How to survive cold weather in your Leaf when stuck

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knightmb

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 12, 2015
Messages
2,212
Location
Franklin, TN
With the recent news of drivers stuck on the I-95 in snow and freezing conditions, I thought why not create a topic about cold weather survival in your Leaf for emergencies. I was quite concerned when I asked my friends and family what they would do, most of them had no idea how to extend out the heating as long as possible to my surprise.

To start, if I was stuck like those drivers and just became stranded on some road in the middle of a snow storm with no way to get anywhere, I know some of the first steps I would take.

1) Immediate shut off all non-essential power loads like lights, radio, etc.
2) Set the heater to re-circulate air (not worried about foggy windows at this point)
3) Change the vent pattern so all heat is blown into the bottom/face vents and not on the windows since they will conduct the heat away quickly
4) Set the climate control to the lowest value of 60F heating, I would rather feel chilly than to be actually freezing
5) Not sure if I would use emergency flashers or just the parking lights during the night time. The clicking of the flashers would probably get annoying real quick

Some preparation steps before winter for your Leaf (this is probably a given for our Northern neighbors, but the rest of us probably make no winter preparations)
1) Have some small blankets packed away in the back
2) Have some high energy snacks packed away in the back
3) Have some small bottled water packed away in the back
4) Buy one of those "winter emergency kits" for cars
 
Some other stories from the I-95 freeze about a Tesla driver.
https://twitter.com/myworldtaw/status/1478269945368780806
 
I think that the best way to stretch out the heat in an EV like the Leaf is to run the heat twice an hour, but leave the seat warmers on continuously - on Low if possible. The car would have to stay in Ready mode. It would probably be worth running the radio, with its negligible power drain. I know that I'd be regretting the legal requirement that all vehicles - even EVs - have no Off setting for the ventilation fan. EVs don't produce carbon monoxide...
 
Some other stories from the I-95 freeze about a Tesla driver.
https://twitter.com/myworldtaw/status/1 ... 5368780806

With the rare exception, none of the people replying to the Twitter post have figured out that the Tesla is way better than the ICE cars for getting stuck in traffic- even with a small amount of battery power left it should be able to heat for hours. Seems like the owner should know that also, and should be able to contact Tesla to get it figured out....
 
Learjet said:
I think the best mode for heat in that situation is in the floor mode...heat rises.

Agreed. Cold feet make a cold car worse. Occasional switches to Hi/Lo vent mode, and the blower on the lowest setting. Recirculate on full if visibility not needed, partial, aka "auto" if it is needed.
 
dmacarthur said:
Some other stories from the I-95 freeze about a Tesla driver.
https://twitter.com/myworldtaw/status/1 ... 5368780806

With the rare exception, none of the people replying to the Twitter post have figured out that the Tesla is way better than the ICE cars for getting stuck in traffic- even with a small amount of battery power left it should be able to heat for hours. Seems like the owner should know that also, and should be able to contact Tesla to get it figured out....

I was thinking the same thing, but imagine you were on your way to a QC station and low battery charge... and then you get stuck there. :eek:

I think that if one was to survive 24 hours in that situation, minimal heat settings should still be enough to keep you from freezing for a day and still have enough to turtle to the nearest QC station at a low speed. If you could just get the EV power consumption down to a minimal 500 watts for example, then 24 hours of heat would cost roughly 12 kWh of capacity. It would be a touch stretch for a Gen 1 Leaf (with a 24 kWh battery), but I think any of the Gen 2 Leaf, Tesla, Bolts, etc. could swing that without much issue provided they didn't get stranded with less than 33% SOC when it happened.
 
I was thinking the same thing, but imagine you were on your way to a QC station and low battery charge... and then you get stuck there. :eek:

I think that if one was to survive 24 hours in that situation, minimal heat settings should still be enough to keep you from freezing for a day and still have enough to turtle to the nearest QC station at a low speed. If you could just get the EV power consumption down to a minimal 500 watts for example, then 24 hours of heat would cost roughly 12 kWh of capacity. It would be a touch stretch for a Gen 1 Leaf (with a 24 kWh battery), but I think any of the Gen 2 Leaf, Tesla, Bolts, etc. could swing that without much issue provided they didn't get stranded with less than 33% SOC when it happened.

I choose the Tesla over any of the ICE vehicles, partly because the heater is so efficient compared to running a motor and partly because it is unlikely that the Tesla is REALLY low on battery, although at least as likely as that the ICE vehicle is really low on gas.
 
