Electric cars, will start in cold temperatures, more reliably, than Internal Combustion Engines.

Electric car range is affected by extreme cold, but at least the cars can start

Sorry for the snarky headline and the swipe at internal combustion engines, but I have seen so much misinformation spread about electric cars in cold weather lately that I had to clarify something. Yes, electric cars are negatively affected by the extreme cold, but it's perfectly manageable and arguably as manageable if not more easily manageable than gas-powered cars.

From article, (Sorry for the snarky headline and the swipe at internal combustion engines, but I have seen so much misinformation spread about electric cars in cold weather lately that I had to clarify something.

Yes, electric cars are negatively affected by the extreme cold, but it’s perfectly manageable and arguably as manageable if not more easily manageable than gas-powered cars.

In case you are not aware, North America has been hit by a massive wave of extremely cold weather over the last 2 weeks.

In Quebec here, it results in temperature often going down to -25C (-13F) before accounting for wind chill. It’s not unusual for a Canadian winter, but it’s fairly extreme for December and now early January.

Following this cold weather, Le Journal De Montreal, one of the biggest newspapers in Quebec, made a front page out of electric vehicles being affected by the cold with a headline translating to ‘Electric vehicles are Freezing” all based on the experience of one Nissan Leaf owner and one Chevy Bolt EV owner.

Of course, that headline ran on the same day that hundreds if not thousands of gas-powered cars wouldn’t even start in our little province.

To be fair, they did briefly mention that EVs have a better chance to start than internal combustion engines at the very end of the article, but that brief mention on page 5 did nothing compared to this anti-EV propaganda on the front page.

Now, there’s no doubt that EVs are negatively affected by the cold both due to heavier use of the heating system that can’t take advantage of an inefficient engine that loses most of its energetic potential through heat and due to batteries being less efficient at low temperatures.

But EVs don’t just “freeze” in cold weather like they claim. That should be obvious just from the fact that there’s no better EV adoption rate than in Norway, but here’s a quick personal experience from a road trip I took last weekend just as an example. [Check out full article for details.])