We’ve been through a more than a handful of winters with our EV here at EV Accessories, in fact we are now in our 7th year of EV ownership and have never looked back. Our Model S is simply the best car we’ve ever owned.
As early adopters we have some top tips for winter EV driving. So how do you get the bet out of your EV in term of range in winter when the battery is cold and range slightly reduced.
Our Top Tips.
- Set Your Charge To Finish At The Time You Leave The House.
Charging is key to range, in summer and winter alike. To get range you always need to charge the car thats a given, but in winter there is one top tip that going to help.
Set your charge to finish charging just before you leave the house. Why? Simple, charging the battery puts heat into the battery. In some cases if the temperature is low enough and the pack is cold, your car may preheat the battery pack with the battery heater. Charging just before you leave means the pack will have some heat in it and the range will be better. Also doing this is more saves energy as the pack wont cool then need to reheat again. - Pre Heat While Plugged In.
Pre heating the car while plugged in will use the mains power rather than the battery in many cases. This means the car is not drawing power from the battery pack and using the mains to heat the cabin and battery pack. - Maximise Regenerative Braking.
Now before you think about this you need to set your regenerative braking to the weather conditions. If the roads are iced or snow has covered them, you should always think about setting it to a low setting or even off for maximum control. But in 7 years on UK roads, we’ve only done this once. So in general, leave a longer gap to the car in front and let the cars regenerative braking slow you down, doing this helps keep heat in the pack. Remember if you have a cold battery or 100% charge the regenerative braking will be none, another reason to preheat the battery pack. - Using Range Mode – This may not always help.
This is a love or hate mode, generally it will turn down the heater power, turn off the ambient lights inside the car and in some cases turn off the battery pack heater. We’ve only really used it on long trips and feel its more of an emergency mode rather than any real power saving. We question if its worth it in winter as the pack heater seem to turn off earlier leaving the pack cooler. I’m sure the boffins did some calculations on it, but in the real word we’re not convinced.