The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter

Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by verisimilitude on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:22AM (#30555133)

Anecdata: I live in Minnesota. It is cold here ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Minnesota_weather_reco... ) -- and here in my fourth decade of life, never had an issue with brake fluid. I've seen issues in the cold with: electronics, radiator fluid, washer fluid, ignitions, batteries, tire pressure, bushings, plastics, even fuel back when EFI was less common, but never issues with brake fluid.

Road salt is our big problem here, but that's true for everyone who has winter.

FWIW my neighbor has a Tesla and loves it...

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by giantg2 on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:28AM (#30555221)

I think the colder areas don't use salt, right? Like some areas of Alaska are too cold for salt to work.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by zdragnar on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:47AM (#30555534)

In the context of minnesota, road salt is used on most flat or heavily trafficked roads. Steep inclines and intersections all use grit or small gravel instead or or in addition to salt.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by giantg2 on Friday March 04, 2022 @10:38AM (#30556231)

True, but the second half of the sentence was that it was true for everywhere with winter weather. I was just pointing out that it isn't necessarily the case.

Edit: and also, some areas are not using salt for environmental reasons, like Portland.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by zdragnar on Friday March 04, 2022 @12:03PM (#30557333)

Yeah, outer portions of Minnesota avoid using salt near wetlands as well- most states do, I think. You have to get pretty far into northern latitudes before salt stops working well enough to abandon it, though. Mixing sand or grit helps warm it up in direct sunlight enough that it can still be beneficial below zero F.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by SketchySeaBeast on Friday March 04, 2022 @10:45AM (#30556315)

Once you get below -20 C (-4 F) salt loses a lot of effectiveness. Here in Edmonton we had a few weeks of ~-30 C and the roads were polished to an icy shine, there was no getting away from it and no amount of sand or salt helped for any amount of time.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by duxup on Friday March 04, 2022 @10:29AM (#30556113)

>Road salt is our big problem here

Road salt problems always makes me wonder how much the vehicle plays into that.

I've driven 20+ year old cars without a spot of rust while there are vehicles that are 5 years old with rust problems.

I think the real variable when it comes to road salt issue is vehicle quality.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by throwaway0a5e on Friday March 04, 2022 @01:19PM (#30558355)

>I think the real variable when it comes to road salt issue is vehicle quality.

It depends on how much the OEM wants to spend on fancy paint and coatings, how much the vehicle's use degrades that coating, how much salt the vehicle is exposed to, what kind of salt (liquid stuff gets everywhere much more effectively) and what if any steps the owner takes to mitigate the salt.

You can make generalizations like "Volvo loves to galvanize stuff and Toyota DGAF" but without controlling for the life the vehicle will have that doesn't really let you make predictions about a specific vehicle.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by duxup on Friday March 04, 2022 @01:24PM (#30558427)

I feel like your two paragraphs conflict.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by ChoGGi on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:28AM (#30555226)

> Road salt is our big problem here, but that's true for everyone who has winter.

Not if your municipality uses grit instead of salt.

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Re:The cold hard truth about electric vehicles in winter by mhb on Friday March 04, 2022 @09:30AM (#30555269)

So they have two problems.

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