Essay by Eric Worrall
h/t goldminor; Who could have guessed electric vehicles might struggle in cold climates?
Charge pending on electric bus fleet: City awarded grant for bus barn roof in preparation for addition of seven new electric buses
Beep beep, new roof coming through.
By Clarise Larson
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 2:56pmCapital Transit just got one stop closer on its road to electrifying Juneau’s public transportation.
The City and Borough of Juneau’s municipal bus service, Capital Transit, announced last week that it is set to be awarded close to $2.3 million from a federal grant which will go toward infrastructure replacement to aid the city’s long-term goal of electrifying its transit system moving forward.
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Trouble in electric paradise
Currently, Capital Transit only owns one electric bus — which has been in service since April 2021 and is the state’s first municipally operated electric bus — out of its 18 bus fleet.
The 40-foot Proterra bus has experienced mechanical problems since its launch and was not holding battery charges long enough to complete an entire route during this winter’s cold weather, but Koch said the city is looking at different electric bus manufacturers for the new buses.
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Read more: https://www.juneauempire.com/news/charge-pending-on-electric-bus-fleet-city-awarded-grant-for-bus-barn-roof-in-preparation-for-addition-of-seven-new-electric-buses/
Of course, we’ve already seen electric vehicles struggle in cold climates. As WUWT reported in our 2021 article Tesla: Nothing Says Customer Satisfaction Like 30Kg of Dynamite, EVs appear to be horribly unsuitable for places which suffer cold winters.
It is not just the reduced range. Deep frost conditions appear to irreparably wreck electric vehicle batteries, unless the batteries are kept warm, so one slip-up, like forgetting to plug your EV in at night, or a prolonged power failure, and you could have a dead EV. Likely this would become a doubly unpleasant experience when you read the fine print in your insurance exemptions.
Easy answer. Hook them up to a diesel powered articulated tractor rig. Problem solved. And a lot cheaper than a new bus.
You haven’t looked at the prices of tow-trucks and tractors lately.
They are using Other People’s Money. They don’t care.
Just install more Grid Powered supercharger stations every 50 miles along the route so the busses can sit for hours recharging off Diesel…whatever feeds the grid
Why not put up electric wires? Don’t need no steekin batteries.
Just change everyone’s cars into these…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg11Rl4ni04
Have a blast going anyplace…
No batteries necessary…
Have a blast going anyplace…
No insurance necessary…
Have a blast going anyplace…
Oh and did I say
Have a blast going anyplace!!!
Oh, Lord, I remember those well, too. Loved them.
Do they still have them or are they out of fashion now?
Notice! They aren’t going anyplace.
Isn’t that what the Dim-O-Crats want for society?
You need to buy an EV but just don’t plug it in.
Going No Place
And it solves the issue of road rage as well.
Bryan, you’re brilliant!
Hah! I remember those electric street cars well. My mom took me to the Big City way back when and it was a thrill to ride in one. (We were pretty easily thrilled back then.)
I, also, remember when they stopped using them in favor of buses.
Yea I have.
Or install “Grid Powered” (Diesel) quick charging stations at the bus stops and the bus can recharge for hours along the way as needed.
That’s what a recharging “electric” train was doing in Australia a few years ago, when I and all the other passengers were inconvemienced by excessively-long recarging stops at intermediate stations. Unfortunately those trains were still handicapped by their reliance on fixed rail lines. I thought a modernised rcharging trolleybus system would have been preferable!
What’s a trolly bus? Yes, I’m serious.
Looks very much like a diesel powered rubber tired bus but powered overhead cables, they were very good and light with no batteries but on roads staying within limits was hard and cut all power if the driver strayed more than a few feet.
A more modern version exists: the electrical connector on the bus are not simply spring-loaded anymore, they can be retracted and extended, they have some “self-searching” device to connect to the cables, and they have batteries. This way they can disconnect on crossroads (which formerly were a big issue with this system) and reconnect after them.
I don’t know if I managed to explain it well.
Is that Gasometers in the background?
Those we’re the days!!
Those work well where trees are either well maintained (trimmed every 6 months) or generally not allowed (like pictured) trees and power lines don’t mix well.
