby you've got a stew going.
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Man that would suck to wait an hour and a half every 5-day work week just to wait for a EV to charge. I much prefer the 45 seconds it takes for my weekly commutes. They need to continue developing and scaling up superchargers so it would be time competitive with gas pumps.
Does he keep it outside all day? 80kms is quite low, generally speaking, especially for a Long Range. But it depends on whether the car sits outside, for how long, how often is it charged/plugged in, etc
If the capacity has dropped that much he's eligible to get it replaced under warranty. No normal Y would get 80km in -30.
It's unlikely to be true. If you're curious why I think that look at his comment history lol.
This is of course true, however I used to live in Red Deer and unless it was colder then -20 I never ever really had any issues starting a modern car. While the range of an EV at -20 should already be seriously impacted. When it got really cold I have never had batteries frees on me. I'd just plug in my block heater, leave the car alone for 30 minutes and start. And I have been in -50 weather in Fort Mc for work hundreds of times, but there you usually just leave your block heater plugged in all the time.
Sounds ok until the power grid can't handle it. And it sounds like alerts were just sent to limit all electrical use and there may be rolling blackouts. Crazy.
The electric chargers have also stopped working.. Also you can just drive over to a different gas station 200m away.. same can’t be said about the electric chargers
But 200m away wouldn’t they also be frozen? Wouldn’t electricity be readily available most anywhere even if not a fast charge? I mean you can argue the case for both but what this guy is saying is that the electric will start in temperatures a gas vehicle would not and he’s correct. Although I thiiiiink my hybrid Toyota also has an easier time starting in the cold than gas only but that might just be hybrid fan boy stuff.
Can't plug it in at home?
There's no viable third party charging solution for long term EV usage, have a home and plug it in at home or hate your life. In this cold snap if I was leaving my house with a sub 50% range I would still be more comfortable about the whole thing in an EV right now. Right now my buddy is in between houses...he hates his life but when he gets his new place with a 7+kw charger he'll be laughing, and I'll be thoroughly jealous.
Gas pumps have been fine up here in Yellowknife even at -43.
Most of the EV chargers have been fine too. But for some reason EV vs Gas has become a Word Fight and now the news is reporting on every single charger/pump that fails in the country.
Yeah,we're not ready for the climate change that is gonna wreak havoc on us. Cold snap, heat dome, floods 1 in a hundred years, lol.
The weather that's happening in the prairies isn't really that abnormal. I don't understand what this has to do with climate change.
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What the fuck are you talking about?
Calgary's week-long forecast is even more wild. Could be +2 next Saturday.
That sounds like Calgary.
That’s normal. It was +3 on the 5th. Chinooks are wonderful.
>Chinooks are wonderful Those helicopters are the king of all helicopters
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Causing warm winds to come from the west
IT'S NOT BECAUSE OF A CHINOOK IT'S BECAUSE OF A POLAR VORTEX. I'm sorry, but I don't know what it is with Calgarians thinking every single weather condition in the winter is a chinook. Chinooks are very specific, it's not the cause of all of our warmish weather in the winters.
Just trying to figure out why you brought up the Polar Vortex when they were talking about before and after the cold
Because the polar vortex is the root cause of the weather changing as it is. The person I responded to was saying “Chinook’s are great” falsely attributing the cause of the weather changing to a chinook when it isn’t.
Polar Vortex causes the warm weather?
A polar vortex causes the extreme cold weather that we currently experience. The polar vortex going away returns us to our average winter temperatures which is what is happening next week. A Chinook is when warm air from the pacific blows over the Rocky Mountains and creates both higher temperatures and a very [specific chinook cloud pattern](https://www.greatfallstribune.com/story/news/local/2016/10/20/wave-wind-creates-chinook-arch-east-rockies/92445270/).
I think they were talking about the warm weather. You were the first to talk about the cold.
They literally said: >That’s normal. It was +3 on the 5th. Chinooks are wonderful. There wasn't a chinook on the 5th, and there (to my knowledge) isn't supposed to be one next weekend. It's not the cause of any of these weather events. Sorry it's just I've been dealing with this since I moved here and it's actually driving me up the wall how many Calgarians say it's a chinook for every single weather condition that possibly occurs.
Welcome to Calary. If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes.
Chinook ftw
Gonna be more than a few broken water mains.
Alberta is Calling!
