We’re edging ever closer to the Christmas holiday – and for some of you, that will mean driving somewhere in pretty poor weather.
If this is your first year of EV ownership, this might, as a consequence, be the first time you’ve had to drive your EV in snow. And while some news outlets and social media will have you believe that you shouldn’t try driving an electric vehicle in the snow, the reality is very different…
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00:00 – Introduction
01:07 – Most electric vehicles can cope with snow (within reason)
03:16 – Get good shoes!
05:13 – Snow socks, not snow chains
07:09 – Tips when driving
09:12 – Cruise control, semi-autonomous features
14:18 – Thanks, and Goodbye!
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Script: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
Presenters: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
Editor, Colorist: Michael Horton
Art and Animation: Erin Carlie
Producer: Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield
© Transport Evolved LLC, 2023
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It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year oh yeah not allowed to sing anyway I’m pretty sure that many of you watching this video are among the sizable number of people around the world who traded in an internal combustion engine vehicle for an electric one this year congratulations I’m also betting that
The majority of people watching this are residents of the Northern Hemisphere and according to our own Google Analytics are likely to live somewhere or be traveling somewhere in your new electric car where there just might be snow and given that the news media is constantly telling us how terrible electric
Vehicles are in the white stuff we all figured it was time to let you know what to do if it snows and you’re heading somewhere in your EV because contrary to popular belief Eevees are just fine in the snow like any vehicle within Reason the Mercury is plummeting there’s a snow warning on the way and if you’re wondering if you should leave your Eevee at home and get a rental car instead for that cross state or CrossCountry trip to family for the holidays you might be a little worried
You might have made the trip before in the summer but this will be the first time in cold weather and you’ve heard all of those horror stories about cold weather and electric vehicles but the reality is that EES are for the most part just fine and dandy in the cold no
Matter what that weird Uncle likes to tell you we here at the channel have been driving EVS for many many years as our daily drivers and we’ve had our fair share of bad weather to deal with granted living here in the Pacific Northwest none of us get huge amounts of
Snow every year but I’ve done my fair share of winter driving both here and in the Arctic and I live up in the foothills of the Coast Range where we do tend to get significantly more snow in the average winter than those in downtown Portland thanks in part The
Increased elevation at my house last winter we got well over a foot here when the rest of the region was dealing with slush and sleet meanwhile Kate Walton Elliot living and working around the Salish sea often finds her winter commutes to her other job she’s an emergency room nurse for part of the
Week in case you didn’t know tends to be on unplowed roads at the butt crack of the this shouldn’t be legal in the morning time and thus she’s got a fair bit of wintry snowy Eevee Driving Experience too and I know people are watching this right now laughing at us
Because you live somewhere where you get huge amounts of snow maybe Upstate New York or perhaps you get lake effect snow where you live but with this Winter’s El Nino pattern you’re going to be getting more snow than usual and while places with higher snow levels in Winter are
Usually better at clearing the road it doesn’t hurt to be prepared the first thing I want to say about winter driving in your EV is something that might be too late to do if you’re about to make that immediate trip for the holidays make sure you have good winter shoes
Eves are by their very design capable of putting a huge amount of torque down to the wheels and when the weather isn’t great you want decent grip in the last 10 years or so allseason tires have become a whole lot more capable and inclement weather than they used to be
But they’re not the best when there’s lying snow and if you’re going to be driving your Eevee in snow in winter a lot you should consider switching out those tires for a better alternative the first option is of course to go with dedicated winter tires like those produced by Nokian I’m a big
Fan of the Nokian Haka palita tires which frankly I think are the best non-studded winter tires on sale but there are plenty of other good choices out there winter tires have cying designed to grab a decent amount of snow as the wheel rotates which in turn actually improves your grip and gets the
Wheel going where you want it to and while some people do swear by a studded winter tire the latest generation of non-studded winter tires are usually more than enough unless you’re going ice Lake driving in which case studded tires do have an edge if you don’t want to go
All out on winter tires consider replacing your cars stock all season tires with all weather tires not to be confused with all season tires all weather tires a tires designed to be capable of working all year round but they also have the same snowflake symbol AS dedicated winter tires along with
Some siping to help you get a grip when there’s lying snow if that sounds like too much the next item on your list is some kind of traction aid but here’s where warnings get real because most modern Eevees on sale today are not designed to be used with snow chains and
If you use them on your EV then suffer an issue the chances are your cards manufacturer might decide not to continue honoring your warranty similarly some insurance companies do take a very dim view of people using snow chains on cars they’re not designed to be used with and again could