A trolley bus is a bus that draws power from dual overhead electrical wires using spring-loaded poles.
Here’s a picture:
http://crudeoilpeak.info/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Zurich_Trolley2.jpg
It would be good to have the option to share these posts directly to the woke fantasy land that is LinkedIn.
Or, you could just abandon it, as I did a year ago. Its a Fascist Factory of Conformity.
I don’t understand why Juneau would ever consider electric vehicles.
There are no roads in or out of Juneau. There are no pipes into Juneau to carry gas for electricity generation. Electricity is generated by diesel barged into town. Therefore generation of electricity with which to power buses is just one more step in inefficiency.
It would be cheaper to power buses with diesel and there is no more CO2 generated either way.
The only thing that the centralized generation can do that the electric buses can’t do is to heat the State Capitol building. And they already provide their own hot air for that purpose.
Stop making sense
So long as the town is solar ready, they’ve done their bit, right? /sarc
Solar can keep the lights on as long as the sun is shining and they don’t need lights.
Apparently they misunderstood the phrase
“you can stick those solar panels where the Sun don’t shine”
Which in Juneau is 6 months of the year
+11
Can’t stop laughing!
Juneau has only 86 sunny days on average;-} So, solar panels useless there.
Your approaching it all wrong. You need to increase the density. (sarc)
Naw – just use batteries to store energy when the sun isn’t shining.
Oh wait, the batteries are the other problem…
Now do Seattle, Vancouver, Portlandia, San Fran…
You know. those places imposing this stuff on everyone else.
San Fran will have to design some bus routes that are all down hill. /s 😃
IDK about Seattle, Vancouver or Portlandia.
I drove from Seattle’s airport to a close hotel and back again without seeing a hill. Which most likely means that I missed them.
Lots of hills in Vancouver, but none going downhill each way.
but…but… once you’ve reached the top…
Yes, you did miss the hills. Seattle has a lot of number hills and, like Vancouver, (See Bob Hoye’s comment) none go downhill each way. In fact, having lived near Seattle and having been in Vancouver, I’d say Seattle has way more hills than Vancouver if memory serves.
Hint: Never, ever try to drive in snow in Seattle. The entire city comes to a standstill over an inch of snow. I was there when it was exceptionally cold for Seattle and the snow didn’t melt. It was there for a whole week. It didn’t help that King County had decided they didn’t need no snow plows and gave their only one away not long before the “big” snow storm.
No one except idiots in SUVs went anywhere for a week and I knew one of the idiots with a SUV who went out in his SUV just for fun, put it into a ditch, and totaled it. It was brand new and he only had it for seven days. Many other SUV owners suffered the same fate.
The trouble with SUVs in slippery conditions is usually the loose nut behind the wheel. No the steering wheel.
When I was a kid, we lived in Victoria. On the rare occasions that it snowed, my Dad would take the bus to work, not because he didn’t know how to drive in snow, but because nobody else did.
Smart Father, there.
Yes, Washington DC reacts badly to any sort of ice/snow fall, too. Drivers used to speeding well above the speed limit often fail when driving on black ice or frozen slush.
DC also has many of the same people who go buy an expensive faux SUV, then wreck them busting through frozen piles of snow.
Just because a major car manufacturer labels an AWD car as SUV, doesn’t mean the car is an off road capable vehicle, or even meant to handle 4″ of snowfall..
Most of the new AWD cars have car drive trains, frames and suspensions, not SUV/truck drive trains, frames and suspensions.
There is a big difference between 9″-12″ of clearance and 5″-6″ clearance when off-roading. Major differences between 4WD transfer cases, rear-ends and the small stuff used in passenger vehicles.
Juneau has a significant availability hydropower, so a narrative can be crafted around that. It’s climate, as far as being in Alaska is concerned, is relatively mild.
They apparently got some grant, so they probably view this as “free” money, which gives them the option to double down. At least they are considering a different bus manufacturer, so they are not totally insane.
Yes, they are “totally insane”. They shouldn’t even be looking for an alternative maker, just dump the whole idea. Batteries in winter will not work well, especially in Alaska.
Years ago I was able to tour the Snettisham hydroelectric plant that Juneau gets its power from. The power plant is fed by two lakes that are tapped from below, negating the need for a traditional dam. As of December 2017 it supplies 78% of the electricity for Alaska Electric Light & Power.