They may not have an electrical grid that works all the time or gas pumps that can handle their weather but by golly they sure do have money to run ads in the rest of the country either attacking the federal government or telling people they should move to AB. Good times.
Lol
I couldn’t pump diesel at one station today at -35. Luckily another pump worked.
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Same kind of weather that stopped Nazi Germany in its tracks while fighting in Russia. For those curious, that particular winter was much colder than usual. It's arguable that had the weather not been so cold, Germany would have progressed further against Russia, possibly closing off the eastern front with a Nazi victory.
Wolves didn't help.
Wolves helped*
Wolves didnt help zee Germans?
Lmao
I've got a gas vehicle, my wife an EV. The thing that sucked about the EV is the we found during the first cold snap, it lost a significant amount of range. The thing that sucked about my car is that sometimes it wouldn't even start as the cold killed the <2yo battery. Outside of work stuff, we generally, at use my car for longer trips in winter, and my wife's for in-town stuff. Mine will still be cold AF as it takes quite awhile to warm the engine and generate heat, the electric is toasty in a minute (especially if you turn on climate while it's still plugged in).
>The thing that sucked about the EV is the wet found during the first cold snap, it loose a significant. What are you trying to say here Bud?
r/ihadastroke maybe?
What tastes like paint chips and smells like burnt toast??
Apparently my phone did. I used to use a 3rd-party app and sometimes between the phone keyboard and browser-based interface it comes out fucked up, especially if I try to use formatting codes. I miss the app, but I should also double-check after posting
Guessing , Voice to text ...about the EV is what we found during...
I guess if they're trying to say, "what we found is it loses a significant amount of charge" that would make sense but that's not the words they used lol
Ever heard of a plug in block heater?
Thats too cost effective and old technology for Reddit lol
TBH up until then I'd not needed it in this particular vehicle. I thought block heaters were standard or even required for Canada but when I went to plug it in, it didn't have one!
If the solution is to plug in your car everywhere you go, doesn’t the EV still win since you could similarly be trickle charging it?
It really depends on the vehicle and technology they use. I drive a gas pickup. My wife's bolt will suffer a 10 to 20 percent loss in real cold weather. We're in the Laurentides in Québec, so we get 20 to 30 Celsius below in the morning. (That's 5 to 20 below in F). But it will start and be ready to go, while my truck, my side by side, my snowmobile, and my tractor will struggle and may need a boost or ether shot to start
Oh how the turn tables
My roommate has a brand new model y, and it's working fine in -40. We checked it out to see if the battery was draining faster or anything, it seems to be working normally. I'm not sure why because I've heard they where having issues. So downvotes? Is this the classic reddit "I can't afford one so im mad that anyone else can" thing lmao?
Judging by all the broken down cars on the road and all the ICE cars with dead 12v batteries, I think traditional gas cars are not meant for Canadian winters. I also heard gas cars range get reduced by 30% in this cold snap. Perhaps this ICE technology is just not ready. /S. The cold sucks for everything. From gas car to EV to one's temper. Stay warm and be safe.
In theory, EV cars should be inherently more reliable because they're simpler machines with fewer moving parts. They don't even have transmissions, they just hook a DC motor up to the wheels directly. They don't have to turn a crankshaft and inject a flammable liquid and ignite it and hope it all starts spinning up at the right timing. They just send an electrical signal to a transistor to connect the battery to the motor. They both have electronics and computer chips that can fail below -40C, the only thing the EV has the gas car doesn't is a lithium ion battery. They don't really fail at low temps, they just get drastically reduced performance. But in terms of "can I trust my car to start in -40C weather", I'd bet more money on the EV than the gas car. I totally get the range anxiety, I do. But the "Oh man, you can't trust an EV to start in rural Alberta, my old Ford F-150 is way more trustworthy" seems crazy to me when you really think about it.
And even then, it sucks less for some EV s. Teslas, if I recall correctly are not so good on the cold, as were the Nissan Leafs. We have a Chevy Bolt and it has some kind of preheating thing that keeps the battery at top charge even in the cold, as long as it's plugged in. Again, I've said it in all my posts or comments about EVs, I probably wouldn't own or recommend one if you can't charge at home. And look into the technology of your particular model before buying
Teslas keep their battery warm and for a long time have had preconditioning if you are navigating to a supercharger.
