Speculation - will Scout use the new EV battery announced by VW?

[J Alynn]

I live in a very hilly place and the best thing about EV's is parking it overnight off the grid in very high places. It gets charged considerably through regen on your trip downhill. I lose about 30% of my range when the polar vortex comes visiting.

Welcome to the crazy train and thanks for posting. We always like fresh blood around here . Enjoy the forum

 

[Cranky Canuck]

I've long said that the last places to adopt EV's, will be very, very cold places. Batteries just do NOT like the cold. So I hear you there, and understand that you've got to do what you have to do. No worries there.

If you drive from heated (or at least not as frozen) garage to drive around and come back, not a huge deal. But anything that gets cold soaked, is going to have a hard time.

I read an article a while ago about how someone was trying to charge their EV with a level 1 charger (normal 15 amp wall outlet), at like -5f or something like that. And that most of the energy was used to keep the battery warm, not actually charging the thing.

We are lucky around here. Our low temps very rarely dip into the 20's.

I occasionally go play in the mountains, and I have wondered how an EV would do parked overnight at the peak, while I snowshoe and build snow caves. But even then "most" of the time, our mountain temps here are more like the 0-15f range, not -30f. I may even bring the Jeep or my PHEV on those, just in case.

I personally doubt that we'll see Sodium Ion batteries in the Scout, at least for the first gen/reveal. They are just still pretty rare in the automotive world, so while they're standing up a new brand, with so many other new things, I'm sure they'll be sticking with "what is pretty standard and works well" for many things, just to simplify.

But a "cold weather model" that used different battery tech, could totally be an interesting thing.

Canadian here. I've been driving EVs in Canadian winters since 2017. They work fine in the cold. The main concern is how the cabin is heated, not the battery chemistry. If the EV doesn't have a heat pump it will suffer. If it does it's usually fine. My car lives outside all winter. It goes down to -40 here. EVs do very well - better in fact than my old combustion vehicles. My EV heats up almost immediately (by the end of the block) thanks to the heat pump whereas my old gas and then diesel vehicles sometimes wouldn't provide warm air until I was arriving at the office.

It's true that using a Level 1 in cold temps is hit or miss for charging. That's just math. But that doesn't mean EVs aren't fine in the winter, it just means cold temps require more energy in general which is true regardless of the energy source. Everything is harder at -20.

 

[Chaz26]

Canadian here. I've been driving EVs in Canadian winters since 2017. They work fine in the cold. The main concern is how the cabin is heated, not the battery chemistry. If the EV doesn't have a heat pump it will suffer. If it does it's usually fine. My car lives outside all winter. It goes down to -40 here. EVs do very well - better in fact than my old combustion vehicles. My EV heats up almost immediately (by the end of the block) thanks to the heat pump whereas my old gas and then diesel vehicles sometimes wouldn't provide warm air until I was arriving at the office.

It's true that using a Level 1 in cold temps is hit or miss for charging. That's just math. But that doesn't mean EVs aren't fine in the winter, it just means cold temps require more energy in general which is true regardless of the energy source. Everything is harder at -20.

Yeah mine (Telsa Model 3 with heat pump) wasn't too bad last year when we went to Quebec at the end of January. That was around -20 or below and we didn't have a charger at the place we were staying. Used up a couple of percent to defrost and heat up but certainly was livable. If I lived in those conditions all the time and had my usual level 2 charger setup then it would be absolutely fine. Will be doing the same again in January next year.

 

[J Alynn]

Canadian here. I've been driving EVs in Canadian winters since 2017. They work fine in the cold. The main concern is how the cabin is heated, not the battery chemistry. If the EV doesn't have a heat pump it will suffer. If it does it's usually fine. My car lives outside all winter. It goes down to -40 here. EVs do very well - better in fact than my old combustion vehicles. My EV heats up almost immediately (by the end of the block) thanks to the heat pump whereas my old gas and then diesel vehicles sometimes wouldn't provide warm air until I was arriving at the office.

It's true that using a Level 1 in cold temps is hit or miss for charging. That's just math. But that doesn't mean EVs aren't fine in the winter, it just means cold temps require more energy in general which is true regardless of the energy source. Everything is harder at -20.

Thanks for your educated input

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Canadian here. I've been driving EVs in Canadian winters since 2017. They work fine in the cold. The main concern is how the cabin is heated, not the battery chemistry. If the EV doesn't have a heat pump it will suffer. If it does it's usually fine. My car lives outside all winter. It goes down to -40 here. EVs do very well - better in fact than my old combustion vehicles. My EV heats up almost immediately (by the end of the block) thanks to the heat pump whereas my old gas and then diesel vehicles sometimes wouldn't provide warm air until I was arriving at the office.

