Why electric cars are still a luxury in a cold climate

The writer is a contributing columnist, based in Chicago

I’ve always been too cheap to buy an electric car — or that has been my excuse anyway. Electric vehicles sold in the US in June averaged $66,000, well above the $48,000 average for all new cars — and $50,000 more than the $16,000 I paid for my current subcompact.

But, as someone who lives in the US upper Midwest, where iPhones freeze in the winter, there are other excuses for sticking to gas guzzlers, beyond being a skinflint. Those include the effect of cold on the range and charging time of electric cars.

Perhaps it’s no accident that California, a state where most drivers seldom see frost, announced last month that it would halt sales of new petrol-powered cars by 2035. Several other US states are likely to follow — but not many in the upper Midwest.

Consumer Reports, my Bible for big-ticket purchases, said in August that “cold weather saps about 25 per cent of range when cruising at 70mph”. On short trips in the cold with frequent stops and reheating the interior the range was cut by about 50 per cent.

An earlier report from Norway found that electric vehicles lose 20 per cent of range and charge more slowly in the cold. But since there is no shortage of electric cars in Norway — plug-in electric vehicles accounted for 91.9 per cent of new car sales there in March — this can’t be the last word on winter.

My city of Chicago, with its glacial reputation, has no shortage of Teslas either. I nabbed a random cross-section of Tesla drivers last week and discovered why: they all had a second car, a garage, a home battery charger and drove their electric vehicle only in the city. With a range of more than 300 miles, cold apparently is not a problem for affluent two-car families that drive their Tesla as part runabout, part status symbol.

But Mike Dunne, a native Midwesterner and chief executive of ZoZoGo, a global EV consultancy, says cheaper electric vehicles, with their much shorter range, are a different story. The Nissan Leaf, for example, has a range of 149 miles for $27,800. (You can pay $35,800 for 212 miles of range, but it’s unclear whether either vehicle will qualify in future for the federal $7,500 tax credit announced in the recent climate bill, Nissan says.) The carmaker acknowledges that cold affects range, though use of a heat pump to warm the battery — which comes as standard on some Leaf models — makes charging quicker.

“The charge level sweet spot is between 20 and 80 per cent charged,” says Dunne, and most automakers recommend this to preserve battery life long term. “So that means you lop off 20 per cent of range at the top and 20 per cent at the bottom,” and that falls further in the cold. “As a Midwesterner . . . you get there, but how am I getting back? It’s very stressful,” he says.

He adds that charging infrastructure in the Midwest is also lagging behind the coasts, and drivers often find charging points are not working. “I think we will see pockets of demand in the Midwest but not mass adoption for years,” he says.

“The more range, the more you pay,” says Michelle Krebs, automotive analyst at Cox Automotive. “Our studies show cost is the number one obstacle,” she says, noting that though range anxiety has eased — in part because vehicle performance is improving — there are uncertainties over the federal tax credit.

“The auto industry was built on the back of the Model T, not the Cadillac,” says Matt DeLorenzo, author of How to Buy an Affordable Electric Car: A Tightwad’s Guide to EV Ownership, with Ford’s mass market Model T signifying affordability and the Cadillac luxury. “Until we get more electric vehicles priced at the average price of conventional vehicles”, a major shift to electric vehicles won’t happen, he says.

General Motors assures me that it already has technologies, including the use of heat pumps, that reduce the impact of cold weather on its more affordable models such as the Chevrolet Bolt EV and upcoming Equinox EV.

But it looks as if my best bet will be to squeeze a few more years out of my 100,000-mile-plus Honda Fit. I’ll just have to hope the future will arrive soon — that EV prices will drop enough and range will grow enough to satisfy even a Midwestern tightwad in winter.