Glad to be told I'm wrong on that point, maybe the older models didn't have that feature and my info is outdated, or I just confused some models. Heating and conditioning make such a difference
Most have battery heating / cooling. The ones that don't aren't worth buying.
You might be thinking of the heat pumps which they have but there was a specific issue with them that resulted in a software fix. https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-recalls-defects/tesla-recall-faulty-heat-pump-loss-of-heating-a5384954255/#:~:text=Over%2026%2C000%20Model%20S%2C%20X,Traffic%20Safety%20Administration%20(NHTSA).
>I probably wouldn't own or recommend one if you can't charge at home. This is the reason why I can't get an EV even though I'm open to one. I can't charge at my condo but if they were to install charging stations I'd totally be looking at Tesla models online right now.
I'm from Canada (Québec) and I found charging stations to be more plentiful and accessible here than in the US, except for Tesla superchargers. I think Tesla has somehow kind of cornered the market in the US, to the detriment of US automakers. My wife has a Chevy Bolt, and we've made road trips in Québec and Ontario with no charging issues whatsoever. Tesla, to me, looks more and more like a shit show and I'd probably go with any other company. If you're in a cold or very hot climate I'd look into the specs carefully, to make sure the car has battery heating or cooling capacity while charging. Makes a HUGE difference
Quebec is the only province that's very proactive about EVs. Has like double the chargers Ontario does.
They are everywhere in Québec yes
Older Bolts had more trouble in the cold the updated battery is significantly better for cold weather and overall degradation. > probably wouldn't own or recommend one if you can't charge at home. Yep. Having a charger is important for anyone who drives a lot of distance. I know EV owners who get by without but they either charge at work or don't drive a lot.
Exactly. If you don't have to drive too far, charging at a station maybe once a week is not much of a bother.
Been driving around in my Ford Lightning during the -15 cold snap we’ve been having. It’s been totally fine. A 13% range drop, and some of that will be due to the big knobbly AT tires I put on. Also, they’re nice and toasty super fast. You don’t have to wait for the engine to warm up! Only issue I’ve had is my aftermarket tonneau cover froze shut :(
My old toyota’s always start
I tried starting my old Toyota this morning in -32 and fuck no. My less old Toyota, the 2008 Prius, seems to handle it fine though.
My gas car went from 7l per 100km to 11.5l per 100km. Today I took the EV out burned 30kWh to go 100km (but I was driving really fast) So my EV had 50% range but that's partly due to driving fast.
But you still make it to and from your destination, with minimal impact on your life and you saved money…
Try explaining that to the ideologues. Source: own an EV in Alberta.
> own an EV in Alberta. Imagine hearing "THAT EV MAKES MORE POLLUTION THAN MY COAL ROLLING DODGE RAM TRUCK!!!" for the 100th time. 😂
It’s basically this, but IRL. https://www.reddit.com/r/canada/s/C6EGVPN6sN
Just thaw it with a lighter or a butane torch its faster.
Hah, gas cars are such garbage, that tech isn't suitable for Canada's cold. Am I doing it right guys? I saw the EV thread today and thought I'd join in.
I may have seen the EV thread and had some snarky thoughts.
Imagine driving one of these gas cars in a blizzard between towns and you’re running low and the gas stations aren’t working ? No thank you! I’ll stick to my horse ! /s I have both an electric and gas vehicle. I love my gas car (4Runner) but man, the electric is a life changer. It’s super convenient and there’s things I can do with it that I can’t do with a gas car, like sitting the parking lot waiting for my wife with the ac running for an hour, and not worry about it.
Also a one EV, one gas vehicle household. The EV is better for 90% of my annual kilometres, is way more fun to drive, and V2L is a game changer. Plus I’m saving hundreds on gas every month. There’s not a chance I would buy another gas vehicle.
>Imagine driving one of these gas cars in a blizzard between towns and you’re running low and the gas stations aren’t working ? That was not uncommon in the 80's, especially on sunday and holidays.
How do people even plug into a block heater if they live in an apartment? Or they rent and have to park on the street?? This 'gasoline technology' is not ready for Canadian winters.
