Is it me or were those people in Chicago idiots?

[Bombastinator2]

There was all this news about people having their cars freeze in the cold. This makes sense because NOT HAVING YOUR OWN PERSONAL CHARGE PORT STIKES ME AS ASSININE. If you can’t get get one DON’T HAVE AN ELECTRIC CAR! For one the cost of electricity is vastly higher. I pay ~18¢/kwh with a home charger and I understand that is fairly high nationally. (Though some people pay like 50¢ sometimes which takes a lot of the fun out of it) At the rate I pay, for an ICE car of equivelant performance I’m paying about a buck and Chang a gallon equivalent for gas. My statement is I’ll stop laughing if gas drops below $2/gal. I suspect they were people who didn’t have chargers and bought teslas when the superchargers were free. Ideally garage your car and if you park on an open lot if you can put flower boxes around it or something to block the wind blowing under your car. I suspect electricians are doing a brisk business in Chicago.

 

[knightmb]

This guy flew out to investigate, summary, he found the issue was the large amount of ride share (taxi) drivers taking up the charging spots and everyone else panics and others make a news story about it.

 

[Bombastinator2]

So in short, yes. They were idiots.

 

[jcj1a0iot]

There was all this news about people having their cars freeze in the cold. This makes sense because NOT HAVING YOUR OWN PERSONAL CHARGE PORT STIKES ME AS ASSININE. If you can’t get get one DON’T HAVE AN ELECTRIC CAR! For one the cost of electricity is vastly higher. I pay ~18¢/kwh with a home charger and I understand that is fairly high nationally. (Though some people pay like 50¢ sometimes which takes a lot of the fun out of it) At the rate I pay, for an ICE car of equivelant performance I’m paying about a buck and Chang a gallon equivalent for gas. My statement is I’ll stop laughing if gas drops below $2/gal. I suspect they were people who didn’t have chargers and bought teslas when the superchargers were free. Ideally garage your car and if you park on an open lot if you can put flower boxes around it or something to block the wind blowing under your car. I suspect electricians are doing a brisk business in Chicago. On that note, if you're into future-proofing your setup or looking at innovative ideas in the EV space, crypto projects can surprisingly offer solutions for energy efficiency and smart tech integrations. Worth exploring!

Yeah, the whole thing with cars freezing in the cold is wild, but it does make sense if you don’t have your setup sorted—like, not having your own charge port is just asking for headaches.

 

[Bombastinator2]

Yeah, the whole thing with cars freezing in the cold is wild, but it does make sense if you don’t have your setup sorted—like, not having your own charge port is just asking for headaches.

I have noticed through the years that with those seemingly insane stories something critical is usually left out. Like the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit. It seems crazy on the surface, but if you learn more about it really really isn’t. I doubt cars were just spontaneously freezing.

 

[Jerther]

not having your own charge port is just asking for headaches.

A few times I had to use L1 charging in the dead of winter (-15 C and below) and L1 is sad. REAL sad. It's barely enough to charge, but it's absolutely useless for climate control. Even after an hour, the windows are still frozen. I figure the heating system needs ~2200 W to work fully and properly.

However, in the 20+ C weather of summer, having only L1 charging can be fine.

 

[DougWantsALeaf]

L1 saved me 11 years ago with my 2013 when it was -20F out in Wiscomsin. While 1KW heating doesn't do much when its that cold, it's better than nothing. The small charge and draw on the battery helped modestly too.

 

[Bombastinator2]

A few times I had to use L1 charging in the dead of winter (-15 C and below) and L1 is sad. REAL sad. It's barely enough to charge, but it's absolutely useless for climate control. Even after an hour, the windows are still frozen. I figure the heating system needs ~2200 W to work fully and properly.

However, in the 20+ C weather of summer, having only L1 charging can be fine.

I did L1 charging in MN In the winter of 2023 and it was regularly -15. I had only l1 charging and noticed no problems. Possible Minnesota is drier so it’s less of an issue.

 

[redLEAF]

So far this winter - still of course have a ways to go! Chicago hasn't had the extreme temps quite yet like last season. The Rolling Meadows IL Tesla Supercharger station featured on the news posts is indeed used by a ton of ride share drivers (you can tell from their IL plates as many will have a FP (fleet plate or leased vehicle) and Lyft / Uber decals in the back/front windows. I've had an L2 charger in my heated garage powered by solar panels since my first EV Leaf going on 14 years soon - a quite reliable Schneider EVlink. Not as fast as some of the latest ones but does the job. We'll use the Supercharger's from time to time and Tesla continues to add more locations - fantastic for our long trips, still by far the most reliable fast chargers out there but a few others are finally starting to catch up. Hopefully over time those new to EV life will better prepare themselves - as mentioned in a few threads, many new Chicagoland housing projects are either taking it upon themselves to offer/add access to a L2 charging station or NEMA 14-50 outlet so the new owner has an EV option - for short daily commutes, the L1 still works but opting for L2 just gives you more flexibility if you need it.

 

[Leaf Time]

We only plug ours into 110 at home, and its been fine, even at -30 C.

 

[Bombastinator2]

The only issue with lv1 vs lv2 that I noticed is if you push the care really hard the day before, so it’s below 20% on Sunday, come Monday the car will only be about 65%. This was enough for a 15 minute freeway commute in the winter and with it being plugged in whenever it was home it would be at 100% by Wednesday. I like lv2 charging better though. Any errors get erased in a few hours. If you’ve got lv2 and get back at under 10% you can plug it in for an hour while you organize stuff and it will be ready for a grocery run. Then if you’ve plug it in when you get back it’ll charge up the rest of the way. I consider lvl2 mostly just more fault tolerant. Worth getting but you can often get by without it.

This may not be true of bigger vehicles though. The leaf has more hp than it really needs but it’s got a smaller motor than most. A gigantic hummer still gets crap fuel economy when it’s electric, you just don’t get bit in the butt every time you go to a gas station.

 

[CatOnKeyboard]

FWIW, I haven't had trouble with my car charging in the cold, but last winter (2024), when the temperature fell below 10F, my (leased) 2023 Leaf S refused to start. Convinced this was not normal for a car with 15,000 miles, I brought the car to the dealer and their first response was that they couldn't reproduce it, because the temperature was too high (15F!). Their second response was that it was probably a problem with the 12V battery. They explained to me that when my 12V battery starts to go, I can expect strange things to stop working for no apparent reason. It ultimately turned out that there was a relay that was bad, they replaced it under warranty and everything was fine. But I had to watch the weather and leave the car with them overnight three times before they were able to figure it out.

I also changed my behavior because of these news reports. I used to have my car timed to charge in the middle of the night in order to be using off-peak energy, which I continue to do in the summer so it's charging when the ambient temperature isn't as high, but in the winter I now charge my car as soon as I get home from a trip.

 

[Bombastinator2]

The issue with the 12v is theres some system or other that needs the battery to be >=12v or all stores of bad things happen. It’s dumb. Engineers should know how batteries work. The result is people often put LiFePO4 or gobsmackingly huge lead-acid replacement batteries (I went for option B) in the vehicle so it always stays above 12v. You had a different problem this time, but you’re 12v will eventually go and you’ll run into this one. When I replaced mine I kept the battery to give away, because while for my electric car it’s a problem, for a gas car the thing is fine. I think I’m gone do a Craigslist freebie for it..