Curious…
How well does hydro power work in an Alaskan winter? I would have guessed they might have some freezing issues.
The Juneau climate is relatively mild. It’s southern coastal Alaska. Even in the coldest months, the average temperature is just below freezing.
If Juneau is too cold for EVs they are certainly going to have trouble in places that get really cold like the mid-west or the Alaskan interior.
But, it appears that Juneau has a two tier service plan.
When things get tight there are services that get cut off (Cruise lines, etc,). There are also diesel generation supplement … about 20%.
The busses will obviously be in the top tier … which will push lower tier into ‘no service’ more often (not much more often they will argue … it will be insignificant and not really measurable; but if the negative impact is insignificant, how can they claim the benefit is significant in any way?). Since they are on the edge already, the busses will be essentially run on diesel to electric conversion.
‘The City of Juneau … doing our part to keep our region of Alaska from warming up too much’
Centralized generation means that can turn off your power easier. Gas stations mean freedom
As someone who lived through the Arab Oil Embargo, and what it did to the cost and availability of gasoline, I have to disagree about “freedom.” One could only buy gas on alternate days, there were long lines at the gas stations, gas was expensive, and the freeway speeds were reduced from 65 to 55, meaning long trips were longer.
That only affected gasoline, not heat and A/C in our homes. Where I lived, Kansas, it wasn’t that big of a deal and I never faced really long limes. Of course, back then, I was young and driving my first car, a VW Beetle which didn’t need filling very often even though I drove 40 miles to work and back and my work, too.
Do you use those ‘long limes’ in your favorite beverage?
Even better would be diesel powered fans to spin windmills, to produce “green” electricity, to charge the bus batteries. Mybe I’ll win an award for my suggestion?
Driving into Palm Springs from LA I used to tell my kids that all the windmills not turning were the ones that weren’t plugged in. It was funny then. Not so much anymore.
Better still, plug electric fans plugged into the wind turbines then as soon as the wind gets up hey presto! perpetual motion and perpetual energy 🙄 – no diesel required. /sarc
Virtue signaling is the rally cry for liberals. Logic be dammed.
Another subsidiary advantage, of course, is that we also need far MORE carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – even in Juneau!
Sorry but Juneau doesn’t run off diesel except during emergencies. Its hydro power.
I thought that’s what he said.
He literally wrote: “Electricity is generated by diesel barged into town.” This is wrong.
Then they have an emergency about 20% of the time.
That sounds like you are full of stuff.
Us ordinary ICE car owners know that winter is flat battery season….
battery, tire, starting…
Can you still get those little paraffin heaters I remember from the 1960s that you could put under the sump of a car in the dead of winter to make starting easier on very frosty mornings? We kept one under the WC cistern to stop that freezing as well as one for the car. The joy of a pre-Climate Emergency life.
I don’t think so
You should be able to pick one up from the garden centre. They are normally used as greenhouse warmers.
Or get a Wind turbine as Boris, in his farewell speech, said Offshore Wind Turbines are 9 (nine) times cheaper than Gas! It wasn’t too long ago he is on record as saying Wind Turbines couldn’t blow the skin off a rice pudding!
I wonder if Boris is including the ‘total cost’ of building, manufacturing, maintaining and replacing failed or worn out parts for Turbines versus Gas? Somehow I just do not believe him…!!
Boris is a moron.
That’s very hard on Morons.
Boris can’t count his children far less the cost of anything.
On my first trip to Edmonton in the winter, I was amazed at all of the electrical outlets available in parking lots for using such heaters, as well as dipstick type engine block heaters.
Many people would just leave their vehicles running in parking lots, e.g. while shopping.
In the movie, Cool Runnings, a Jamaican bobsledder, arriving in Edmonton for the Winter Olympics, put on all of his clothes including his duffle bag before leaving the airport. It was well below zero on the airport thermometer, even in daytime.
I got to the airport in Fort McMurray, I think it was January, the guy at the Hertz counter asked if I would like the four wheel drive. I said yes.
About 15 minutes later, he returns to the counter and said he couldn’t get it started.