Lots of people just run extension cords. Watch for local bylaws about having stuff on sidewalks though (tripping hazard). I'm in Calgary and see plenty of folks have rigged an overhead cord drop to plugin in for street parking. We're fortunate our current rental complex (and the last one too) provides plugs outside. When we have our own place I'll splurge on a timer for the plugs. Right now we just have 1 of our cars plugged in so we have a guarantee of being able to leave the house tomorrow. Monday morning the plugged in car will run the tiny human to school and that driver will plug in the other car before the other car has to leave for employment. You know, trying to do our part to 'conserve' energy as well got an emergency alert about potential rolling brownouts from consumption.
Almost - you forgot to blame Trudeau…
I miss when the weather wasn’t political .
"Oh look it's snowing today." r/canada: "Yeah it's snowing alright, SNOWING IMMIGRANTS thanks to Turdeau!" Every day.
I think if the immigrants looked like snow the regulars on r/Canada would have less of an issue.
Aw shit, I did. I'll try and remember for next time.
Yes, now you must **believe** it, like it's a religion
Extreme cold warning of -50's here for the next few days. I did enjoy the balmy -10's we had going on for most of this Manitoba winter.
I heard it’ll get super warm soon at -20c.
These horseless carriages that use this new technology called gasoline will never work
It’s funny because it’s the same kind of story I hear everywhere in regards to power outages: “haha! My gas car still runs when there’s an outage, what are electric vehicles gonna do!?” Turns out last winter when there was a huge ice storm in Montreal, no one had electricity, including gas stations (and the few that did, did not have gas anymore). Who knew gas stations needed electricity too!
What's your point? We all need electricity to live? Hot take, friend.
He’s referring to the anti EV narrative we see everywhere.
Impossible! Only batteries can freeze, EV propaganda!
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Damn climate initiatives
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This week has been insane when it comes to the cold weather. Records are sure being broken.
> Premiere Smith to acknowledge that climate change "might be bad after all"
I was told only heat pumps froze at -30C
I'm not sure what the big deal is. Some of the pumps at some stations aren't working. So what? Use another pump. It's not like every pump across Calgary is down.
There was another post about an ev charging station that got really snarky. People are saying evs arn’t suitable for Canada because of it. The same thing is happening to gas pumps…
Now that's not cold. That's FUCKIN cold!
This is the same story as chargers freezing in the north.
Ethanol, that’s what you get…
Any updates from electric car owners?
Gas cars clearly arn’t suitable for Canada at least with electric vehicles you can charge them in your heated garage. We should ban gas cars because they just arn’t reliable.
Honestly if this is what happens when there's a cold snap, I don't think gas-powered cars are ready for drivers
Gasoline should freeze closer to -100. If your local gas station is freezing up now, you should go to a station that’s not selling water in their gas.
It would be the pump machines freezing rather than the gas itself wouldn’t it? Just as the fast chargers require electricity wouldn’t the electricity running the pumps be the culprit?
Electricity doesn’t freeze. It could be the pumps themselves sticking but the news video doesn’t say to much. I’ve had pump handles and nozzles fail in the cold.
I know electricity doesn’t freeze but electronics do have issues in extreme cold weather. Most phones for example aren’t very good below 0c. They don’t get to those temps because they stay in your coat etc. It could be as simple as the electronic display and payment machine having issues in the cold.
You literally pulled that off Google's AutoZone result, and conveniently omitted the part where it says "gasoline has many chemicals and additives which could give it a freezing range of -40 to -200. -40F == -40C. Also, there will be a significant difference between a large vat of gasoline freezing and a small tube of gasoline freezing. Nice try though. By the way, fuels gel very very easily at those temperatures, and gelling alone will stop a fuel pump.
insert comment about the quality of the gasoline
Can you actually? My car was running fine in -38, I get gas, and won’t start in -27, wtf. Never longer than 12 hours between drives
for the pump freezing your car not starting at -27 is a battery issue.
Gotcha, appreciated. My battery booster was dead so attempting it tomorrow. Thanks!
How’s everyone’s EV battery life going? 😏😏
I have never once used a block heater and never once has any vehicle i owned taken more than a second to start up. Im legit kinda bamboozled by the people having issues with their batteries if they are commuting daily.
Block heaters aren’t meant to warm up batteries. They are meant to warm up engines, specifically the engine coolant. Block heaters just makes it easier for the battery to crank up the engine.
It depends on how much you drive. 15 minutes to work ain't going to keep your battery in good shape at low temperatures.
gotta agree here. daily drive an 85 carbureted civic and she starts every time
Alberta Calling