Never once in 25 years of living in northern Maine have I had an ICE engine not start in the cold. Fuck I can’t remember even diesel engines falling because of glow plugs.
Yet on the first 0 day I can recall in a few years I have three friends stuck.
I’ll believe this shit when I see some actual data that isn’t a random company in Norway.
this data doesn’t adjust for the age of the vehicles. Older gas-powered cars fail at a higher rate than the new ones and electric vehicles are obviously much more recent on average.
Their data and the article’s title are highly misleading. No shit a year old tesla is going to be more reliable than a 20 year old toyota corolla. You need to compare cars of a similar age, before you can come to a firm conclusion.
Do keep in mind that in Europe there are often required checks whether a car is ‘roadworthy’, in Norway this seems to be a biannual check: so you cannot really skip maintenance to the extent that that would be a huge factor.
That is a good point but that only is for the mobility of the car, they don’t check if the motor is going to be running properly in 5 mins. So if the alternator dies, it’s not like they checked it. They’re making sure the car is safe to basically drive and crash. Rust and proper suspension and brakes/tires.
Well, frankly, Northern Maine isn’t very much north and not enough inland to get the extremes?
Most of Scandinavia has been below -15F for a good part of the new year and being relatively dense (for Scandinavia) in EV coverage I’d say Norway is the best example of EV very cold weather performance.
We’ve had this same “debate” here as well with ice-owners lamenting the perceived loss of range and EV-owners responding “I know, don’t care. Always works, always warm and always topped up”.
Living in Quebec for the past 18 years, I’ve seen plenty of ICE cars dead in parking lots and driveways when the temperature drops. It’s usually the battery. But the car, when it starts, it makes a really strange noise.
Whereas I, who lives somewhere where it gets below -40 every year, before wind chill, had 2 co-workers late for work or missing it entirely because their cars wouldn’t start. It’s also happened to me. Want to know the cool thing about anecdotes?
Fuck I can’t remember even diesel engines falling because of glow plugs.
Fun fact/anecdote:
I remember reading an old timey engineer/designer being told not to never route wiring or fuel under the diesel engine of a vehicle. The reason is that in colder climates, if it gets really cold and the diesel turns to syrup, people will/would sometimes light a small fire under the engine to heat the block and diesel up.
Obviously, nowadays there are electic engine heaters for that, but that doesn’t help much if you’re in the middle of the Siberian wilderness.
Hah, I’ve helped plenty of friends over the years with ICE cars that won’t start in the cold but have yet to see a BEV refuse to start just because of cold.
Maybe it’s different here in Southern ……. New England
Southern New England gets cold, but last I was there, few people if any seemed to need battery warmers, and definitely not regularly. I’d expect most cars that are as new as basically any consumer EV to be able to start as fine there.
You’re not wrong. Where I live, we just had an entire week where the highest temp we got to was 5°F and the coldest without wind chill was -20°F. My ICE started fine every time without issue. Like the article says itself, this is only really applicable to older ICE cars sometimes having issues in the winter. Give it another decade and then we can get a more accurate picture on reliability (note: I do hope that EVs continue to be reliable en masse after that much time, I’m not anti-EV or anything).
👌👍
Never once in 25 years of living in northern Maine have I had an ICE engine not start in the cold. Fuck I can’t remember even diesel engines falling because of glow plugs.
Yet on the first 0 day I can recall in a few years I have three friends stuck.
I’ll believe this shit when I see some actual data that isn’t a random company in Norway.
A random company in Norway is probably the best equipped to do this kinda testing.
Cold? Check. ICEs on the road? Check. A buunch of electric vehicles on the road? Check.
From the article:
Their data and the article’s title are highly misleading. No shit a year old tesla is going to be more reliable than a 20 year old toyota corolla. You need to compare cars of a similar age, before you can come to a firm conclusion.
20 year old Corolla that might not have been maintained very well also.
Do keep in mind that in Europe there are often required checks whether a car is ‘roadworthy’, in Norway this seems to be a biannual check: so you cannot really skip maintenance to the extent that that would be a huge factor.
That is a good point but that only is for the mobility of the car, they don’t check if the motor is going to be running properly in 5 mins. So if the alternator dies, it’s not like they checked it. They’re making sure the car is safe to basically drive and crash. Rust and proper suspension and brakes/tires.
Well, frankly, Northern Maine isn’t very much north and not enough inland to get the extremes?
Most of Scandinavia has been below -15F for a good part of the new year and being relatively dense (for Scandinavia) in EV coverage I’d say Norway is the best example of EV very cold weather performance.
We’ve had this same “debate” here as well with ice-owners lamenting the perceived loss of range and EV-owners responding “I know, don’t care. Always works, always warm and always topped up”.
Living in Quebec for the past 18 years, I’ve seen plenty of ICE cars dead in parking lots and driveways when the temperature drops. It’s usually the battery. But the car, when it starts, it makes a really strange noise.
Whereas I, who lives somewhere where it gets below -40 every year, before wind chill, had 2 co-workers late for work or missing it entirely because their cars wouldn’t start. It’s also happened to me. Want to know the cool thing about anecdotes?
Fun fact/anecdote:
I remember reading an old timey engineer/designer being told not to never route wiring or fuel under the diesel engine of a vehicle. The reason is that in colder climates, if it gets really cold and the diesel turns to syrup, people will/would sometimes light a small fire under the engine to heat the block and diesel up.
Obviously, nowadays there are electic engine heaters for that, but that doesn’t help much if you’re in the middle of the Siberian wilderness.
I have been under heavy equipment with a tiger torch in the cold before. Sometimes the glow plugs or ether aren’t quite enough to get it going.
Hah, I’ve helped plenty of friends over the years with ICE cars that won’t start in the cold but have yet to see a BEV refuse to start just because of cold.
Maybe it’s different here in Southern ……. New England
Southern New England gets cold, but last I was there, few people if any seemed to need battery warmers, and definitely not regularly. I’d expect most cars that are as new as basically any consumer EV to be able to start as fine there.
You’re not wrong. Where I live, we just had an entire week where the highest temp we got to was 5°F and the coldest without wind chill was -20°F. My ICE started fine every time without issue. Like the article says itself, this is only really applicable to older ICE cars sometimes having issues in the winter. Give it another decade and then we can get a more accurate picture on reliability (note: I do hope that EVs continue to be reliable en masse after that much time, I’m not anti-EV or anything).