My joke is, it was 40 below, I don’t remember if that was C or F.
For those who don’t know, -40C and -40F is the same temp. I assume the post was a joke.
The warming continues…
Last time I picked up a rental car in Fort Mac (also in January) all the cars in the fleet were idling. Every last one.
It was 1988, the Olympics were in Calgary (not Edmonton), and the Jamaican Bobsled Team really did go to the Olympics that year. The rest of the movie is 100% fiction, but the Jamaican Bobsleigh Federation didn’t mind because they felt that the movie was made with good intentions.
The Jamaican bobsled team practiced on the indoor running track at the University of Idaho… I was there at the time and it was amazing to see them practice pushing their sled
Engine block heaters in all shapes & sizes https://duckduckgo.com/?t=avast&q=engine+block+heaters+for+cars&ia=web
Years ago when I studied chemistry we were told that a rule of thumb was that for every 10 deg C change in temperature a chemical changed its rate by a factor of two. If this is still valid it explains everything.
It’s valid as far as I know, there are exceptions.
But the fact that cold slows reactions down has yet to be discovered in Juneau
Marijuana is more effective at slowing reactions than cold temperatures.
It has its artistic purposes…
You are correct.
For living things, every 10 deg C temperature rise pretty much triples their metabolism. That means that the marine life in the Caribbean is easily 12 times hungrier than anything off the Maine Coast.
I have seen tests run in Norway where cold weather, on average, knocks 20% off the range.
Also takes longer to charge.
From AAA testing:
“the average EV battery range in AAA’s test was 105 miles at 75 degrees Fahrenheit, but dropped to 43 miles when the temperature was 20 degrees Fahrenheit”
https://exchange.aaa.com/automotive/automotive-testing/electric-vehicle-range/
That just means you have to have identified your more local bars to hang out in winter, and your less local bars to hang out in summer. LOL
AFAIK, it’s closer to 50% due to the inability to hold a full charge and the need to run the cabin heater. Also, in high latitude climates, you typically drive to and from work in the dark during the cold winter months, so you need to power your headlights as well. BEVs make no sense in these locations, although hybrids can be more efficient and cost effective depending on design and use.
When I was stationed in northern Maine people used electric engine block heaters so their cars would start in the morning.
Hmm… Maybe we’re on to something. Use the battery charge to run a heater to keep the battery warm. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Well, a ‘block heater’ is not the same as a battery (blanket) heater.
Heard on NPR:
“(NPR) Europeans Brace For A Rough Winter With Surging Gas Prices”
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/01/1120457195/europeans-brace-for-a-rough-winter-with-surging-gas-prices
Message to NPR:
A big “thank you” to the climate crackpots and nutjobs for all the wind and solar electricity generating facilities.
BTW- they’re expensive as hell and they don’t work when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
Sincerely,
Europe
Funny thing though … I haven’t head a single Euro ‘Green’ voter renounce their own stupidity.
Once in for STUPID…ALL IN FOR STUPID
Or as stated by Gump, Forrest Gump
“Stupid is as stupid does”
Nor a single Euro ‘Green’ politician.
And don’t forget that electric buses spontaneosly combust in warm weather.
Paris suspends electric bus fleet after two fires (lemonde.fr)
“Other than that, how did you like the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”
Well, they’ve got that cinched. “Hot” in Juneau is, what? 60F?
Still, that’s better than the UK’s experience!
London bus explosion: Five electric buses go up in a fireball – smoke seen for miles
5/22/22
https://bit.ly/3zKVA8i
Video footage posted on line shows flames and thick black smoke billowing skywards from the garage in the High Street, as by-standers watch on in horror. Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service said six fire engines had been sent to the scene. The fire brigade urged the public to avoid the area and said the emergency could last for a “long time”.
And that was on an afternoon in May – not very cold then!
Yes. It was quite spectacular from the video and pictures, toxic, too, I suspect. Later, I read they lost 8 buses. I presume the nearby buses were caught on fire by the six that exploded or some combination thereof? That’s a lot of money gone up in flames, even for the UK Government! It may have been the most amount of money a government wasted in the shortest amount of time ever.
“It may have been the most amount of money a government wasted in the shortest amount of time ever.”
