Even more than combustion-powered vehicles, the performance of electric vehicles decreases in winter. The chemical components of batteries are "frozen" by the cold, impacting the range and charging capacity of electric vehicles.
📈 Charging performance
For a vehicle's battery to function at its best, its temperature needs to be around 25°C.
The lower the temperature, the more electric vehicles restrict the charging power they can accept, lengthening the time needed for a full charge.
Example below with charging curves for a KIA EV6, depending on outside temperatures:
This shows that a vehicle's charging performance can be divided by 3 just because of the outside temperature!
🧣Vehicle-integrated solutions
Following Tesla's example, carmakers have taken up the subject to offer a battery preheating (or preconditioning) system on some of their models.
This is because, in most cases, the journey to the fast-charging station is not enough to raise the battery's temperature as much as is necessary.
So, while charging stations also suffer from the cold, which affects the power they can deliver, we mustn't forget that it's the car itself that imposes a limitation to protect its battery.
For any further information, please send us an email at help@go-electra.com ⚡️