Allison Presents: The Ballad of the EV Popsicle

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[00:00:13] A registered investment advisor. we're going to talk about cold weather and EVs. So what's the issue? Well, last week, EV owners in Chicago and other cities in the Midwest that were. Research firm Recur and found that the Chevy Bolt lost about a third of its range in freezing temperatures. The BMW i3 fared slightly better. The Tesla Model S only

[00:03:03] lost 4% of its range. The Hyundai Kona also And part of the reason for these range decreases is that the car is trying to keep the battery warm in cold or extreme cold conditions or cool when it's hot outside. So your battery is at its optimal performance, they give you the most amount of range.

[00:04:23] So that's a safe number. In the video, they mentioned recurrent. Well, recurrent actually has a really good chart. Let me pull it up here. All right, here we go. We're gonna look at percentages. I'm not gonna give you a bunch of numbers because I know that could be confusing on an audio podcast. So we're gonna look at the percentage of range lost

[00:05:44] in freezing temperatures versus ideal temperatures. an ice car, he was driving a Chevy Bolt. So I can definitely see why that would cause him some frustration. You have the Model X 100D 24%. The Volkswagen ID because it's cold outside. It's minus 10 degrees outside. So I'd imagine by the end of that five hours, they were probably pretty close to zero. And that's in a lot of cases, that's why they

[00:08:21] needed to be towed. But according to some of the reports that I wanna say this before I get too far into this. I think this story is a good example of an edge case and it would go a long way for EV makers and charging companies to come out and say, you know what, this was a learning experience and we're gonna do better on where our end,

[00:09:42] here are the changes that we're going to make.

[00:09:44] This is gonna take some time.

[00:09:46] In the meantime, here are some tips winter time. That might have come out, but I didn't hear anybody from Tesla and it would be Elon specifically address this issue. So let's talk about possible causes for this incident. Well, first of all, it's really cold. It was minus 10 in Chicago with a negative minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit

[00:11:01] with a minus 30 degrees wind chill factor. For our friends who don't believe in freedom units,

[00:12:03] It's because somebody where they're picking up food or picking up people happens to have a level two charger

[00:12:07] and they're waiting there anyway,

[00:12:08] so they might as well just plug in and charge their vehicle.

[00:12:11] But honestly, I have no idea if this is really a thing.

[00:12:14] I don't know how many people are out there doing that

[00:12:17] on that specific day, on that specific time.

[00:12:20] It could be a lot, it could be a little.

[00:12:22] We don't really know.

[00:12:24] The other thing is in the past,

[00:12:26] we've talked about this in the past, so I won't go over it again. But the cables could have been an issue because it was really cold outside and maybe, you know, those cables for the Tesla superchargers or insert name of EV charging company, because it wasn't just Tesla that had these problems.

[00:13:40] Um, maybe they just weren't to pay for that big battery, so Tesla actually locked their battery to a smaller range. During these natural disasters, Tesla unlocked the full range of that car. Temporarily, they locked it again, but that allowed people can feel like a total noob when they find they get their own EV, updates, data, and just about anything you want all in one platform.

[00:17:45] Affirm, yes, to start. hole next to that original hole. Unfortunately, tax acts filing software can't make taxes fun, but tax act can help you get them done. Tax act, let's get them over with. Alright, let's talk about battery chemistry. I've heard some people say that LFP batteries

[00:19:01] don't hold up in the cold, and then nickel, be minus Tony degrees Celsius, all the way up to 60 degrees Celsius. And we already know that temperatures in Chicago were colder than what the LFP batteries could typically handle.

[00:20:22] I do have a little bit more next topic, which is what do you do if you live in a cold climate? Well you can precondition your battery. And we've talked about this a little bit in terms of, you know, when it's cold outside,

[00:21:42] your battery's going to operate slower.

[00:21:43] It's not going to be warmed up and ready to take that charge. The next thing you can do is have a level two charger, if possible. I know that not everybody can have a level two charger for a variety of reasons. One is if you're renting this car because you're driving for a ride-sharing company,

[00:23:03] it doesn't make sense to spend $700 to $1,'s less of a chance of it happening to you. Now I want to talk a little bit about Norway because obviously it's cold in Norway, but it's also a cold country that has the highest EV adoption rate. So what are they doing that we're not doing here in the United States?

[00:24:20] Part of it is education.

[00:24:22] People in Norway as a general rule are better educated when it comes to the States like I'll give you an example. It was cold here today and our high was 63 degrees and I was cold. I had a sweater on for most of the day. Now it's 63 and raining but still it's chilly and it's going to be even colder tomorrow which will probably mean that I'll have to wear my

[00:25:41] beanie to keep warm and when I say colder I think it's going to be below 50 degrees in raining.

[00:26:45] And then people in Norway typically have a shorter commute distance than we do here in the United States. Like it's not uncommon to have a commute of an hour.

[00:26:49] I think my commute is 45 minutes to go to work.

[00:26:51] I don't do that every day, but if I had to, it'd be 45 minutes there, 45 minutes back.

[00:26:56] In Norway, the commute's closer to 30 minutes, not too bad.

[00:27:00] And then in Norway, 90% of EV detectors and that they're in working condition. So call your landlord, let them know that we came out. We told them that they needed to change the batteries or change the smoke detectors

[00:28:20] if they're older than 10 years old.

[00:28:22] But more often than not, or at least in my experience,

[00:28:25] more often than not, it's such a hassle you just pay for the energy that you use, the apartment complex gets a little bit of that, orange gets a little bit of that. There are a lot of companies out there trying to solve this problem for apartment owners. Another option is if there's a 220 or 240 outlet that supplies a dryer, you can plug some EV charging equipment into that and charge your EV

[00:29:41] if you rent a home.

[00:29:43] If not, you can still plug your charger

[00:29:45] into the regular outlet and, you know, my mom's car. And you would have to go out and put the battery charger on it. Or my dad would do like a slow trickle charge to keep the battery going. So when mom went to work the next day, it'd be easier for her to go to work. Diesel motors, they're not a fan of the cold temperatures. Diesel fuels not a fan of the cold temperatures causes problems with it. That's why people

[00:31:01] have things like block heaters in cold weather. Block heaters

[00:31:05] will keep the oil and the coolant warm so that when you go out could put it. That's it. So I can't remember if Justin did this. This is like when we were in our 20s or if another employee did it. I want to say it was another employee because Justin grew up in Alaska. But that person turned off their truck and that was bad. They turned off their truck and they were a long way away from any buildings. And that was bad. And he was not able to get it started again.