C’mon, man…
I’ve posted here about my girlfriends Tesla, it’s good for her since she has lots of short trips, but in the winter she’s run into several situations where it’s below 40% charge after less than 100 miles, and on top of that she was making some 240 mile round trips during cold weather to take care of family matters. For the longer trips she started borrowing my Outback. She’s already looking at some options, including a RAV 4 Hybrid.
My car spent 4 months waiting for a genuine brake caliper for a warranty repair. Toyota kindly provided a Kia Niro hybrid while we were waiting.
I was impressed by the mpg figures (60-70 overall) but there were some features that weren’t so good. Whether these were the car or hybrids in general I don’t know The ICE was noisy and it did struggle to decide what mode to be in on some hills in Scotland.
Toyota’s hybrids are better.
That ‘waiting’ time sounds amazing to me. Was that during the present “supply chain” problems we are experiencing?
Word on the street is that many EV owners become disenchanted after a few months, and revert to ICE vehicles. I personally know of three people who have done this.
From what I have heard, very few people who trade in electric vehicles, buy another electric vehicle.
That’s coz very few people trade them in. They tend to keep them. But if you have other data on that I’d love to see it.
How do you know that very few people trade them in? Did you just make that up?
I don’t, but Marks history is to talk nonsense till he is called on it. Which is what I have just done and he seems to have no answer.
Funny how you define nonsense as anything the green cult disagrees with.
It’s also funny how you define answering as not answering.
Then again, you have long a history of lying.
Maybe that’s due to concern at the very low trade-in values being offered!
https://www.myev.com/research/buyers-sellers-advice/how-much-is-my-used-electric-car-worth “Historically, EVs tend to suffer below-average resale values. “
https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/ev-owners-switch-gas-power-study/ “According to this study, which looked at California EV owners specifically between 2015-2019, 18% of electric vehicle owners switched back to a gas-powered car. For plug-in hybrid owners, 20% of them flipped back to a car solely powered by an engine.”
Thanks for these. the first one was not really relevant to the issue of EV owners swopping back. The second was 4 years old and conceded that while 18% of EV owners went back that was primarily because in home charging was the problem. The article goes on to say that has pretty much been sorted.
And here we go again, with Simon just making it up.
Haha so you got any data Mark or did you make- it- up?
It’s your claim. It’s on you to support it, not Mark.
Ohhh no no no. He claimed that “very few people who trade in electric vehicles, buy another electric vehicle.” I say that sounds wrong and asked him to provide evidence. He ran away. It’s a pattern that has developed with him.
You made the claim, and you failed to back it up.
Can you not read? “very few people who trade in electric vehicles, buy another electric vehicle.” These are not my words….
No, you claimed, “That’s coz very few people trade them in”. Mendacious little twerp.
Don’t expect Simon to provide facts. He never does.
Ahh, it is make it up and run away Mark. So no evidence at all that EV owners go back to ICE cars? Gee what a surprise.
I can tell you this EV owner will never go back to an ICE car for my main runner. And I know lots of EV owner and I’ve never heard one say I’m going back to an ICE car. But… I live in a climate that is perfect for EV’s(as 90% of the planet is). Maybe if it is -20C outside regularly that could be right. But then they were silly buying an EV in the first place.
What climate is perfect for an EV?
“(as 90% of the planet is)” Where’s your evidence for that?
And what climate isn’t perfect for an ICE?
I own one. It runs beautifully where I live. I’m speaking from experience. You on the other hand….
ICE vehicles don’t do well in Antarctica but are good in most every other Climate, even changing ones. Internal combustion even works well both over and under water and up in the air
Yawn what a silly game you are playing.
If true, that is similar to politicians and greenies attempting to avoid the embarrassment of the decisions they’ve made
Sorry.. reply was meant for MarkW.
Can we find out if it is true? I’ve tried can’t find any reference on google.
My local Carmax has listings for
577 Teslas
A total of 634 EVs
And 832 Hybrids
https://www.carmax.com
https://shift.com/cars?fuel_type%5B%5D=electric&fuel_type%5B%5D=electric-gas-hybrid
Shift has 277 electric and hybrid used for sale (out of 2375)
And vroom has 898 EV/hybrids
https://www.vroom.com
There are a lot of used EVs on the secondary market
Globally EVs make up about 9% of the total auto fleet.
