It started getting cold around where I live in the last few weeks and while it's widely known that EV tend to become less efficient in the winter I feel like summarizing that do just an efficiency drop is not enough. I bought a MG ZS EV 2022 LR this year as my first EV so here are my cold weather anecdotes and warning to current and future owners. I see people mention mi/kWh numbers as if it was that simple, but the winter experience with the MG ZS EV is a bit more nuanced.
Cold and low-ish remaining charge don't mix well together, a few situation I ran into:
Another thing to consider is fast DC fast charging not being as predictable in cold weather. On two long trips recently I got those charging speeds (assume the battery was hot except for the first one in each list):
So what to make of it... keep your battery high, for long trips plan shorter charge breaks to avoid going below 30% and if you need to be on time consider that the charge may take much longer for reasons outside of your control. Still love my car but next time I consider changing I'll definitely look for one that can charge way faster so worst case charging sessions would still feel fast in comparison
Cold and low-ish remaining charge don't mix well together, a few situation I ran into:
- 0°C outside, battery was cold and showed 22% remaining (2022 LR). I ran a short 4 miles errand, came back home with 16% remaining. That's south of 1mi/kWh
- 0°C outside, battery was hot. I left a fast charger with an estimated range of 142 miles, seemingly enough to do the next 124 miles run to the next charger at the same rate wich was at the time 2.8mi/kWh. I slowed down to 55mph, brought the average efficiency up to 3.5mi/kWh and still barely made it to the charger. At 8% remaining, about 3 miles away from my destination the car went into turtle mode, limiting the power to 5~8% (shown on the dashboard). That was a totally different behavior from what I had seen with a low battery at 15°C before. How do I know the battery was hot ? Well the following charging session pulled an average 80kW
- 4°C outside, battery was hot when I parked with 12% remaining and I came back three hours later to only 9% remaining.
Another thing to consider is fast DC fast charging not being as predictable in cold weather. On two long trips recently I got those charging speeds (assume the battery was hot except for the first one in each list):
- -1°C, all chargers 120kW+: 45kW at Ionity, 60kW at ionity, 65kW at totalenergies, 60kW at noname gas station
- 0°C, all chargers 175kw+: 70kW at Allego, 65kW at totalenergies, 39kW at Ionity, 84kW at Ionity
So what to make of it... keep your battery high, for long trips plan shorter charge breaks to avoid going below 30% and if you need to be on time consider that the charge may take much longer for reasons outside of your control. Still love my car but next time I consider changing I'll definitely look for one that can charge way faster so worst case charging sessions would still feel fast in comparison
