Tesla : whitepeopletwitter

[–] [email protected] 182 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Neither the article nor the post are worth anything: They don't tell any of the interresting parts. What are the temperatures? How long have the temperatures been like that? Why are all the cars at 0%? Why won't they charge?

Every halfway decent EV has an electric heater for the batteries. As long as there is juice in the batteries it will stop them from falling below a certain temperature to prevent permanent damages. Even if the heating drained all that was left, if you plug it in - the heating can start again. Why is this suddenly a problem in Chicago while many European countries regularly have -20°C and no dead Teslas or other EVs?

[–] CallOfTheWild 73 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

So I have a Tesla and my roommate has a Nissan leaf. Both of us were somewhat affected by this. The real issue is EVs charge very slowly when the battery is cold and the public charging network is just large enough to support the current number of EV owners. Generally my car uses 200wh per mile with no climate control, 250 with AC running, and 300-350 with the heater running. Temperature here has been highs of -15C with lows hitting -25C. The past few days I've been averaging 500-600wh per mile. This alone almost triples demand for public charging stations, mostly from people who live in apartments and don't have home charging

To compound this, trips that normally don't require public charging are now out of range. I drove about 150 miles to ski over the weekend. Normally this is totally fine on a single charge but with the excessive power use I decided to top up on the way home. Normally I super charge for about 3-5 minutes for an extra 30-40 miles of range and plug in when I get home. I sat at a supercharger for 15 minutes before it was warm enough to accept the charge, then took an additional 20+ minutes to get 30 miles of extra charge. It builds up like a domino effect. Cars waiting to charge delay other cars that get there after.

My roommates Leaf had a similar experience at a CCS charging station. This is all in a city that prioritizes EVs. Chicago is a much larger city with a less robust charging network and had even colder temperatures.

Honestly I'm not super surprised they had charging issues during this freeze.

Edit: To clarify, if I had set the car to heat up 45 minutes before going to charge it would have charged at nearly full rate. It just takes a long time to get the battery up to temp from -20C. When it's over 5C outside everything performs normally, -5 to 5C I have reduced regenerative braking but everything is mostly normal. Acceleration is reduced once it hits -15C. Still better than my old Honda Accord but noticeably reduced.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

Thanks for providing some actual numbers and context.

Sometimes I am really surprised by the absolute laziness of 'journalists'. Your comment contains more information than the so called article.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Wait, Nissan Leaf is CHAdeMO not CSS no?

OT: Don't you guys have loads of slow chargers at shopping centers and offices? Only rapi charging available publicly?

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 11 months ago (2 children)

My guess is: they queued up waiting for a free charger while the batteries burned up trying to keep themselves warm. But now they can't move the csars close to the chargers. I think it's a matter of lack of planning. When there's suddenly a lack of fuel for some reason, you also get a "graveyard of petrol cars".

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Even if the heating drained all that was left, if you plug it in

Well, I mean, that can be a pretty big problem if you don't have a charger within cable-distance, or at the least, pushing distance. But yeah, it's no more "dead" than a car with a gelled diesel tank.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Generally you are right. But the article was writing something about plugged in cars which are not charging. IMO noone should make weird statements like this without providing more details. Especially if the person who writes these statements calls themselves journalist.

[–] books 82 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Y'all acting like lake shore Ave didn't become a gas powered graveyard during a blizzard a decade ago.

[–] Diplomjodler3 23 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ssssshhhh! We're having a circlejerk here!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

But it's still a bad comparison.

Everyone got stuck because of 2' of snow. Not because of powertrain issues with the vehicles.

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[–] Dead_or_Alive 5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The difference is gas cars can be started and driven away after warming up. Electric cars like Tesla need to have their batteries charged, if they fully discharge their batteries it can cause major damage to them essentially bricking the car.

[–] books 10 points 11 months ago (5 children)

All them gas cars had to be towed the fuck away.

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[–] CADmonkey 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

And you can deliver fuel easily, by hand, to a car that's out of gas.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Design problem of the Tesla, it allows one to discharge to a point where battery damage can occur. My volt, and my 500e will not allow such. They did this to be able to claim more range without having to increase battery capacity.

And even gasoline vehicles can be damaged by running the tank too low/out. Fuel pump overheat and strainer clogging is a very real thing when the tank is too low. Diesels can damage their lift and high pressure pumps when run empty.

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[–] [email protected] 60 points 11 months ago (9 children)

My diesel van struggles to start when temperatures get around freezing. That's just a thing that happens to all vehicles. -23C (-10F) is pretty cold

[–] WhiteOakBayou 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Diesel will gel but my gas cars haven't really had problems down into -30s.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago

Also the battery that turns the starter motor gets drained. But I take your point, diesel is more susceptible than petrol / gas.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 11 months ago (6 children)

This is what we get when people buy things they barely understand, and refuse to learn about. Bluntly, I don't understand how someone can buy, own, and use something that they continually rely on with nearly zero knowledge of how it works, how it fails and what pitfalls you may experience in extreme operating conditions. Additionally, how to recognize when things are going sideways and what to do about it.