In the U.S. it’s just over 4%
Yet the 3 quoted used car sales sites EVs make up over 10% of their available listings
This still doesn’t make marks point that EV owners are unhappy. I get that the earlier EV’s were not that great and that charging was a problem early on too, but the later ones are pretty good cars.
But it does show that, in a market where a certain subset of vehicle makes up little more than 4% of the market share, they are more than double that of the trade in (return) market.
Many of those Tesla trade-ins at Carmax and Shift are post 2017 so less than 5 years old.
Why don’t people still want to keep cars that are possibly still being paid for?
If a car is SO GREAT why trade it in after just 2 or 3 years?
What poor Simon is not smart enough to realize is that his statement doesn’t contradict mine, much less refute it.
Of course there are not many electrics being traded in. There aren’t many electrics on the road in the first place. Add to that the fact that the average age of the electric fleet is much less than the average age of real cars.
We noted the big surge in EVs and Hybrids back in the good old tax subsidy days, say 10 years back, and I think few of those beasts made it to their third or fourth birthdays. Teslas popped up everywhere for some time. Waiting to see if that is leveling off with wider experience. Charging Station parking spots are only slightly better used than handicap parking places in most lots I’ve seen.
We can only laugh, but these politicians should lose their jobs!
Heads. I think you meant to say heads. In which case I wholeheartedly concur.
Unfortunately, when Govt grants are involved, common sense goes out the window. i.e. an attitude “we got to get the grant or we will lose out”
btw same principle applies to those wanting research grants.
To be fair to the UK government, I’m going through a grant competition right now for a product that may save the NHS millions of quid a year for a public outlay of a low five figure sum.
My business also profits which contributes to the economy in taxes.
It’s been a tough ride just to submit the grant application; it’s very detailed and has demanded weeks of dedication, quite rightly, as they do recognise they might risk public money on a project a bank wouldn’t touch because it’s nothing more than a concept.
Fair play to our government for encouraging early stage innovation.
Have the lessons of Juneau’s past electrical grid failures been forgotten so soon?
https://alaskapublic.org/2021/06/21/night-and-day-what-juneau-learned-when-an-avalanche-turned-out-the-citys-lights/
Solar at that latitude seems unlikely to help much.
“Mankind exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.”
Will Durant
What a great quote! Thanks (to the both of you).
It’s also very hard if not impossible to start your ICV engine on cold winter mornings up north (not even just Alaska, but the entire northern tier of US states and of course all of Canada) unless you plug in a heater for your starting battery, or park it inside a heated garage. Everybody who lives and drives in the cold north knows that.
In the coldest regions, people just leave their diesel engines running at idle all night, for fear of being unable to start them in the morning (it’s not just the battery that loses power the diesel fuel becomes much more viscous and difficult to flow and atomize.
Turbine powered aircraft that routinely fly up high in the flight levels (greater than 18,000 ft MSL) have to use fuel additives to prevent the JP-4 from freezing up, unless the fuel tanks are heated.
Nearly every machine operates with greater difficulty at extremely cold temperatures, well below the freezing point of water.
They do have different jet fuel grades for different climates. https://www.shell.com/business-customers/aviation/aviation-fuel/civil-jet-fuel-grades.html
Depends on what you mean by very cold. Temperatures of minus 20 degrees F. never bothered our car batteries much in an unheated garage unless the battery was getting old. You’d find out it was time to change the battery on those days, and on the really hot ones as well.
Over thirty years in central WI, we saw minus 40 (F and C) maybe ever other winter for a couple of days and those were “plug in the heater or wait for it to warm up” events.
The coldest night I remember over those years was when the LP gas stove didn’t ignite in the early morning. Turns out LP doesn’t vaporize below minus 44 degrees F. (-42 C) and the mercury thermometer was at -47 when I looked at it (after the sun was coming up, so it wasn’t the low.) The LP dealers were taking a lot of calls that morning from people having no gas.
However, once started, you don’t lose half your range in cold weather if you are driving an ICE.
ICE vehicles have trouble with cold
Electric vehicles pretty much stop working altogether.
