I (still) don’t own an EV for various reasons, but I’m still interested. One question that keeps popping up in my mind is this one:
Where I live way up north, many people drive EVs - mostly Teslas apparently. A solid third of the parking lot at work is filled with EVs. The one thing that always strikes me when I leave work around the same time as everybody else is the sheer amount of noise of all those Teslas warming up their batteries before their owners come out to drive home make in the winter: it’s like dozens of heating cannons running at the same time.
Each time, I wonder how much juice is used just to prime the battery before use vs. actual miles traveled.
If you leave in a cold country, have you worked out how much energy you burn simply keeping the battery alive in the winter? Is your EV still more energy efficient than an ICE in the winter for your particular use pattern?
I was looking into buying an EV recently (northern europe), and the main drawback for me was the distance. ICE can get me 600-700 km onba full tank easy on a highway. Only few EVs can go reliably above 300 in cold weather (say -20C) - and those few cost like 2-3 times more than a brand new ICE. I mainly drive highways and usually over 300km in one go, for moving around the city public transport is good enough (or rental if you need to move large stuff).