Cold Snap in the West...

[lobo1969]

No, I did not talk to them when I saw them, but I did feel bad for them.

Why is it a ridiculous scenario?

Because people don't freeze in their cars waiting to charge up, they have options to do and be elsewhere while waiting to charge. If they are experienced EV owners then you have no reason to feel 'bad' for them, they know what they are doing.

[rataylor22]

All I know about EVs is that I feel horrible for the family that is sitting in the local grocery parking lot in freezing temperatures with a packed car on family vacation waiting for the car to charge.

Sorry just to clarify, are you under the impression that people have to sit in cold cars while they charge, or are you specifically referring to the waiting on the charge? I'm not really sure what outside temperature has to do with this scenario.

[PenguinHunter]

Because people don't freeze in their cars waiting to charge up, they have options to do and be elsewhere while waiting to charge. If they are experienced EV owners then you have no reason to feel 'bad' for them, they know what they are doing.

How long do they typically take to charge?

[2014olympicgold]

How long do they typically take to charge?

In the summer. 15-20min to go from 10%-75% ish (with a supercharger) which gets you 300-ish kms? The rule of thumb is to charge up to 90% to preserve your battery. The final 10% isn't giving you enough miles to negate the negative effect on the batteries health. To go to a full 100%, it's about an hour. Charging at home takes about 10hrs.



The issue in the winter is that the battery needs to be warmed up to safely charge. So the car essentially uses the battery to warm itself up prior to charging. Which is what's happening to all these people. The issue is that people know that the cold will kill their battery, but don't do anything proactive to try and prevent it. There's people who wake up after sleeping and go to their car and go "OMG i was at 40% last night now I'm at 20%! This sucks!". Then they try and go to a gas station with 4 chargers and it's all filled.

And then range goes down when people use the electric heater in this weather. Typical cars use the heat from the engine to heat the cabin. Since there's no engine in EVs, they need an electric heater to heat the cabin. And electric heaters aren't efficient by nature of how it creates heat

[Canucks_fan18]

In the summer. 15-20min to go from 10%-75% ish (with a supercharger) which gets you 300-ish kms? The rule of thumb is to charge up to 90% to preserve your battery. The final 10% isn't giving you enough miles to negate the negative effect on the batteries health. To go to a full 100%, it's about an hour. Charging at home takes about 10hrs.



The issue in the winter is that the battery needs to be warmed up to safely charge. So the car essentially uses the battery to warm itself up prior to charging. Which is what's happening to all these people. The issue is that people know that the cold will kill their battery, but don't do anything proactive to try and prevent it. There's people who wake up after sleeping and go to their car and go "OMG i was at 40% last night now I'm at 20%! This sucks!". Then they try and go to a gas station with 4 chargers and it's all filled.

And then range goes down when people use the electric heater in this weather. Typical cars use the heat from the engine to heat the cabin. Since there's no engine in EVs, they need an electric heater to heat the cabin. And electric heaters aren't efficient by nature of how it creates heat

I drove a Tesla on vacation, all I could find was a Tesla charger that wasn't a supercharger. Plugged it in and it told me 8 hours until full.

[doulos]

yup, she cold on the Prairies in CAN...SK is also in that same boat. somehow we had enough power to send to AB to our buddies there..only imagine what happens when more and more lectric vehicles are on teh roads and our grid is completely overwhelmed more often.

Won't likely be an issue. It took record breaking lows combined with multiple natural gas plants being down, no wind, and no sun, and even still there were very few disruptions. As the load needs to grow so will the infrastructure. I get it that it's the narrative that's being pushed but it's largely a big nothingburger.

It was kind of fun to see the usage chart plummet right after the emergency alert went out. Goes to show how much energy we use is not really required at all times.

In fact, it's actually a sign that the infrastructure is almost bang on where it needs to be right now since we could go right to the edge with all of these challenges and yet not go over it.

[lobo1969]

I drove a Tesla on vacation, all I could find was a Tesla charger that wasn't a supercharger. Plugged it in and it told me 8 hours until full.

That is a crappy charger then. Super chargers are the way to go, but the charging rates for them and gotten very expensive, particularly in AB.

[finnys_fanatsy]