“Electric vehicles pretty much stop working altogether.”
Not true. Make it up Mark is at it again… It is true they lose range in extreme cold… but stop working all together? Just in case anyone here thinks Mark is being honest, or knows what he is talking about.
so adding more machines with cold weather problems solves what exactly?.
From my experience of diesel engine injection systems, leaving a diesel idling for hours is the worst way to enhance its long-term performance!
The human machine also has difficulty with low temps.
Bollox. Petrol is barely affected by cold temperatures and there are now anti waxing agents in diesel as standard.
A single spark in a petrol engine from a momentary turnover from the starter motor is enough to fire up most modern engines, and diesels are now fitted with glowplugs that induce combustion almost instantaneously.
Even oils are now usually low viscosity synthetics that will circulate in the coldest of temperatures and are designed to leave a film on moving parts that will survive a cold start.
It’s fair to say plugging in a sump heater will help matters but nowadays, unless the vehicle is left in extreme temperatures for days, the chances of a healthy battery coping with a cold start are extremely high.
A decent 12v or 24v car battery cost’s a few hundred dollars. An EV battery cost’s $20,000+.
Scottie, that sounds awfully high for a ‘decent’ 12V vehicle battery. Get a good one in my area (7-year warranty) for about $125.
I had to replace the one in my Charger $279
And the one in my Durango was $229 six months ago
Just days after California announced the ban on sales of new ICE cars, California EV owners are told not to charge their EVs for fear it will strain the electric grid during a coming heat wave.
Californians Told Not to Charge Electric Cars Days After Gas Car Sales Ban (newsweek.com)
I absolutely love it.
I’m just curious … during these power emergencies (created by the State by NOT building adequate power plants) … do ALL the Tesla Supercharging stations get shut off? Or just the home garages of Tesla owners?
Correction,created by shutting down perfectly fine,very clean nuclear power stations and other fossil fuel power plants.
On that note, Gruesome Newsome has relented and is considering having Diablo Canyon NPP relicensed until 2030
Great question… anyone know the answer?
The ‘up side’ is that after 2035, the governor will just have to declare a holiday when the grid gets stressed. The downside is that you will have to stay home and watch the grass grow, if you have any.
Lawns will be illegal by 2035, as all of California’s fresh water has to go to keep endangered minnows thriving.
Then just stay home and watch the dust blow across the rocks of your drought resistant front landscaping (rock garden)
The Up-Side is that there will be less co2 in the air…but the Down-Side is that there will be more horse manure in the streets….Which should we prefer?
CA Already has sufficient Horse Manure in the State Assembly that’s for sure
Some people keep small batteries in their freezer to preserve them. I don’t know why. But they are already charged, so don’t have to be charged when cold. Lead acid batteries lose power in the cold, but they only have to start your ICE car, not power the motors as you drive. Buses must use a lot of battery power to keep the bus interiors warm too. If the riders are cold, however, they could get out and help push the electric bus up any steep hills. That will warm them up.
The rate of self discharge decreases in traditional batteries when they are cold. I don’t know if this still holds for the newer Li Ion batteries.
this is my understanding also.
It’s looking more like the qualification to make government decisions, you must first be an idiot.
A poorly educated idiot.
With a masters degree in psychology and $200,000 of college debt.
Got Brandon in one!
“set to be awarded close to $2.3 million from a federal grant which will go toward infrastructure replacement to aid the city’s long-term goal of electrifying its transit system moving forward.” “but Koch said the city is looking at different electric bus manufacturers for the new buses.”
The federal government typically dictates what funds can be spent on. They gave Wyoming $25 million for electric vehicle charging stations, and there’s only 450 electric vehicles in the entire state. So that’s a $50,000 subsidy for every electric vehicle owner.
And she still lost.
They have to be kept indoors during the winter because batteries can’t be recharged when they are below freezing.
Or you could do what the Scottish police force have done, that is to spend £20 million on electric patrol vehicles but forget to install charging facilities at the police station.
I mean… wtf?
The original Keystone Cops?
Sorry, CB, you are wrong – it was actually a carefully calculated move. It forced the police to spend more of their time in the station doing their real job, i.e. monitoring the internet to catch people saying bad things on twitter. While simultaneously leaving those shiny new EVs parked out front to show their green credentials. A win-win for Police Scotland!!
