Dead Teslas surround charging stations in freezing weather

Frozen Teslas need to be in the right charging condition to start fast charging, i.e., at an optimal temperature

The annual deep freeze is gripping North America and Europe. Temperatures plunged to minus -35 Celsius this week and this has created quite a problem for the owners of Tesla and other EV vehicles. 

Multiple news agencies like Fox 32  who carried stories and photographs of owners becoming somewhat irate as their vehicles would not charge and then could not hold whatever little charge they had managed to coax into their dead batteries.

The reports detail frustrated owners lining up to access the Tesla Supercharging stations where the queues were so long and cold some owners abandoned their cars there creating an almost macabre graveyard of dead Teslas.

The news highlights yet another reason why the call to electrify our car-fleets to electric may be not such a great idea and will no doubt dent the confidence a lot of potential EV buyers will have when making the choice for their next ride.

All EV car batteries have a problem in frigid temperatures, it is a glaring fault of Electric Vehicles.  Basically batteries drain a whole lot faster in the cold and then hold a much lower charge when the temperatures drop below freezing. 

It is very simple science. The cold slows down the chemical reaction in the battery that allows it to create energy. When you try to charge the battery, the problem is the same, only in reverse so it takes for ever to get a small charge. There is also the extra electricity required to produce cabin heat. 

A consumer report showed that the cold will reduce range by at least 25% in a normal winter, forget about the artic conditions currently prevailing across Americaland.

It is not like they don’t know about this either. Last summer, Tesla actually created a team, according to a report from Reuters, in the spin department to ‘cancel’ range anxiety related problems from unhappy owners, oh and strangely most of these complaints were about cold weather performance, or lack thereof.

Over in South Korea, another country with blisteringly cold winters the regulators there have recently fined Tesla for $2 million for not accurately reporting the cars range in cold weather.  Regulators found that the range drops by over 50% in cold temperatures.

The Consumer Report mentioned above does actually give some practical advice on how to combat this issue.  Apparently you need to get the battery up to the right temperature and there is an application that allows you to do this. 

Of course, if you have just pushed your EV to the charger this advice is not much use, oh and, this does sacrifice a bit of range but at least allows for the fast DC charge that EV owners demand, coz lets face it 40 minutes is a long time to stand next to your car in -32C temperatures.

This reports comes in the wake up Tesla recalls and BYDs outselling Teslas.