E-car winter test: Which models tolerate the cold better than others?

Created: 02/10/2022 10:04 am

The BYD Tang came out on top in the winter test.

© BYD/SP-X

Sub-zero temperatures are the enemy of electric cars.

However, there are models that remain suitable for everyday use even in the Scandinavian winter.

Icy temperatures take their toll on the

, range losses of up to 30 percent are possible.

However, some

suffer significantly less from the cold than others, as a large-scale test by the Norwegian automobile club NAF has shown.

Of the 31 vehicles examined, the Chinese model

best.

showed heavy losses

.

E-cars in the winter test: How do Tesla, BMW or Mercedes models perform?

The NAF tested on a dry road at temperatures between zero and minus 10 degrees.

The cars each started with a full but not preheated

was measured

.

Motorways, country roads and the urban transport network were used while driving in real traffic, depending on the range, differences in altitude of up to 1,000 meters had to be overcome.

The heating was activated, but the efficiency of the vehicle as a whole was set to "Eco" mode, so that it stayed rather cool inside at times.

Also read

SUV BYD Tang in front in the winter test of electric cars

The Chinese

, which has been available in Norway since last year but has not yet been available in Germany, suffered the least losses.

The model, which was successful right from the start in the Scandinavian country, promises a standard range of 400 kilometers and actually achieved a range of 356 kilometers in the winter test.

The difference between the two values ​​is 11 percent.

(11.05 percent loss of range) and the

(11.84 percent loss of range)

achieved similarly good results .

The

Motor offered the greatest winter range in the test with 521 kilometers in practice, which corresponds to a difference of 93 kilometers or 15.15 percent to the target value.

(513 kilometers/20.47 percent) and the

(503 kilometers/14.89 percent)

also came very far .

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Declining e-car range in winter

The highest losses were recorded by the

, which lost 31.83 percent of its standard range.

This is the weakest value in the candidate field.

The

significantly better with a loss of 15.5 percent.

In general, there were clear differences between the individual brands and drive variants of the e-cars from the MEB modular system of the VW Group.

The sporty

and the

each lost around 24 percent, while the smaller

only lost 20 percent and the weaker

only 14.41 percent.

The results for the platform pair

and

differed similarly , but different drive variants of the

also performed significantly differently.

The testers do not offer an explanation, but the differences with basically similar drive technology could be due to different strategies for battery heating or the sometimes different sized interiors.

Both points are among the main reasons for the decreasing range of electric cars in winter.

In a similar test in the summer, all models achieved their standard range, and some were even significantly higher.