People choose to do this. This isn’t required and it’s recommended against in modern vehicles.
> I do not want to go into details, better car mechanics than me should, but there is all kind of chaos that can happen if your engine freezes and you try to drive it immediately.
Engines do not freeze in the conditions common in most of the US, even with winter like we’re currently having. The engine coolant is a mixture of anti-freeze and water.
I’m curious about that recommendation, do you know why that is?
It's actually more importantly to have enough viscosity in ATF, but again, the sooner you would go the sooner it would warm.
I was always told (since the 90s, anyway) that it's better to drive off slowly with a cold engine and let all the components come up to operating temperature together than to drive off with a hot engine, and cold gearbox, driveshafts, tyres, etc.
I generally let a cold engine (i.e. overnight) idle for maybe 30s before driving off slowly, and it reaches operating temperature in about 5m or less.
In a 2022 car I have now even the cabin doesn’t get proper heating from the aircon until it’s driven.
Your electric car can fail randomly for an obscure reason too, and good luck getting anyone at all that can fix it.
> Remember that a lot of people have to spend 10-15 minutes warming up their cars before they drive them in cold weather.
Only because they're idiots. No-one needs to leave a vehicle for 10 minutes to "warm up", even in the coldest of weather. Drive gently until the temperature gauge is a bit off the end stop, and then drive a bit less gently until it's at its proper operating temperature.
Alternatively, start the engine from stone cold and immediately drive off at full throttle taking it up to 70mph before there's even a sniff of warm air from the heater. This is *still* better for it than letting it sit for a long time to "warm up".
Even if we ignore the "heard bad advice" versus "idiot" issue, that's still untrue because there are other reasons besides what's best for the machine.
Maybe they aren't in the car, and they're warming it up to be comfortable.
Maybe there is ice on the car they need to melt.
Or I'm an idiot if I would rather idle than pour alcohol on my windshield?
> If the weather is as cold as it gets here in Scotland in winter, the car will never warm up sitting idling.
Okay, then that person is an idiot, but it doesn't extend to the people actually warming up their car.
Remember that a lot of people have to spend 10-15 minutes warming up their cars before they drive them in cold weather.
I do not want to go into details, better car mechanics than me should, but there is all kind of chaos that can happen if your engine freezes and you try to drive it immediately. And it is much more complex and can be much more expensive. Once you start getting cracks in various things and liquids flowing where they should not be you will wish for the simplicity of just plugging in your EV.
So lets not pretend that driving in the cold is some kind of new problem that EVs introduced.