Cold is good for the battery

Making sure the battery in an electric vehicle is working optimally is a little science in itself. Norwegians in particular often experience that the range becomes worse when it’s cold outside, and if you want to get maximum charging speed when fast charging on the road, it’s important that the battery is set up at the optimum temperature.

Regular readers will remember that we mentioned an American Recurrent poll a few weeks ago, which was in a poll Didn’t find much difference On the remaining capacity in Tesla batteries based on the number of times it is fast charged.

Now the company has conducted another study – this time they examined the remaining capacity in drive batteries based on which US states the cars belong to.

Best in cold climates

The American authorities divide the American states into five different climate zones: “humid and hot,” “dry and hot,” “cold,” “extremely cold,” and “subarctic.”

Recurrent grouped the three warm and three cold climate zones and then compared the remaining battery capacity for a large number of 2020 Model Y models.

The battery seemed to hold up better in cold conditions, with an average of 95 percent remaining capacity, compared to 92 percent in warm conditions.

Repeated claims claim that the same pattern can be seen in other Tesla models, but the difference was more pronounced in the Model Y. A total of 12,500 cars were included in the study.

Avoid heat

According to the Recurrent report, heat in the environment adds more energy to the electrochemical reactions in car batteries, which in turn can cause them to age more quickly. This is especially true at temperatures above 30°C.

Therefore, their advice is to make sure you park the car in the shade or in the garage if it is hot outside, and that it is best to have a half-charged battery if you must leave it in the sun, because that is the time. Battery chemistry is the most stable.

Car owners who live in warmer regions should also consider purchasing a car with an LFP battery, which has a better ability to withstand heat.

We assume Norway will likely be colored blue as a whole in Recurrent’s overview, but it’s also good to know that too hot is not the best for the battery. Although the range of many cars drops sharply in the cold, this is more temporary in nature – in the long term, lower temperatures are clearly better.