The reality of being standed in an EV in a snowstorm

Old Rocks

Diamond Member
Oct 31, 2008
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So you are standed in an EV in a snowstorm;

"On the plus side, and EV can keep you warm quite well. Most EVs have electric seat heaters, which will keep one side of you toasty and keep you alive, even if the other side gets cold. They only draw about 60 watts (per seat) but a 20% degraded EV battery can provide that from full for almost a month! (That’s not true in a Tesla TSLA -3.5%, which won’t turn on the seat heater without running he computer, and the computer draws 240 watts and would only last a week.) A gasoline car, on the other hand, uses around 0.16 gallons/hour to idle, and thus can not idle for nearly that long, though that keeps the whole car warm. Idling an engine to keep you warm is vastly less efficient than doing it directly with wires in your seat.

Of course, drivers would prefer to heat the whole interior — but a full battery should be able to do that for around 3 days. Nobody has a full battery, but it’s still likely to beat the gasoline car. Particularly because with an EV, you can set the heat low and use less energy, which is not the case with the idling gas car."

 
So you are standed in an EV in a snowstorm;

"On the plus side, and EV can keep you warm quite well. Most EVs have electric seat heaters, which will keep one side of you toasty and keep you alive, even if the other side gets cold. They only draw about 60 watts (per seat) but a 20% degraded EV battery can provide that from full for almost a month! (That’s not true in a Tesla TSLA -3.5%, which won’t turn on the seat heater without running he computer, and the computer draws 240 watts and would only last a week.) A gasoline car, on the other hand, uses around 0.16 gallons/hour to idle, and thus can not idle for nearly that long, though that keeps the whole car warm. Idling an engine to keep you warm is vastly less efficient than doing it directly with wires in your seat.

Of course, drivers would prefer to heat the whole interior — but a full battery should be able to do that for around 3 days. Nobody has a full battery, but it’s still likely to beat the gasoline car. Particularly because with an EV, you can set the heat low and use less energy, which is not the case with the idling gas car."

That's a cool article. I would have thought you were just screwed.
 
That's a cool article. I would have thought you were just screwed.
Everyone seems to think that. However, even warming full tilt, an EV only requires 2 kwh per hour. So if you are at 50%, that is about 24 hours of heat. Carry a blanket, and that seat heater will keep both sides of you warm, same as a blanket in bed. As the batteries get more energy dense, this advantage will become even better.
 
Most EVs have electric seat heaters, which will keep one side of you toasty and keep you alive, even if the other side gets cold. They only draw about 60 watts (per seat) but a 20% degraded EV battery can provide that from full for almost a month! (That’s not true in a Tesla TSLA -3.5%, which won’t turn on the seat heater without running he computer, and the computer draws 240 watts and would only last a week.) A gasoline car, on the other hand, uses around 0.16 gallons/hour to idle, and thus can not idle for nearly that long, though that keeps the whole car warm. Idling an engine to keep you warm is vastly less efficient than doing it directly with wires in your seat.

DANG! Well, that seals it! Order me TEN of those doggarn EV car things!

I always base my purchase of a $124,000 car on how long they can heat my ass in case I get stranded 100 miles lost up in the mountains in the winter for a week! :rock:

That and the ability to launch from 0-60 in 0.5 seconds doing 14 g's between city stop lights.
 
DANG! Well, that seals it! Order me TEN of those doggarn EV car things!

I always base my purchase of a $124,000 car on how long they can heat my ass in case I get stranded 100 miles lost up in the mountains in the winter for a week! :rock:

That and the ability to launch from 0-60 in 0.5 seconds doing 14 g's between city stop lights.
Really frosts those useless old agates of yours when the advantages of the EV's are pointed out. Don't worry, you can keep your fossil of a fossil fuel burner. No one will force you to sell it. But the rest of the world is going to move on to a better way of transportation.
 
Of course that all assumes that 1. The gas vehicle does not have heated seats which a large amount of them are coming with.
2. That the EV has not traveled that far to still have a decent charge in the battery.
 
Really frosts those useless old agates of yours when the advantages of the EV's are pointed out.

