Comment by homebrewer
13 hours ago
Does the heater handle real winters, like they have in Alaska, Mongolia, and parts of Russia north of it? Or just European and American "winters" where -20°C is considered hardcore? Gasoline powered engines handle this well, and you can warm them up with a gasoline torch if they stay outside for too long and refuse to start. The cold does not destroy them.
I don't see why a built-in heater is worse than aiming a torch at a car to get it to start. Seems like a major oversight for gasoline cars.
Also, a tiny fraction of the population will ever need to start their cars in Alaska, Mongolia, and Northern Russia. The small city worth of people living in these insane environments can stick to their wood-fueled diesel cars while the rest of the world just uses normal vehicles.
> Does the heater handle real winters, like they have in Alaska, Mongolia, and parts of Russia north of it? Or just European and American "winters" where -20°C is considered hardcore?
It handles "real winters" [1] where large portions of the human population live. [2][3][4]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/e4ff248622e19fa303d72e25...
[3] https://engaging-data.com/population-latitude-longitude/
[4] https://luminocity3d.org/WorldPopDen/
Alaska, Mongolia and Russia are extreme edge cases that I don’t believe hold much weight in an argument. It’s like those arguments where folks try to attack solar or wind, “solar won’t work on northern Alaskan winter”. Ok great that’s such a small slice of the population that it’s ok.
Are you a car ad where you're selling the most extreme off-road experience for the person who just wants to go to the grocery store?
Come on man. If you're in an extreme environment, get the tool appropriate for that environment. People in mountain environments tend to have 4WD or AWD cars because it's appropriate. Doesn't mean a non-AWD car is useless.
If you live in the extreme 5%, get something that works there. If you're in the rest of the 95%, other solutions work fine.
So largest battery manufacturer should drop their project, because “come on man”?
Negative temperatures or low temperatures are everywhere. Sodium will displace LFP pretty much everywhere (20 yrs), not just in extreme cold. I get slight coldgating 6months a year in warmest parts of New Zealand. It’s not even a minor issue, but if manufacturers can remove complexity - they will.
Those are quite niche environments. The success of LFP won't hinge on whether it works below -20C, obviously.
Most of the US Midwest sees -20 C for at least a brief period each winter. Having reduced functionality at those temps would be pretty inconvenient for the many car dependent people that live in the region.
-20C is feasible. Charging will take a bit longer because the heater will need to work a bit longer, but as long as the batteries can reach about freezing temperature, you're good.
Charging being a couple minutes slower a few weeks a year is a minor convenience. If you have a house with a garage, like many people in the US Midwest, I doubt it even poses a problem even on the worst days. It's more in the winter-long -35C areas that (purpose-built) combustion engines have obvious benefits.
Cold climates suffer more from cold batteries having reduced range, but with modern battery ranges the problem isn't even that extreme anymore.
Inconvenient for those people. About 8 billion other people don’t live in that type of weather.
3 replies →
It entirely depends on the original range of the car.
Realistically you are looking at trimming 20->30% of the range. If you drive 20 miles a day but have a total range of 200 miles, then it's really not inconvenient. It only becomes inconvenient if you need to travel long distances.
You can discharge the battery to power the heaters, at significant cost in energy. The temperature becomes a serious problem when charging (will physically destroy the battery through dentrite formation!), and under very high power draws (battery can’t keep up chemically).
It can be solved, but at a cost, and makes the tech much more dangerous - you could end up in a situation where you freeze to death somewhere more easily in the climates it is a problem.
It’s similar reasons why diesel isn’t a great idea in Alaska and the like too, and people tend towards gasoline even in situations where it is more costly and less efficient (like industrial trucks). It can be mitigated with chemical additives (‘heat’), tank and block heaters, etc. but has similar risks.