“THE EFFECT OF WINTER ON EV RANGE”

The range of electric cars can take a hammering in winter. From a cold start you’ve got to use energy to warm the windows, warm the cabin, and ( often forgotten about) warm the battery.

A battery likes to be somewhere around

2 0 ºC. Imagine how much energy it takes to bring a big EV’s three-quarter-tonne battery up to temp from a frosty overnight. Energy that it gets from within itself. So it can’t later be used to drive the car.

My experience is warming the cabin and battery of a 2 0 0 -mile EV can absorb

1 0 kWh or more, which is equivalent to a loss of around 3 0 miles from that initial

2 0 0 -mile range. But good news: you can avoid it.

All EVs have a phone app, on which you can monitor and control their charging, and do other remote functions. You can use it to pre-warm the cabin and demist, which is nice, but just sucks range if the car isn’t plugged in.

But when it is plugged in, remotely warming the car is done by mains energy, and critically the battery is warmed too. Unplug, drive off and your initial energy consumption won’t be far off the summer figure. You won’t take that initial batterywarming hit.

Also, use seat heaters not cabin air heating. That saves maybe 10 miles. And anyway you can keep the cabin fairly cool. You didn’t walk up to the car this wintry day in Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt and flip-flops. So keep your jumper on while you drive.

Don’t worry about headlights and wipers. Their draw is inconsequentially low, especially if you’ve got LEDs.

Oh and remember, petrol cars also have disastrous fuel consumption on cold-start journeys.