It ain't an advantage, buttercup, if it is something I'll never have any use for. :21:

But rather than shell out $126,000 for a stupid EV car because it heats the seat, I'll just spend $150 and buy a battery operated heater I can throw in the back of my big spacious trunk! :21:
 
It ain't an advantage, buttercup, if it is something I'll never have any use for. :21:

But rather than shell out $126,000 for a stupid EV car because it heats the seat, I'll just spend $150 and buy a battery operated heater I can throw in the back of my big spacious trunk! :21:
And you are the only person in the whole world. LOL
 
DANG! Well, that seals it! Order me TEN of those doggarn EV car things!

I always base my purchase of a $124,000 car on how long they can heat my ass in case I get stranded 100 miles lost up in the mountains in the winter for a week! :rock:

That and the ability to launch from 0-60 in 0.5 seconds doing 14 g's between city stop lights.
Well no. I doubt anybody will buy any car based only on the seat heater. There have been loads of threads here after that incident on I95 where people tried to imply an electric car would be tragically worse than a gasoline powered vehicle in such a situation. This is just a response to all those misguided threads that jumped to such wrong conclusions about what being stranded in a electric vehicle would mean for it's occupants. Electric cars have lots of advantages. Staying warm on a frozen road is just one of them.
 
Of course that all assumes that 1. The gas vehicle does not have heated seats which a large amount of them are coming with.
2. That the EV has not traveled that far to still have a decent charge in the battery.
1. The battery in an ICE does not have enough wh/hr to come anywhere near matching an EV. So you still have to run the engine to charge the battery

2. There are many EV's that have between 350 and 450 miles range at present. That is comparable to most ICE vehicles.
 
Of course that all assumes that 1. The gas vehicle does not have heated seats which a large amount of them are coming with.
2. That the EV has not traveled that far to still have a decent charge in the battery.
But the point is that - according to the article - that the EV car could have the heated seats on for days and not drain the battery.
Whereas there is no way a gas car could do that.

Now...I do not think having a heated seat is going to save anyone's life.

But it would have made those in that pile up a little more comfortable, anyway.
 
1. The battery in an ICE does not have enough wh/hr to come anywhere near matching an EV. So you still have to run the engine to charge the battery

2. There are many EV's that have between 350 and 450 miles range at present. That is comparable to most ICE vehicles.
Yes you still have to run the engine but you only have to run it long enough to charge the battery not heat the car.
Yes they are getting longer distances on some. But here again it depends on how far the ev has traveled before becoming stuck in a storm. Just as it depends on how far a ice has traveled before getting stuck. The advantage goes to the ice at the moment because there are more fuel stations then charging stations.
Plus considering that we are still getting a large percentage of our electrical energy from fossil fuels it seems to be a wash unless you like paying large amounts for a car for bragging rights. Plus the more strain We put on our energy grid the closer we get to failure.
 
I am a diehard RWD, normally-aspirated V8 LOVER.
(pony cars and pre-2020 Corvette's)

But clearly, EV's are the future.

The only problem is that they are STILL too expensive.

A Chevrolet Bolt is a great car. Fantastic.

But at $31,500?
That is still too expensive for most, lower income buyers to afford new.
Not when they can buy a Chevy Spark for literally half that.
Or even a 'big' Chevy Malibu for $9G's less.

And I believe that until an EV is cheap enough - new - for that income level to afford?
They will continue to not be accepted by the masses as anything but a 'luxury item'.
 
But the point is that - according to the article - that the EV car could have the heated seats on for days and not drain the battery.
Whereas there is no way a gas car could do that.

Now...I do not think having a heated seat is going to save anyone's life.

But it would have made those in that pile up a little more comfortable, anyway.
My point is you can run a vehicle long enough to recharge the battery. You do not have to run it long enough to heat the whole car if you have heated seats. So if you want to compare apples to apples you have to have heated seats in both vehicles.
 
Everyone seems to think that. However, even warming full tilt, an EV only requires 2 kwh per hour. So if you are at 50%, that is about 24 hours of heat. Carry a blanket, and that seat heater will keep both sides of you warm, same as a blanket in bed. As the batteries get more energy dense, this advantage will become even better.
More glowing, rosy predictions. No hard evidence.
 

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