It's true that using a Level 1 in cold temps is hit or miss for charging. That's just math. But that doesn't mean EVs aren't fine in the winter, it just means cold temps require more energy in general which is true regardless of the energy source. Everything is harder at -20.

Great points.

Another one:
Almost every ICE in the very cold northern regions of the Americas is a hybrid. Those 120v plugs hanging out of the front so people can plug in to keep the 12V battery and engine block heaters running are a necessity to keep the vehicles from freezing and failing.

When I was a kid, one of my jobs was to get up at about 02:00 to put the coals from our fireplace under the truck’s engine block so it was warm enough for my father to start at 04:00 to go to work. We lived off-grid so having a block heater wasn’t an option.

 

[Cranky Canuck]

Great points.

Another one:
Almost every ICE in the very cold northern regions of the Americas is a hybrid. Those 120v plugs hanging out of the front so people can plug in to keep the 12V battery and engine block heaters running are a necessity to keep the vehicles from freezing and failing.

When I was a kid, one of my jobs was to get up at about 02:00 to put the coals from our fireplace under the truck’s engine block so it was warm enough for my father to start at 04:00 to go to work. We lived off-grid so having a block heater wasn’t an option.

lol that's also true although with new oil blends like 5w50 block heaters have become less prevalent, at least here they have. Also the newer hybrids and plug-in hybrids don't use wimpy starter motors anymore, they use what is essentially a traction motor to turn the gas engine over so they almost always start on the first go just out of brute force. The oil could be hard maple toffee and it would still turn over.

I forgot to mention cold weather EV range performance. In my experience with both old EVs that used only resistive heaters and modern ones with sophisticated battery thermal management and heat pumps, winter range is rarely an issue. The vast majority of daily trips are around town and never come close to the maximum range of the vehicle. Counterintuitively longer road trips in the winter aren't bad either for a variety of reasons.

The first reason is that such trips are usually known about in advance so there is almost always an opportunity to do some minimum planning for them. What I mean is that you usually know that 'tomorrow I'll be going on a 6 hour drive somewhere' so you're able to set the car to precondition. Preconditioning basically gets the car warmed up and ready to go while it's still connected to the charger. What that does is all but eliminate the majority of cold weather issues you might otherwise experience, even for people like me that leave the car outside all winter. The car will defrost the windshield and warm up the cabin off the mains power but it will also warm up the battery to near operating temperatures. That is usually enough to eliminate a big chunk of the cold weather range penalty. On the super cold days (below -20) you'll still see a bit of a range hit and may need an extra stop along the route just because the car loses heat faster than it can replace it in that weather. But most winter days aren't below -20 so that's almost never a real issue.

The second reason is because highway driving and fast charging generate heat (through internal battery resistance) which help to warm it up. So basically the longer the road trip and the more charging stops you do the less of a cold weather range hit you'll see. I've had the battery temps up to +25C even though outside it was -10 or -15! Batteries have a lot of thermal mass so once they're warmed up they tend to stay warm for a while. (+25C is basically the ideal summer operating temp for my vehicle btw).

Winter tires and slushy roads will increase drag and rolling resistance of course so there will always be a loss of a few kms of range from that no matter how warm your car is but we're talking a couple percentage points - a handful of kms on a 500 km nominal car. The same is also true for combustion vehicles but those vehicles tend to be so inefficient anyway the most people don't even notice the extra tank or two of gas they buy that month.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

 

[6-ScoutFamily]

Canadian here. I've been driving EVs in Canadian winters since 2017. They work fine in the cold. The main concern is how the cabin is heated, not the battery chemistry. If the EV doesn't have a heat pump it will suffer. If it does it's usually fine. My car lives outside all winter. It goes down to -40 here. EVs do very well - better in fact than my old combustion vehicles. My EV heats up almost immediately (by the end of the block) thanks to the heat pump whereas my old gas and then diesel vehicles sometimes wouldn't provide warm air until I was arriving at the office.

It's true that using a Level 1 in cold temps is hit or miss for charging. That's just math. But that doesn't mean EVs aren't fine in the winter, it just means cold temps require more energy in general which is true regardless of the energy source. Everything is harder at -20.

Yes, had to put my old Jeep in low range to get it to move until the transfer case warmed up.

 

[cyure]

lol that's also true although with new oil blends like 5w50 block heaters have become less prevalent, at least here they have. Also the newer hybrids and plug-in hybrids don't use wimpy starter motors anymore, they use what is essentially a traction motor to turn the gas engine over so they almost always start on the first go just out of brute force. The oil could be hard maple toffee and it would still turn over.

I forgot to mention cold weather EV range performance. In my experience with both old EVs that used only resistive heaters and modern ones with sophisticated battery thermal management and heat pumps, winter range is rarely an issue. The vast majority of daily trips are around town and never come close to the maximum range of the vehicle. Counterintuitively longer road trips in the winter aren't bad either for a variety of reasons.