It reminds me of the last time I had a car overheat on me. It was just as cold as this (around -25C or -30C), and I was driving to work. The vehicle was a beater, so it was in some state of disrepair. As you can imagine, it was an ICE vehicle. It started just fine, or at least as fine as I can expect from the conditions, and I hit the highway. I was headed to work and didn't have enough time to just let it warm up before heading out. I'm driving down the highway, waiting for the heater to start working. It didn't. The temperature gauge on the dash stayed pinned to "cold", and no heat from the heater core.... After a few minutes on the highway, I knew something was very very wrong. I pulled off the highway and to the first gas station I saw. I turned off the car as quickly as I could. I checked and there was no coolant in the engine I went in to the station and picked up some premixed coolant, refilled the vehicle with coolant, and the first few short pours vaporized as soon as they went in. Once it stopped vaporizing coolant, I filled it up. I made it to work, a little late, but with a working car.

You don't need to know every fucking detail about how the vehicle does what it does, just the broad strokes about the basic systems that keep the vehicle working and how they fail and how they're maintained. If you don't, well..... Just look at the OP.

[–] kindernacht 28 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Speaking of knowing the pitfalls, how did you manage to run out of coolant my friend? That's day one of owning a beater.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The coolant situation was fine until the deep freeze. My theory is that the coolant that was in it was not capable of being liquid at -20C, and when the vehicle was started, the heat couldn't move because the coolant in the rad was frozen. Causing it to exceed the maximum temperature and vaporize. As the hot vapor penetrated the system, the rad slowly melted, causing the now liquid coolant to flow into the engine. But the engine was so hot that the coolant vaporized on contact.

This process continued until all the coolant was vapor and that vapor exceeded the pressure limits of the system and that caused it all to escape the system through the pressure cap on the rad.

I believe that the continual vaporization of the coolant was the only thing that kept the engine from overheating to the point of a complete failure.

I swear, it had coolant in it before the deep freeze.

[–] kindernacht 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, that happens. That's why they make block heaters. The moral of the story is don't be a dick about people not knowing everything about their vehicle. I still argue with some of the smartest people I know about filling their tank before severe weather hits. We're not all on the same level, most people just expect it to work.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Oh, I'm not trying to be a dick about anything. I'm just saying I don't understand the mindset of being okay knowing next to nothing about the things they own and rely on every day.

That's it.

Sorry if that was not clear.

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[–] BB69 32 points 11 months ago

It was more than just teslas, but they’re the most plentiful so that’s what grabs the headlines

Uneducated drivers is a large part of it. Also too small of infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Yo OP. If you're going to post people's Noots, try through something other than Bluesky. Here's the same Noot via her Masatodon account.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Why?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I’m shocked. Shocked I say.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 11 months ago (3 children)

All cars struggle in extreme cold. Not just electric cars. That’s literally why people use engine heaters in cold climates.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sure, but it is not "engine heater" cold, just normal cold. (-20 air temp, not wind chill)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

But that is “battery heater” cold. If you plug in at home most cars will eat some power to keep the battery functional. So many Tesla owners have been spoiled by abundant charger availability they never bothered adding chargers at home, or couldn’t add one.

Once the battery gets cold enough there’s nothing to do without warming it up first. I wonder if we’ll see some portable battery warmers soon to make sure this doesn’t happen again next year.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I lived in Anchorage for three years. I parked my Tundra outside uncovered the entire time. I never had an engine heater, and never needed one. Your point is not invalid at all, but maybe these are not the arctic temperatures that should be causing this issue?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

I was thinking about getting one of those when my car struggled to start Monday morning in the sub zero temps.

[–] jecht360 30 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I don't think they could shock you since the batteries are dead.

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[–] DrSleepless 5 points 11 months ago

You would be shovked, but the charging stations don't work.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It's not really-really cold here, but do you know the main problem with my Leaf this winter? The 12V battery broke, and having a full charge doesn't do shit without the 12V battery to turn things on.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Isn't that just... a normal car battery? As in, you could get it from any auto parts store.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Exactly the point. The regular battery that every car has, died from the weather, the rest is fine.

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[–] Nogami 10 points 11 months ago

Tesla owner here. The cold weather bothers me not at all. I can charge at home. Battery is at 80% right now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

Saw a Model S being delivered on the back of a flatbed truck to the Rt 59 supercharger station in Aurora this weekend. Every stall was occupied too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Billions of robots require fossil fuel

[–] workerONE 4 points 11 months ago

Another article https://www.pcmag.com/news/dont-buy-a-tesla-chicagos-ev-drivers-struggle-with-sub-zero-temperatures

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