Lessmore wrote:
We make a trip across three prairie provinces...a bit more than 700 miles and we usually drive straight through in 12 hours or so with our IC vehicles. It's not business trips it's to visit family. We do this trip 3-4 times a year.
Last family trip was in late January of this year...temps for half the trip. eastern Saskatchewan, western Manitoba ranged from -28 to -33 and there are few towns in that area. The internal combustion engine in our vehicle was able to provide good cabin heat...but the heater fan and heat were turned up to close to maximum.
My understanding is that batteries lose efficiency at extreme cold temperatures and any cabin heat for the vehicle, comes from the batteries that are also providing motive power to the vehicle. EV range suffers in these conditions.
I know a vehicle range of 300 ( 186 miles) -400 (248 miles) kms ... in this cold would have that range lessened significantly in the cold winters we experience, out here during prairie winters.
We couldn't do our 12 hour...700 + mile (1,126 kms) trips. On the prairies, there are no passenger trains anymore. Greyhound cut out bus service. Plane service is good to major centres, but a lot of the prairies are rural and can be very cold in the winter and if you need to travel, you generally have to rely on your own vehicle.
Looks likely that EV's will eventually take over transportation...but there needs to be significant improvement in range, charging infrastructure. I'm sure it will be here eventually...out here...and EV's will improve battery range and charging speed....but that appears be a ways in the future.
Ahh yes. I remember those kind of trips well. Lived in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The other big challenge of having an EV in Saskatchewan is the complete lack of infrastructure for charging. And the goverment has made it quite clear there will be none in the future either. I would think eventually there will be a few DC fast chargers on the trans Canada though so people can at least pass thru though the province though. Maybe part of the Petrocan network.