The first reason is that such trips are usually known about in advance so there is almost always an opportunity to do some minimum planning for them. What I mean is that you usually know that 'tomorrow I'll be going on a 6 hour drive somewhere' so you're able to set the car to precondition. Preconditioning basically gets the car warmed up and ready to go while it's still connected to the charger. What that does is all but eliminate the majority of cold weather issues you might otherwise experience, even for people like me that leave the car outside all winter. The car will defrost the windshield and warm up the cabin off the mains power but it will also warm up the battery to near operating temperatures. That is usually enough to eliminate a big chunk of the cold weather range penalty. On the super cold days (below -20) you'll still see a bit of a range hit and may need an extra stop along the route just because the car loses heat faster than it can replace it in that weather. But most winter days aren't below -20 so that's almost never a real issue.

The second reason is because highway driving and fast charging generate heat (through internal battery resistance) which help to warm it up. So basically the longer the road trip and the more charging stops you do the less of a cold weather range hit you'll see. I've had the battery temps up to +25C even though outside it was -10 or -15! Batteries have a lot of thermal mass so once they're warmed up they tend to stay warm for a while. (+25C is basically the ideal summer operating temp for my vehicle btw).

Winter tires and slushy roads will increase drag and rolling resistance of course so there will always be a loss of a few kms of range from that no matter how warm your car is but we're talking a couple percentage points - a handful of kms on a 500 km nominal car. The same is also true for combustion vehicles but those vehicles tend to be so inefficient anyway the most people don't even notice the extra tank or two of gas they buy that month.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

Thank you for that. I may have read it on here somewhere before but I didn’t realize that’s what preconditioning meant. I didn’t realize that was a thing you could do while the car was plugged in. My Scout will be garaged and honestly we don’t take long trips in the winter if at all avoidable. I have the luxury of working from home and we do the majority of our trips to Chicago and various places when the weather is nice.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Thank you for that. I may have read it on here somewhere before but I didn’t realize that’s what preconditioning meant. I didn’t realize that was a thing you could do while the car was plugged in. My Scout will be garaged and honestly we don’t take long trips in the winter if at all avoidable. I have the luxury of working from home and we do the majority of our trips to Chicago and various places when the weather is nice.

Preconditioning has two meanings, sadly. The one @Cranky Canuck is using is the most common one. One thing you can’t do safely with an ICE is start it and leave it running in the garage to warm up the cabin.

With many EVs, you can set a precondition time so its cabin is always at the perfect-for-you temperature when you’re ready to go. My partner uses this three days a week for when she goes to the gym.

Most also have a remote start option so if you know you’re leaving in 20 minutes, you tap your app and it engages the car’s cabin HVAC to condition the cabin for you. We use this a lot when we’ve gone down to the valley in the summer and it’s 130 F outside and we want the cabin to cool off. When we’re leaving the restaurant/store/whatever, we start the vehicle remotely and tell it to cool the cabin. So it’s a nice and cold 80 degrees in when we get to the vehicle.

Both of these are possible on or off the charger. If the vehicle is plugged in, it’ll use the power coming from the charger. If it’s not plugged in, it’ll use the battery energy.

 

[Jasco]

Starting a trip with a preconditioned battery is a boon for efficiency, but so is the ability to precondition the battery while enroute to a charging station. A preconditioned battery can save a lot of time when charging, especially in temperature extremes. Preconditioning is built into the route planning software of many EVs including my 2018 Model 3. Other manufacturers also offer the ability to manually precondition the battery while driving. Sadly, Tesla does not so if an unplanned charging stop is necessary I have to set a route to the charging station rather than simply tapping a button to start the process. I'm hoping Scout offers this feature and I think I recall reading that they will.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

Starting a trip with a preconditioned battery is a boon for efficiency, but so is the ability to precondition the battery while enroute to a charging station. A preconditioned battery can save a lot of time when charging, especially in temperature extremes. Preconditioning is built into the route planning software of many EVs including my 2018 Model 3. Other manufacturers also offer the ability to manually precondition the battery while driving. Sadly, Tesla does not so if an unplanned charging stop is necessary I have to set a route to the charging station rather than simply tapping a button to start the process. I'm hoping Scout offers this feature and I think I recall reading that they will.

And this is the other definition of preconditioning, which is adjusting the battery temperature to be best for the particular use coming up, usually driving in cold or preparing to charge.


Battery Preconditioning: Adjusting battery temperature to best meet short-term future needs. Usually either warming the battery in preparation for a trip or adjusting the temperature in preparation for DC fast charging.
Cabin Preconditioning: Adjusting the cabin temperature to best meet the user’s comfort expectations.

Both can improve the user experience.