It’s a secret to no one – especially to EV owners living in cold climes – that electric vehicles lose a fair amount of range when the mercury drops. The results of a new test carried out on 25 EVs by a Norwegian outlet show just how much – and which models fare relatively well.
It was a happy circumstance that delivered some extreme cold weather during Motor.no’s most recent test on the Scandinavian peninsula of 25 EV models available in Europe. It’s a test the outlet carries out every year in Norway, but this time around, temperatures dropped to as low as -30 Celsius. That was sure to eat deeply into the ranges delivered during the test, which involved, quite simply, driving each vehicle, starting on a full charge, until it was no longer able to maintain the speed limit.
The outlet then calculated two figures: the actual distance driven before the vehicle conked out, and the percentage change from the vehicle’s official optimal-conditions range.
Note that range, in this case, is the WLTP-cycle figure that applies in Europe, which is more generous than the North American EPA standards.
EVs delivering the most range in -30 Celsius, according to motor.no
For outright range, so distance driven on a full charge, the winner was the Lucid Air, which covered 520 km before it had to be put on a flatbed. It finished far ahead of second-place finisher the Mercedes-Benz CLA, which got as far as the 421-km mark before puttering out.
Keeping in mind that some models start out with far greater range than others, notably due to battery size, here’s the list of vehicles tested and their absolute range (leaving out models not available in North America):
- Lucid Air – 520 km driven (official WLTP range: 960 km)
- Mercedes-Benz CLA – 421 km (709 km)
- Audi A6 – 402 km (653 km)
- BMW iX – 388 km (641 km)
- Volvo ES90 – 373 km (624 km)
- Volvo EX90 – 339 km (611 km)
- Tesla Model Y – 359 km (600 km)
- Hyundai Ioniq 9 - 370 km (600 km)
- Kia EV4 - 390 km (594 km)
- Volkswagen ID. Buzz - 277 km (449 km)
As for which models dropped the smallest percentage of range in the freezing cold weather, the order was quite different. Lucid’s Air, for instance, may have delivered the most range, but it was also starting from the highest official range figure. Its percentage loss was a disheartening 46 percent, the worst drop among the 10 vehicles on the list that are available in North America.
None of the other EVs did that much better, to be honest, but the best of them was Kia’s EV4, which lost 34 percent of range compared to the ideal.
EVs losing the smallest percentage of range in -30 Celsius, according to motor.no
- Kia EV4 – 34 percent
- Hyundai Ioniq 9 – 38 percent
- Audi A6 – 38 percent
- Volkswagen ID. Buzz – 38 percent
- BMW iX – 39 percent
- Volvo ES90 – 40 percent
- Tesla Model Y – 40 percent
- Mercedes-Benz CLA – 41 percent
- Volvo EX90 – 45 percent
- Lucid Air – 46 percent
Chinese EVs
While we didn’t include them in the lists above, it is worth noting that some of the best performers in the outlet’s winter EV test were Chinese EVs, at least in terms of percentage of range lost. In the extreme cold of this year’s test, the MG 6S gave away only 29 percent of its advertised range; the MG IM6 lost 30 percent. They were the top two finishers by that metric.
Here’s hoping for a similar study carried out in Canada that would include EVs popular here, for instance the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Tesla Model 3, VW ID.4, Chevrolet Equinox EV and even Cadillac’s trio of electric SUVs, the Vistiq, Lyriq and Optiq.