Another interesting bit of the news on this subject. Social media rounds blaming EV for road blocks but it was all untrue.
https://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-traffic-jam-caused-231551578.html

“Roads are jam-blocked by electric cars with dead batteries from idling to keep occupants warm all night,” claimed a Facebook post dated Dec. 29, 2021. “Snows falling, road crews can’t plow due to hundreds of dead battery cars stuck in road blocking everyone else.”
 
knightmb said:
Another interesting round on news on the subject. Social media rounds blaming EV for road blocks but it was all untrue.
https://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-traffic-jam-caused-231551578.html

“Roads are jam-blocked by electric cars with dead batteries from idling to keep occupants warm all night,” claimed a Facebook post dated Dec. 29, 2021. “Snows falling, road crews can’t plow due to hundreds of dead battery cars stuck in road blocking everyone else.”

Clouds of FUD.

How... amusing ...
 
An op-ed in a local paper screaming "don't let the commies force you to buy an electric car- your quality of life will be greatly diminished and there will be added expense and time involved that you can not imagine!" . The next anti-vax rage is EVs.....
 
A friend of mine suggested that the recent debacle on I-95 in Virginia would be even worse if all the vehicles were EV. So that got me to thinking, how long would my heater run with the vehicle in Park?

I have a 2019 Plus and get between 230 and 270 miles of range from a solid charge. Since it's winter, I would go with the lower end of that range at 230 miles. My guess is that the heater could run for about 6 hours. But I'm just spit balling.

If I knew I was going to be stuck for an extended period of time, I think I would use the seat heaters instead of the dash heater, assuming that the seat heaters would be more efficient.

In the winter I always carry cold weather gear, no matter which vehicle I'm in. Hat, mittens, blanket, etc. I can ride out the storm if I have to.
 
HRTKD said:
A friend of mine suggested that the recent debacle on I-95 in Virginia would be even worse if all the vehicles were EV. So that got me to thinking, how long would my heater run with the vehicle in Park?

I have a 2019 Plus and get between 230 and 270 miles of range from a solid charge. Since it's winter, I would go with the lower end of that range at 230 miles. My guess is that the heater could run for about 6 hours. But I'm just spit balling.

If I knew I was going to be stuck for an extended period of time, I think I would use the seat heaters instead of the dash heater, assuming that the seat heaters would be more efficient.

In the winter I always carry cold weather gear, no matter which vehicle I'm in. Hat, mittens, blanket, etc. I can ride out the storm if I have to.

As per this topic: https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=32943
A very long time, like days long.
 
Assuming that it's not so cold out that the heat pump won't work, for many hours.

I would think that you could pull 1kw for heating to stay adequately warm in all but the harshest ambient temperatures. At that rate, the pack SOC would drop 1 kWh every hour, so potentially 60 hrs if the pack was fully charged. Obviously, at 2kw rate, half that time.

Just linear math calculations, so easy to work out different scenarios...
 
knightmb said:
As per this topic: https://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=32943
A very long time, like days long.

Thanks for the link. I did search before posting, but I looked in the wrong subforum. :cry:
 
You could easily make a good Onion article title out of this. :lol:

EV owners frustrated at ICE owners for running out of gas on frozen highway...
 
How the heat was used would also matter - a lot. Resistance heat set to 74F would use roughly 5kwh per hour. The heat pump, set to 65F and turned off 50% of the time, should run for a couple of days, depending on SOC.
 
I just tested at 23F outside, Temp set to 60F, recirculate on. It lost 0.8% after 30 minutes and 1.6% after 1 hour. So the car could last 2 days if I started with 77% SoC.
 
Triggerhappy007 said:
I just tested at 23F outside, Temp set to 60F, recirculate on. It lost 0.8% after 30 minutes and 1.6% after 1 hour. So the car could last 2 days if I started with 77% SoC.

Thanks for the data point. Is it a resistance heater or heat pump model?
 
Triggerhappy007 said:
I just tested at 23F outside, Temp set to 60F, recirculate on. It lost 0.8% after 30 minutes and 1.6% after 1 hour. So the car could last 2 days if I started with 77% SoC.

Nice data point. The average car uses about 1/2 gallon per hour idling. Small cars can have 12 gallon tanks, larger cars can have up to 15 gallon tanks. Average the two and say your car happen to be full with 13 gallons of gas, that would give you about 26 hours of heat. Now.... you can ration it of course and just run for a little while, heat up, then shut down to save gas, but you could do the same thing in an EV.

So between a car with a full tank of gas and an EV at 100% charge, it would actually be better to be in the EV for survival reasons, especially if the car is getting covered in snow or ice and you don't want vehicle fumes coming back into the cabin and killing everyone.
 
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