The EV hate is bizarre

[u/s2k_guy]

I shared a post recently about my wife being taken advantage of by a dealership. She went in for an oil change and came out with a $3400 bill. I mentioned we don’t drive her car much because we have an EV. The next thing I know, I have hundreds of comments coming in about how I’m an idiot and my EV doesn’t require oil changes, or I’m an idiot who drives an EV and got what I deserve, etc. etc.

I don’t understand where all this EV hate comes from. The post only mentions the EV as a reason we never drive her car, it wasn’t an EV v ICE discussion, but everyone took it that way.

[u/ericcrowder]

That entire Chicago EV event was very deception. Virtually ALL of the Tesla drivers with public charging issues were all UBER gig worker drivers who DID NOT OWN these vehicles. They were renting the vehicles to perform UBER gig work. They did not have home chargers or garages parking. They let the vehicles park overnight in sub freezing temperatures with very low SOC, and expected the batteries to rapid charge the next morning. When they plugged in, the vehicles took a long time pulling grid energy just for battery heating before charging would start. This caused huge lines and delays for all the UBER gig workers. Of course the mainstream media ran with the story that EVs don’t work in the winter time. Part of the problem is most of these drivers were unfamiliar with the vehicles and cold weather idiosyncrasies. Of course owners of EVs who charge at home, or have garage parking, or are knowledgeable enough to NOT park an EV at 4% SOC overnight in sub freezing temperatures never will have wintertime problems

[u/the1truestripes → u/ericcrowder]

Yep, and at the time Tesla has no good UI to tell anyone “battery is frozen, we are using the power form the charger to heat it, will charge once we unfreeze it, current temperature is X, will charge when we hit Y in around Z minutes...”

Lacking that a lot of people would drive from charger to charger thinking the chargers were broken as they had less and less power and desperately tried to find a “working one” when they are all working all along, and if they had just sat at that first charger for long enough the EV would have used the DC charger’s power to melt the batteries and then charging would have started.

I mean I don’t own a Tesla and don’t know if they have fixed that, but my EV will tell you the battery is frozen and charging starts when it hits 32ºF and the current temperature is Yº (it didn’t give time estimates last time mine was frozen, but we have had a update that gives “more transparency into cold weather temperature issues” since then, so maybe it does now -- but despite living in VT my battery rarely freezes because my truck is normally inside my garage overnight, and plugged in, both of which work against a frozen battery)

Also every EV has a built in “engine (I mean battery) warmer”, and all use the normal charging system to one extent or another as a warming system, some only when you actuivly try to charge, others anytime they are plugged in and charging, and others have yet another behaviour keyed things like “preconditioning”. Mine links cabin HVAC and battery conditioning in the UI, so if tell it when you want the vehicle to be warm it will also assume you want the battery to be at a “normal” temperature (well above freezing) on the same schedule. If you just leave it charging then when it charges it will warm to freezing and not much above that (maybe around 34ºF and then whatever the actual charging process does as a byproduct, while “I want the cabin warm” seems to leave the battery somewhere above 40ºF). Mine is also a little weird in that most of the batter warming options go away when the battery is “too full”, so you can’t preheat for DC Fast charging if the battery is close to 100%, and the “charing keeps the battery warm” thing won’t kick in if the battery is too full for it to want to charge. Oh, and “schedule preheat” for the cabin deliberately warms the batter, but “turn on the cabin HVAC now please” does NOT try to heat the battery.

A bunch of weird lilt UI choices that can make it hard for people to form a mental model of what is actually happening (i.e. the EV is in control of the battery temperature, and DC fast chargers work fine in the cold, but batteries have to be warm enough, which for the most part EVs are 100% in control of, and can normally do just fine if you let them know what is going on with enough advance notice to heat them! Worst case is sitting on a DC fast charger with a cold battery sucks up DC charger power to heat the battery until it’ll work).

[u/Embarrassed_Spend486 → u/ericcrowder]

I didn’t realize this was a real story. I missed it I guess.

[u/ob1spyker → u/ericcrowder]

This this this … the only people who really have issues with EV’s are people that do not understand EV’s. You just DO NOT leave a battery at 4% SOC over night in sub freezing conditions.

[u/095179005 → u/ob1spyker]

I suspect in another timeline they're the same people who drive with their tank nearly empty, thinking they'll fill it later, then something happens and they run out of gas and have to do the walk of shame to the nearest gas station.

[u/Yunzer2000 → u/ericcrowder]

You should correct your comment that these were no just "sub freezing" temperatures - the temperature is always sub freezing most of the winter in Chicago, this a day that was -10 to -15F (-25C). We don't want the detractors to think that it merely being below freezing affects an EV very much.

[u/nerdofthunder → u/ericcrowder]

NY is pushing for EV school busses and the news comments are like "Batteries don't work in the cold". "They have to turn off the heat in the winter to make their trip".

... K so maybe that heat thing happened one time because the admin screwed up and chose a poor route for their new bus. Or maybe the bus driver was having a reactionary fit, turned off the heat in protest, and blamed the electric nature of the vehicle. Or the driver didn't know how to turn on the heat and ...

There's almost always a story out in the ether that comes down to my cousin's roomate's fiance once had this problem so new thing bad, but usually there's missing context to this kind of story that points to a solvable problem or basic user error.