In extreme cold, the car door does not open or the charging speed slows down.
“There is still no solution to battery performance degradation in low temperatures.”
Due to the Arctic cold wave that hit the United States, there are a series of cases where electric vehicles are discharged or cannot be charged.
According to the New York Times (NYT) on the 17th (local time), in some areas such as Chicago, where the perceived temperature dropped to -30 degrees Celsius, Tesla electric vehicles were discharged and towed because they could not be charged at the dedicated charging facility, ‘Supercharger’. is increasing.
Javed Spencer, a driver for the American general transportation company Uber, said in an interview with NYT, “For the past three days, I have done almost nothing other than worry about my electric car’s battery dying,” and “I barely managed to get my car to a charging station.” “I took it to and connected it to the charger, but it didn’t charge,” he said. He revealed that charging the battery, which usually takes about an hour, took 5 hours on this day.
Nick Sethi, another Tesla driver, said, “I struggled to open the car door in the extreme cold. The door wouldn’t open, so I got into the car through the trunk.”
“I went to the nearest Supercharger station, but all 12 chargers were in use,” he said. “I will get through this winter and then decide whether I want to keep owning a Tesla.”
The biggest problem with electric vehicles is that the chemical reaction of the battery slows down at extremely low temperatures. This causes the vehicle to easily discharge or the charging speed to slow down significantly.
Professor Jack Brower of the University of California, USA, said, “It is very difficult to operate an electric vehicle equipped with a battery in an extremely cold environment. When the temperature drops, the performance of the battery deteriorates, and there is still no physical way to solve this problem. “There is none,” he explained.
Some electric vehicle industry officials claim that this problem occurred as a result of insufficient charging infrastructure coupled with extreme cold.
Meanwhile, in Norway, one of the countries with a high rate of electric vehicle operation, one in four vehicles is an electric vehicle. “In recent years, the Norwegian government has installed more charging stations, reducing the problem of vehicles discharging in the cold winter,” said Lars Godbold, advisor to the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association. “Most Norwegians live in private homes rather than apartments, so they do not have access to electricity. “90% of car owners have their own chargers at home,” he said.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.