Talk of The Villages Florida - View Single Post - Electic Vehicles poor performance in the cold weather
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Old 01-18-2024, 07:34 AM
ThirdOfFive ThirdOfFive is offline
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I have no problem with EVs. I'm considering getting one in golf cart form. They have advantages here: quiet, full "tank" every morning (assuming you remembered to plug it in), no annual tune-ups just to name three. But if I do it, I will do it because it makes sense FOR ME. I don't lie to myself about the huge favor I'm doing the environment by getting an electric golf cart. Whether I am or not is incidental to me.

But EVs, like everything else in this huge country of ours, is NOT one size fits all. Sure, a EV golf cart makes sense here. You're rarely more than 1 hour from home (unless you enjoy cruising from one end of TV to the other) and a stall or breakdown severe weather might mean an uncomfortable and sweaty hour or so wait for Cart Aid to show up. But this country is vast. A breakdown in TV in January is nothing like a January breakdown or running out of power in or around, say, Minot, ND: my son texted me from there about a week ago and they were experiencing 55 below zero windchill. You run out of power down here and you're frustrated, angry and impatient because help is taking its time in arriving. You run out of power up there, especially on the vast empty swaths of country so common up there and if you're not knowledgeable about how to handle severe cold; and unless someone shows up right quick, you're dead. If anyone reading this has experienced a 55 below windchill you know exactly what I mean. Also those mileage estimates are usually best-case. Severe cold can cause a significant (often drastic) decrease in mileage, but so can things like driving in mountains, air conditioning, excessive heater use, even speed: most folks probably don't think of that but driving at excessive speeds means that the electric motor in your EV is running less efficiently, thus cutting down on range.

Again, EVs make sense. For some people. In some situations. But they are NOT a panacea, nor are they anything even close to one size fits all.