As temperatures in Chicago dip below freezing, electric vehicle charging stations have become scenes of despair: dead batteries, confrontational drivers and lines stretching into the street.
“When it’s this cold, cars don’t work well, chargers don’t work well and people don’t work very well either,” said Javed Spencer, an Uber driver, who said he doesn’t work well either. ‘hadn’t done much else in the last three years. days on top of recharging your rented Chevrolet Bolt and worrying about getting stuck with a dead battery – again.
Mr Spencer, 27, said he left for a charging station on Sunday with 30 miles remaining on his battery. Within minutes the battery was dead. He had to have the car towed to the station.
“When I finally plugged it in, there was no charge,” he said. Recharging the battery, which usually takes Mr. Spencer an hour, took five hours.
While more people own electric vehicles than ever before, this winter’s cold snaps have created headaches for electric vehicle owners as freezing temperatures drain batteries and reduce range.
And the problems are likely to persist a little longer. This week, Chicago and other parts of the United States and Canada were pummeled by freezing temperatures. On Tuesday, wind chills dropped to nearly -30 degrees across much of the Chicago area, according to the National Weather Service. Dangerously low temperatures and waves of snow are expected to persist through the end of the week.
“It’s kind of like I don’t really want a Tesla.”
Vehicles use more energy to heat their batteries and cabin in cold weather, so it’s normal to see energy consumption increase, Tesla reminds users in an article on its website, where it offers some tips for drivers : Keep the charge level above 20%. to reduce the impact of freezing temperatures. Tesla also recommends drivers use its “scheduled departure” feature to record the start of a trip in advance, so the vehicle can determine the best time to begin charging and preconditioning. This allows the car to operate at maximum efficiency from the start.
In a bitterly cold Chicago parking lot on Tuesday, Tesla drivers piled into their cars waiting to be charged.
That morning, Nick Sethi, a 35-year-old engineer in Chicago, said he found his Tesla frozen. He spent an hour in minus 5 degree weather struggling with the locks.
Eventually, he managed to chisel the trunk’s built-in handle to open it, climbing in and driving his long-range Model Y SUV five miles to the nearest charging station. He joined a long line of Tesla drivers.
All 12 charging stations were busy, with drivers slowing the process slightly by staying inside their vehicles in the high heat.
“It’s been a roller coaster ride,” Mr. Sethi, who moved from Dallas to Chicago last spring, said of owning a Tesla during a series of bitterly cold days. “I’m going to spend the winter and then decide if I keep it.”
A few charging stations down, Joshalin Rivera was also experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse. She sat with the heat bubbling up inside her 2023 Tesla Model 3 as she recharged the battery.
“If you’re waiting in this line and you only have 50 miles, you’re not going to make it,” Ms. Rivera said, gesturing to the line of vehicles that stretched down Elston Avenue. She said she saw a Tesla running out of battery shortly after a 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. This week, Ms. Rivera said she woke up to find that about a third of her car’s battery was dead because of the night’s cold. As temperatures dropped, she spent hours each morning waiting in line and recharging the battery.
“It’s kind of like I don’t really want a Tesla,” she said.
Why does cold weather deplete electric vehicle batteries?
Unlike cars equipped with an internal combustion engine, an electric vehicle has two batteries: a low voltage and a high voltage. In particularly cold weather, the low-voltage 12-volt battery can also lose its charge, as is the case in traditional vehicles.
When this happens, the electric vehicle cannot charge with a fast charger until the low-voltage battery has been restarted, said Albert Gore III, a former Tesla employee who is now executive director of Zero Emission Transportation Association, which represents automakers, including Tesla. and published a tip sheet for driving electric vehicles in cold weather.
The challenge for electric vehicles is that both sides of the battery – the anode and cathode – have chemical reactions that are slowed by extremely cold temperatures. This affects both charging and discharging of the battery, said Jack Brouwer, director of the Clean Energy Institute and professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Irvine.
“It ultimately turns out to be very difficult to operate battery electric vehicles in very cold conditions,” Brouwer said. “You can’t charge a battery as quickly or discharge it as quickly if it’s cold. There is 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 players study what went wrong in Chicago, some suggest the charging infrastructure may have simply been overwhelmed by the extreme cold.
“We are only a few years away from large-scale deployment of electric vehicles,” Gore said. “This is not a categorical problem for electric vehicles,” he added, “because it has largely been solved elsewhere.”
Some of the countries with the most widespread use of electric vehicles are also among the coldest. In Norway, where nearly one in four vehicles is electric, drivers are accustomed to taking 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 have longer lines in winter than in summer because vehicles are slower to charge in cold weather, but this has become less of an issue in recent years since Norway has built more charging ports , Mr. Godbolt said, citing a recent report. survey of members. In addition, the majority of Norwegians live in houses, not apartments, and almost 90% of electric vehicle owners have their own charging station at home, he said.
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 an issue as companies upgrade their electric vehicle models. Even in recent 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 to solve not completely but at least partly many of these problems,” Godbolt said.
All vehicles, including those powered by diesel or gasoline, perform worse in cold weather, noted James Boley, a spokesman for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, a trade association that represents more than 800 automakers in Great Britain. He said the problem was less with the ability of electric vehicles to perform well in cold weather and more with the inability to provide necessary infrastructure, such as charging stations.
With a gasoline or diesel car, drivers have the certainty of finding gas stations and are therefore less concerned about reduced efficiency in cold weather, he said. “If charging infrastructure for electric vehicles is not in place, this can be even more of a concern.”
Mr. Spencer, the Uber driver, said the economics of driving an electric vehicle for a ride-sharing service might not work in Chicago’s winters. Uber said in a statement it was offering charging discounts to its drivers, but Mr Spencer remains concerned.
“The payment is the same, but the cost to drivers, with all these extra fees, is much higher,” he said.
Ivan Penn And Derrick Bryson Taylor reports contributed.
Audio produced by Tally Abécassis.