As temperatures in Chicago dip below zero, electric vehicle charging stations have become scenes of despair: drained batteries, bumped-up drivers, and lines stretching down the street.
“When it's this cold, cars don't work as well, chargers don't work as well, and people don't work as well,” said Uber driver Javid Spencer, who said he had done little in the past three years. Days aside charging the rented Chevy Bolt and worrying about being stranded with a flat battery – again.
Mr Spencer, 27, said he headed to a charging station on Sunday with his battery still 30 miles away. Within minutes, the battery died. He had to tow the car to the station.
“When I finally plugged it in, it wasn't getting any charge,” he said. Recharging the battery, which would normally take Mr Spencer an hour, took five hours.
With more people than ever owning electric cars, this winter's cold snap has caused headaches for EV owners, as the freezing temperatures drain batteries and reduce driving range.
The problems may last a little longer. Chicago and other parts of the United States and Canada were hit with frigid temperatures this week. Wind chills on Tuesday fell to near -30 degrees in much of the Chicago area, according to the National Weather Service. Dangerously low temperatures and waves of snow are expected to continue through the weekend.
“It's like I don't really want a Tesla.”
Vehicles use more energy to heat their batteries and cabins in cold weather, so it's normal to see an increase in energy consumption, and Tesla reminds users in a post on its website, offering some tips for drivers: Keep the charge level above 20 percent to limit the impact of temperatures. Frozen. Tesla also recommends that drivers use the “Scheduled Departure” feature to pre-record the start of a trip, so the car can determine the best time to start charging and pre-conditioning. This allows the car to operate at peak efficiency from the moment it is started.
In a frigid Chicago parking lot on Tuesday, Tesla drivers huddled in their cars waiting for a toll.
That morning, Nick Sethi, a 35-year-old engineer in Chicago, said he found a frozen, locked Tesla. He spent an hour in temperatures as low as minus 5 degrees struggling with the locks.
Finally, he managed to dig the trunk's built-in trunk handle open, climbed inside and drove his long-range Model Y SUV five miles to the nearest supercharging station. Join a long line of Tesla drivers.
All 12 charging columns were occupied, with drivers slowing the process down a bit by staying inside their cars as the temperature rose.
“It's been a rollercoaster ride,” Sethi, who moved to Chicago from Dallas last spring, said of owning a Tesla during a series of frigid days. “I'll spend the winter and then decide whether to keep it or not.”
After dropping a few shipping bars, Joshalyn Rivera was also experiencing a bit of buyer's remorse. She sat with the heat blasting inside her 2023 Tesla Model 3 as she charged the battery.
“If you're waiting in that line and you only have 50 miles to go, you're not going to make it,” Ms. Rivera said, pointing to the line of cars stretching down Elston Street. She said she saw the Tesla's battery die shortly after the driver tried to cut the line.
Under normal conditions, Ms. Rivera's car can travel up to 273 miles on a single 30-minute charge. Ms. Rivera said this week that she woke up to find about a third of her car battery drained due to the overnight cold. As temperatures dropped, she spent hours each morning waiting in line and recharging the battery.
“It's like I don't really want a Tesla,” she said.
Why does cold weather drain electric car batteries?
Unlike cars with internal combustion engines, an electric car has two batteries: a low-voltage battery and a high-voltage battery. In particularly cold weather, the low-voltage 12-volt battery can also lose its charge, as happens in conventional vehicles.
When that happens, the electric vehicle can't be charged with a fast charger until the low-voltage battery is turned on, said Albert Gore III, a former Tesla employee who is now executive director of the Zero Emission Transportation Association, which represents automakers including Tesla. . It issued a advice sheet for operating electric cars in cold weather.
The challenge with electric cars is that both sides of the battery — the anode and cathode — have chemical reactions that slow down during very cold temperatures. This affects both charging and discharging the battery, said Jack Brewer, director of the Clean Energy Institute and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
“It becomes very difficult to make battery electric vehicles operate in extremely cold conditions,” Mr. Brewer said. “You can't charge the battery as quickly or discharge the battery as quickly if it's cold. There's no physical way to get around.”
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
They don't have these problems in Norway.
As industry insiders examine what went wrong in Chicago, some suggest that charging infrastructure may have been outdone by extreme cold weather.
“It has only been a few years since electric vehicles have been widely deployed,” Mr. Gore said. “This is not an absolute problem for electric cars, because it has been largely solved elsewhere,” he added.
Some of the countries with the highest rates of electric vehicle adoption are also among the coldest. In Norway, where nearly one in four cars is electric, drivers have taken steps, such as preheating the car before driving, to increase efficiency even in cold weather, said Lars Godbolt, an advisor to the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association. Which represents more than 120,000 electric car owners in Norway.
Charging stations in Norway see longer lines in the winter than in the summer, since vehicles are slower to charge in cold weather, but that has become less of a problem in recent years since Norway has built more charging ports, Godbolt said, citing a recent study. Member poll. He added that the majority of people in Norway live in homes, not apartments, and that nearly 90 percent of electric car owners have their own charging stations at home.
Worldwide, 14% of all new cars sold in 2022 were electric, up from 9% in 2021 and less than 5% in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency, which provides data on energy security. In Europe, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland and Denmark had the highest share of electric vehicles in new car registrations in 2022, according to the European Environment Agency.
Cold weather will likely be less of a concern as companies update their electric vehicle models. Even in the past few years, companies have developed capabilities that allow newer models to be more efficient in cold weather. “These new challenges are emerging, and the industry is innovating its way to solve many of these problems not completely but at least partially,” Mr. Godbolt said.
James Polley, spokesman for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a trade association representing more than 800 car companies in Britain, noted that all vehicles, including those powered by diesel or gas, perform worse in cold weather. He said that the problem is not related to the ability of electric cars to work well in cold weather, as much as it is related to the inability to provide the necessary infrastructure, such as charging stations.
He added that with a gas or diesel car, drivers have complete confidence that they will find gas stations, so they are less focused on their efficiency declining in cold weather. “If the electric vehicle charging infrastructure didn't exist, it could be even more worrying.”
Mr. Spencer, the Uber driver, said the economics of driving an electric vehicle for the ride-sharing service may not work out in Chicago winters. Uber said in a statement that it was offering discounts to its drivers, but Mr Spencer was still concerned.
“The payment is the same, but the cost to drivers, with all these additional fees, is much greater,” he added.
Evan Ben And Derek Bryson Taylor Contributed to reports.
Audio produced by Tali Abekasis.
