Comment by surph_ninja@lemmy.world on [Cars] Norway on track to be first to go all-electric

“Norway is the world leader when it comes to the take up of electric cars, which last year accounted for nine out of 10 new vehicles sold in the country.”

Can someone tell me how? EV’s perform terribly in extreme cold. If the car starts at all, the battery life absolutely tanks. We’ve had entire charging stations unable to function through the past couple weeks, as temperatures plummeted in many states.

Toyota had it right. We really need to be pushing for hydrogen cars. EV’s simply can’t perform in extreme cold, and the batteries explode or catch fire in extreme heat. That’s not the tech we should be investing in to carry us through the extreme temperature swings we’re experiencing during climate catastrophe.

I think the only logical conclusion would be EV actually work better in the cold than what you have been told. Maybe that’s the same for charging stations or maybe Norway builds to a standard that fits their climate and doesn’t cut corners.

It’s not just what I’ve been told. I’ve personally experienced the issues, as have thousands of others dealing with EV extreme cold problems the past couple of weeks in the eastern US.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electric-vehicles-arent-ready-for-extreme-heat-and-cold-heres-how-to-fix-them/

If anyone has any further info, I’d love to find out what Norway could possibly be doing to address a fundamental issue with the technology. All I’ve been able to find is some workarounds to keep the cars still running, and just accepting worse performance in extreme weather.

I don’t understand why anti-hydrogen prejudice is so prevalent that we’ll put up with EV limitations before considering alternatives. Smells like EV investor propaganda & sunk cost fallacy to me.

It could be as simple as the equivalent of a “block heater” that you would use on a ICE in a cold climate. These are not new technologies, many use these simple devices for cars in places where it gets cold, and I can’t imagine installing a correctly engineered device into the battery coolant system would pose much of a problem. Automatically turn on at a predetermined departure time or below a certain temperature while charging.

That doesn’t help much with the reduced range thanks to the cold, but it will get you going in the morning. We have a PHEV that won’t let you use the battery below 20°F, but the ICE warms the battery and it comes online about 5 minutes after start.

Yeah, most of what I’ve seen is just heating the battery. Which is also dramatically reducing the efficiency.

There’s no way around sacrificing range to heat the battery at this time. Only mitigating some of the loss with a preheat.

That’s what I thought. Not an issue with hydrogen.

If we’re going to be discussing battery vs hydrogen efficiency, we need to be honest about how it performs in real-life scenarios like this. Only discussing EV performance in ideal conditions is providing nowhere near the full picture.

electric vehicle (EV) drivers to wait in line for hours at charging stations last month; some even found themselves stranded when their battery died while they waited in the queues.

I’m sure “some” ICE cars have also ran out of fuel while queueing, seems like a bit of a nothing statement. More stations are needed and range does get lower in colder conditions that is known. Waiting until you have 30 miles left when you know electric cars lose 15% of range isn’t smart.

Norway does winter testing on their vehicles and I’m sure people ask other people about car performance.

https://www.naf.no/elbil/elbil-nytt/ev-range-and-charge-test

Hydrogen is largely useless. It’s an electric car with extra steps and low density fuel and difficult storage conditions.

Sure if you driving across the outback and need lightweight and fast charging there might be uses for it. But when you got 300 miles of range and live in a city why would hydrogen be better? You actually have to go to a station if nothing else rather than just charging where you park.

Hydrogen is ultimately more inefficient in time and energy and cost so it’s going to lose.

My own prejudice against hydrogen is around manufacturing.

Most of the world current hydrogen made isn’t green at all, and the message is “we’ll figure it out once demand is up”

And the companies pushing the most for hydrogen are petrol companies.

I’m not a chemist, but it doesn’t seem to add up to me.

I say that as an EV owner living in Canada. I need to use a fast charge station about 4 times a year due to cold related battery issues, and all of those time are because of extended road trips.

It’s not impossible to produce hydrogen in an environmentally friendly way. We just need to further increase efficiency, and move the energy source to renewables and nuclear to power the electrolysis. The EV charging stations have the same issue, often being powered fossil fuel plants.

But it is impossible to manufacture EV batteries in an environmentally friendly way. We’re just expected to accept it.

Plus the performance of EV’s vs hydrogen always uses data gathered in ideal conditions, but hydrogen is leaps and bounds more efficient in extreme weather. We need to be highlighting that, as climate change begins to make extreme conditions the norm and ideal conditions disappear.

As far as I’m aware, the most impact around EV batteries is obtaining lithium and other componenets.

Components that can and are already being recycled from older EV batteries.

I’m curious to learn if there is other things I’m not aware of though!

I dont think making a parallel between ev charging and hydrogen manifacturing is valid though: my understanding is that electrolysis is an option, but that most of the current creation is a byproduct of fossil fuel refinement, like plastics (which explains why petrol campanies push it).

