“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.”
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.
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.
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.
