this isn’t just a tesla problem unfortunately. It’s an outdoor charging problem. in my area there are a good number of on-street electric car chargers but between the chargers not working reliably in the negative temps, the cables on many chargers getting incredibly stiff in the cold, and the rash of clipped cables (not sure if due to theft for the copper wire or done by the operator at out-of-service/broken chargers), it has seemed pretty rough for the EV owners without at home charging
Not it isn’t. This is an issue of shit engineering. Stuff that sits outside needs to work reliably for a large span of temperatures. I have designed outdoor electronics that are significantly less mission critical than chargers and stress test them generally from -40 to 80°C.
If stuff stops working, you need to add heating elements or replace non-cooperative components with military-grade components (which costs more). This is the same reason Texas’ wind generators failed during a snowstorm. They saved away the heating elements and it bit them in the ass. Of course a lot of this Tesla crap is designed in California where people think temperatures below freezing is some kind of insignificant edge case scenario.
I don’t understand this. The guy I know who has a non-Tesla EV bought it in 2014 or 2015, and despite hitting -25°C in winters sometimes the chargers have never had much of an issue, and despite the range predictably dropping in winter the battery life has held up very well for being a 10 year old vehicle.
does he primarily charge at home or in indoor/covered garages? because that’s 85%+ of EV owners, and it doesn’t have the same issues as fully outdoor public charging stations being used by people who can’t charge at home (such as these chicago tesla owners many of whom probably live in apartments, or the charging stations in my city)
I definitely think the stations should be engineered better for the weather, it shouldn’t just be expected/accepted, especially since my city and chicago both get this cold pretty often. the vehicles seem to hold up to the cold weather okay, at least the chevy, nissan, and even tesla etc that I see here, but the charging stations haven’t been for whatever reason ( I think primarily the cabling, maybe also connectivity to verify the charges/payment), and if you can’t charge and keep using battery trying to stay warm until it’s flat in the negative temps you end up with the situation in the video.
He charges at home mostly, completely outdoors, but only level 2 so that probably makes a difference. Still never had an issue with the public level 3s. I wonder if the Canadian systems are just engineered better for cold.
this isn’t just a tesla problem unfortunately. It’s an outdoor charging problem. in my area there are a good number of on-street electric car chargers but between the chargers not working reliably in the negative temps, the cables on many chargers getting incredibly stiff in the cold, and the rash of clipped cables (not sure if due to theft for the copper wire or done by the operator at out-of-service/broken chargers), it has seemed pretty rough for the EV owners without at home charging
Not it isn’t. This is an issue of shit engineering. Stuff that sits outside needs to work reliably for a large span of temperatures. I have designed outdoor electronics that are significantly less mission critical than chargers and stress test them generally from -40 to 80°C.
If stuff stops working, you need to add heating elements or replace non-cooperative components with military-grade components (which costs more). This is the same reason Texas’ wind generators failed during a snowstorm. They saved away the heating elements and it bit them in the ass. Of course a lot of this Tesla crap is designed in California where people think temperatures below freezing is some kind of insignificant edge case scenario.
They could literally just put them in an underground car park, it’s Chicago not Alaska
sure, it is a solvable problem, it’s just not a tesla-specific problem
I don’t understand this. The guy I know who has a non-Tesla EV bought it in 2014 or 2015, and despite hitting -25°C in winters sometimes the chargers have never had much of an issue, and despite the range predictably dropping in winter the battery life has held up very well for being a 10 year old vehicle.
does he primarily charge at home or in indoor/covered garages? because that’s 85%+ of EV owners, and it doesn’t have the same issues as fully outdoor public charging stations being used by people who can’t charge at home (such as these chicago tesla owners many of whom probably live in apartments, or the charging stations in my city)
I definitely think the stations should be engineered better for the weather, it shouldn’t just be expected/accepted, especially since my city and chicago both get this cold pretty often. the vehicles seem to hold up to the cold weather okay, at least the chevy, nissan, and even tesla etc that I see here, but the charging stations haven’t been for whatever reason ( I think primarily the cabling, maybe also connectivity to verify the charges/payment), and if you can’t charge and keep using battery trying to stay warm until it’s flat in the negative temps you end up with the situation in the video.
He charges at home mostly, completely outdoors, but only level 2 so that probably makes a difference. Still never had an issue with the public level 3s. I wonder if the Canadian systems are just engineered better for cold.