We can probably improve on electrolysis efficiency, but my hunch is that it simply won’t happen if petrol company can meet demand. Which I’m sure they will for just a bit cheaper than electrolysis costs to keep controlling the market.

If we can produce green electricity, as long as electrolysis efficiency is not as good as the average battery efficiency whatever efficiency of the hydrogen engine itself doesn’t matter: it’s still less efficient than a battery because of the extra manufacturing step. And then there’s transport and all on top of it.

It is literally physically impossible to increase the efficiency of electricity-> hydrogen -> electricity above 30%, and that’s if everything is perfect.

EVs are above 70% efficient in the real world btw.

Hydrogen will be useful to decarbonise some parts of heavy industry where electricity cannot be directly used, but that’s about it.

There is a reason why fossil fuel industries are pushing hydrogen, because it means that the car makers can keep selling combustion cars until hydrogen is ready, which it never will be.

And even if hydrogen cars were somewhat ready in 10 years, EVs and the charging stations would also be much better than they are now.

And hydrogen has such a low density that a tanker truck could only carry hydrogen for around 100 car refills, compared to 600-900 that a normal tanker truck does. So every gas station would have to be connected to a hydrogen pipeline, which will realistically never happen.

“EV’s are above 70% efficient in the real world btw.”

Meaning ‘in ideal conditions.’ As climate collapse progresses, the areas of the planet experiencing ideal conditions will narrow further and further. I guess fuck everyone living in those parts of the planet, huh?

What you’re not grasping is how clean and abundant hydrogen is. Illustrated by your emphasis on transportation. In most scenarios, it won’t be traveling far at all, if it’s not farmed on site. No transportation needed. Pair its abundance with lack of harmful emissions, and it’s absolutely worth any loss in efficiency.

And those inefficiencies are already being addressed. We have a number of projects already producing working proof of concepts that are ready to be scaled up for further testing and refinement. Advancements aren’t assumed in hydrogen- they’re already happening.

What about battery advancements? I keep hearing that we just need a leap forward in battery tech, and everything will be great, but no one’s been able to actually produce this promised technological leap. Seeing a lot of the same promises and red flags that come out of the ‘fusion is almost here’ crowd.

EV’s simply can’t perform in extreme cold,

Given that we’ve moved almost all of Norway to EVs, that’s obviously untrue. So if you re-examine that assumption, what new conclusions do you come to?

So what’s the secret sauce? What profound technological steps forward have they made?

Or are they just heating up the battery, and eating further into the already severely impacted battery life?

Secret sauce is Norway gets money the same place Saudi Arabia does: gas and oil. They have really good resources to do whatever they want and unlike dumb countries like saudi arabia or russia they manage it better.

I’m not an engineer. I’m pointing out that the real world is proving that EVs can work just fine in the cold, so your assertion that they can’t doesn’t hold any water. This was a recent article of interest, though.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2025/01/cold-weather-range-hits-arent-as-bad-for-evs-with-heat-pumps/

If you’re using heat pumps, and not resistive heating for batteries, looks like the range loss can be as little as ~12%, which is pretty insignificant.

Read over what you just wrote, and think about it for a second. If they have to be heated up to function, it supports my assertion that they do not function in extreme cold.

That 12% is not insignificant, and that’s just for the piece to keep the battery at minimal operating temperature. The battery’s capacity and performance will also be severely impacted on top of that, even with it warmed up. These inefficiencies and workarounds add up to the point that they eclipse the inefficiencies in hydrogen production, as the hydrogen is not impacted by any such issues at the point of use.

The loss of efficiency in an ICE is roughly 15% in the cold as well.

There are enormous materials issues with storing and transporting hydrogen that don’t scale well

Why would they need to be scaled? Hydrogen is abundant in most corners of the globe. It can be farmed on site, as needed.

Read over what you just wrote, and think about it for a second. If they have to be heated up to function, it supports my assertion that they do not function in extreme cold.

They function at a 12% range loss. That is a far cry from ‘do not function’

That 12% is not insignificant, and that’s just for the piece to keep the battery at operating temperature.

No it’s not. It’s total range loss, not battery capacity reduction. The article even states that the majority of that range loss is due to heating the cabin, not the battery. Which ICE vehicles would have to do anyway. The car gets 12% less total range, that’s the final figure taking everything else into account. You seem to have made up your mind about what you wish to support and are dismissing anything else that does not support your PoV.

Then don’t heat up the battery, and see if it runs. Won’t work, because EV’s have to heat up the battery to get it working, because they don’t function in extreme cold.

And while we’re at it, what’s the workaround for the batteries catching fire and exploding in the extreme heat of summer? We need to implement some cooling pumps while we’re at it?

Or just skip all of the complexity, and use abundant & clean hydrogen.

Everything about energy production and storage.

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