Jalopnik / Go Media always is one for clickbait titles, but as per Rule#5, I’m not changing their clickbait title or adding my commentary to it.
The actual article is about how various EVs are down 30% in range due to this summer heatwave. Teslas included.
I’m curious how affected ICE range is by additional AC usage. It can’t be nothing, but is it negligible? Or comparable?
Like ~3 MPG, which is like ~10% in my car.
But my AC doesn’t need to run while my car sits in a parking lot. Teslas do.
https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/ac-comes-on-by-itself-after-park.281579/
Teslas have cabin overheat protection, because a lot of their computer parts are not automotive grade and thus need to be kept cooler than 140F. When Teslas detect this, they turn on the AC even when you’re away from the car.
So if you go to work, expecting a certain charge, you might not get it because Tesla ate up a bunch of battery over the last few hours for AC to protect its own electronics. And on hotter days, it runs more aggressively.
In contrast, ICE cars are designed for way hotter temperatures, because burning gasoline is 500F+ IIRC, so your ICE cars just are designed to withstand way hotter temps without breaking.
No, I don’t mean to be rude, but that’s not right. The thread you link to is indicative of the battery ventilation fan turning on to cool the battery, which certainly uses some power, but a tiny fraction of what the AC uses. Cabin Overheat Protection is an optional feature that is turned off by default. An owner may knowingly enable it if they wish to incur the range cost to reduce cabin temperatures. Additionally, it also comes in two options: Full and Fan Only. As above, the fan uses a significantly smaller amount of energy than full AC.
Do you have a source for the claim of issues with Tesla electronics exceeding 140°? I did a little bit of Googling but couldn’t find anything to support that.
AMD RDNA 2 GPUs aren’t rated for automotive temperatures. They’re obviously a consumer chip.
The yellowing of screens is well known to be a heating issue as well. So multiple components are not automotive grade.