How to survive cold weather in your Leaf when stuck

[knightmb]

"Tesla Model 3 Owner Thankful For His EV When Stuck On I-95
He was stuck for 14 hours without any issues while ICE owners had to worry about toxic fumes and running out of gas."

https://insideevs.com/news/560870/tesla-model3/

Great article, the comments were entertaining to read as well, a lot about how "gas" vehicles will run for days and days on just a little gas, but then someone linked in some actual test article about the gas going pretty fast at idle because the vehicle has to raise the RPMs to keep the engine warm (and cabin), which just burns the gas even faster, etc...

[LeftieBiker]

The only ICE vehicles that can "run for days" on a tank of gas are hybrids. Possibly only Priuses and hybrids that use very similar (to Prius) systems.

[goldbrick]

True, but I'd guess some diesel cars could run for days on a single tank. Of course, they can do this because they're efficient enough to not generate a lot of excess heat. My old VW TDI would not stay warm on a cold day at idle, it had to be revved up considerably to get the ICE warm.

[LeftieBiker]

It's because diesels require much less fuel at idle than do gas engines. Presumably that's because they have a higher combustion efficiency, and because their valve timing isn't biased towards higher RPM performance.

[BeyondBeLeaf]

Some other stories from the I-95 freeze about a Tesla driver.
https://twitter.com/myworldtaw/status/1 ... 5368780806

With the rare exception, none of the people replying to the Twitter post have figured out that the Tesla is way better than the ICE cars for getting stuck in traffic- even with a small amount of battery power left it should be able to heat for hours. Seems like the owner should know that also, and should be able to contact Tesla to get it figured out....

I was thinking the same thing, but imagine you were on your way to a QC station and low battery charge... and then you get stuck there.

I think that if one was to survive 24 hours in that situation, minimal heat settings should still be enough to keep you from freezing for a day and still have enough to turtle to the nearest QC station at a low speed. If you could just get the EV power consumption down to a minimal 500 watts for example, then 24 hours of heat would cost roughly 12 kWh of capacity. It would be a touch stretch for a Gen 1 Leaf (with a 24 kWh battery), but I think any of the Gen 2 Leaf, Tesla, Bolts, etc. could swing that without much issue provided they didn't get stranded with less than 33% SOC when it happened.

Living in Texas and through the cluster last year where power was out, I wonder what happens if you are in an extended blackout and can't get any electricity. I've made it a point to charge my Leaf to full power the day before we're set to receive any cold weather. I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.

[knightmb]

Living in Texas and through the cluster last year where power was out, I wonder what happens if you are in an extended blackout and can't get any electricity. I've made it a point to charge my Leaf to full power the day before we're set to receive any cold weather. I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.

I agree that having a extra can of gas is convenient (at home) for the ICE vehicle, but gas stations need electricity to work also. An interesting bit of math though, a gas generator of electricity is usually twice as efficient as the gas engine in your car. If you were in a situation where you had an extended outage and you needed transportation, would it be better to pour a gallon of gas into your tank or use it to charge your EV?
In that example, you would be better off using the gas to run a generator and charge your EV as you will get more mileage that way than if you used it in your car/truck instead, as an extreme example. That is also provided you had the time to wait for the generator to charge the EV and didn't need to drive in the next few hours.

Also, I do the exact same thing with mine. If bad weather is coming tomorrow (ice or snow, possible power outages because of it), I make sure to fully charge both my own and my wife's Leaf just in case. At least the weather is freezing at that point, so I'm not too worried about the battery being near 100% SOC for a while.

[BrookoverShane]

Is Leaf still use CHAdeMO charging cable?

[OldManCan]

Is Leaf still use CHAdeMO charging cable?

yes

[OldManCan]

Probably some of you may have seen this but since it is very relevant to this thread I wanted to copy / paste here. This is from FB - Nissan LEAF/Ariya Owners USA - group. Thank you Nick Anastasiadis for the experiment and the video

Just under 13 kW used in 7.5 hrs sleeping in my car with Temps down to 17 degrees F. I kept the camera going the entire time just used hyperlapse and made each minute last a second. So if you see anyone say your EV will die in the cold, send this to them.
https://youtu.be/Uoj_bS0REMg