The concept that police need to get out there and respond to crimes in the community like robbery, assault, rape, murder etc. – that’s just a hangover from the 20th century. Congratulations to Police Scotland on helping us recognise this fact.
I understand that they still have a few ICE cars parked round the back, which of course they need to get out and attend Pride celebrations. That is the other vital component of modern police work.
Curious, Mark, what do they use to heat the indoor areas where they keep the vehicles to prevent the batteries from freezing?
Infinite monkeys doing jumping jacks?
Hahahahaha!
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
It wasn’t a good movie.
But it was one heck of a title.
Seems in 21st Century America we have reached movie title status.
its the big dubya i tell ya.
Wasn’t Dubya President?
Well, it’s not only the issues that EVs have in cold weather . . . they also have separate problems in hot weather.
To wit, just look at what’s happening with the current heat wave in California. The supply of electricity and the distribution grid are under high stress, primarily as the result of massive use of air-conditioning in residences and businesses. California has called for successive days of “Flex Alerts” where electrical utility customers are asked to voluntarily reduce there use of electricity during peak demand hours. Just this last week, there has be a call for all EV owners to stop charging their EVs to help out during the heat wave.
If the voluntary cutback response is sufficient, the grid operators then issue rolling blackouts of electricity to customers.
I suspect California is not all that far away from mandating that all public charging stations be turned off in times of peak electrical use.
Now, are you glad that you bought an EV? . . . and if you didn’t buy one, aren’t you glad that you didn’t?
And despite this obvious evidence of the inability of California’s electricity sources and grid to handle even a simple heat wave, California’s dismal Democrat Governor Gavin Newsome has issued an edict that all cars sold in state after 2035 MUST be EVs.
As the saying goes: “This does not compute.”
Ah, memories:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/19/report-philadelphias-electric-bus-fleet-in-complete-shambles/
Well, that’s the preference for recharging trolleybuses gone up in smoke! Maybe diesel really IS the best way for the future!
Proterra… “Our buses are designed so their most efficient use is on downhill routes.”
The stupidity of that statement: it burns!
How could it be otherwise?
All of this technology ultimately defaults to the most democratic form of public transit: sidewalks.
Gerbils. Green, renewable, reliable, domesticated, albeit carbon-laden, gerbils. The answer is nipping at your now frost-covered toes.
There is always a lead lemming.
Build a nice bus garage where the battery busses can keep their toesies warm. Don’t pay attention to the fact it is running their routes they are rolling to a dead stop before completing them. Faceplate “Range” numbers presume “normal” i.e. ideal conditions.
Juneau is located at 58.3 N latitude, so solar panels won’t do much power generation. But I guess it’s the thought that counts. Or the free money for nothing.
What has to happen with these electric buses is for more cities to convert their fleets to them, and after they find them unreliable as the temperature drops, to either ditch them entirely or take them off the roads during the cold months. Either way they’ll have keep the old diesels in reserve to maintain regular service or spend millions on new ones until warmer weather. So where’s the economy in getting too gung-ho about electrics? Taxpayers could easily wind up paying double to maintain a public transit fleet.
What makes you think politicians care about what expenses their idiotic ideas cost taxpayers?
“City awarded grant for bus barn roof in preparation for addition of seven new electric buses”
And they will have NO busses as soon as the roof is completed and the first electric bus batteries explode while charging – and burn the whole place to the ground. That’s how it’s gone everywhere else in the world that has tried this with E-busses.
Bemused at this. EV work best in warmer environments, yet EVs are being promoted as ‘the future’ in order to help prevent Global Warming(tm).
Almost as if Global Warming(tm) isn’t the real end objective for the EV cultists and they are simply trying to shift influence in the global market towards someone who is more like them.
We can’t even charge our EVs. Let’s buy more.
Worse, Let’s make them the only option and make everyone buy them.
They also dont work well in Hot places
. . . especially if you want your EV to provide AC “climate control”.
An oxymoron if I ever heard of one!
‘Koch said the city is looking at different electric bus manufacturers for the new buses.{”
And also looking into changing those pesky laws of physics.