Invalidate any claims arising from improper use I’m not entirely sure why so many Eevees are banned from using snow chains by their manufacturers but I’m going to guess it’s got something to do with the generally small clearance between wheel and wheel Arch as well as the potential for a poorly fitted chain
Coming off and impacting itself in your car’s battery pack that said while restrictions on snow chain use would be considered enforceable in some markets around the world they’re viewed as more likely strong suggestions and threats in others at the end of the day it’s your
Car and you’re an adult at least I hope so so before you use snow chains do some research and make your own mind up while snow chains might be out of the question snow stocks meanwhile are most certainly just fine they’re also usually easier to put on than snow chains and don’t take
Up as much space in your boot or trunk or even frunk of course practicing how to put them on and take them off again is a really good thing to do before any winter trip because you really don’t want to be stuck on the side of I80 with
Trucks rolling by swearing about your life choices do you talking of which I’m going to assume you’re going to pack all of the usual winter weather things for a snowy holiday trip you know like a shovel blankets and hot drinks right winter prep out of the way
Let’s talk about driving as I mentioned earlier EES do have incredible amounts of talk from near standstill and when driving in inclement weather allow yourself some extra time to pull away mash the pedal to the floor and you will likely make the wheels go and go nowhere fast but get going St
L you’ll have fewer problems when you’re actually underway you’ll likely find that the weight distribution of your EV and its lower center of gravity should keep everything behaving sensibly if you keep your car out of sport mode you’re going to be more than capable of making
Good progress as long as you follow the standard driving any vehicle in the Snow Mantra which is basically imagine your dancing with a a very large hippopotamus or perhaps maybe a T-Rex personally I think that when you have your EV set to use regenerative braking on accelerator liftoff you’re also less
Likely to suffer any consequences coming to a stop especially if your car has true one pedal driving in fact honestly the only time I’ve actually skidded in the snow in an EV was one I tried to use friction braking driving with one pedal certainly does take some practice but it
Does make snow driving easier and gentle movements with the accelerator should keep you pointing in the right direction and remaining safe of course if you’re really lucky your EV may have a snow mode although that’s kind of rare among most EVS today essentially all snow mode does is to remap the accelerator pedal
To make it harder to put large amounts of power down to the wheels during initial pedal travel and in some cases can even reduce the amount of power you can use Honestly though if your car has a eco mode of some description it’s usually a similar effect as eco mode
Also tends to remap the go pedal so you have to press it further for the same effect when compared to regular operational modes additionally while we are on the subject of driving I should probably talk about cruise control and semi-autonomous features because well many many EVS now have some kind of
Level two semi-autonomous capability do not under any circumstances engage cruise control Lane keep assist or anything more advanced like autopilot or full stelf driving beta when it is snowing frankly if you think your car will cope with that kind of weather on its own there is a very big gap between your perceived
Expectations and capabilities of the car versus the real world frankly though the same is true of any system like this in any suboptimal driving condition basically if there is a large risk that your vehicle will lose grip and start to slide you shouldn’t be using any kind of Advanced Driver assistance feature the
Same is true of driving on mud or gravel just just don’t do it if you want to drive on that stuff you’re going to have to do the hard work and actually do the driving yourself misuse such systems and you might lose your car or in fact worse
Before we get to the last bit getting out of trouble let’s talk about range and charging in the winter your range will be reduced the colder it gets the smaller your range will be this is due to many many different factors from the fact that air is denser when it’s cold
And requires more energy to push through to the fact that you tend to use more energy in cold weather to keep yourself warm in the cabin and also because battery packs are like us humans they perform better when it’s neither super cold or super hot that said I’ve gone into into the
Various reasons for this in the past and I don’t want to repeat myself here but the too long didn’t read is that you need to be prepared for shorter distances between charging stations as you might be for a same trip in the summer you should also prepare for
Longer weights at charging stations as well as a longer time charging because again if your battery pack is cold and the outside temperature is low your car will likely charge more slowly this though is by the way why you should always check to see if your car has some kind of B
Preconditioning if it does activate it on your trip long before you hit the charging station because it will not only make your charging experience more pleasant but it could also make your battery pack happier and more responsive to both current drain and current dump finally for charging preconditioning
Before you leave is also a big thing so try to time your departure in advance so that your car’s cabin and battery pack are all ready and toasty to go just when you are there are of course so many benefits to preconditioning before departure including minimizing heater
Drain during your drive and of course not having to worry about clearing ice and snow off your windows because usually it will just melt if your car’s been sat heating up for about half an hour prior to departure so we’ve done driving we’ve done charging so how about
When things do go wrong first be smart don’t drive through snow that’s drifted and don’t attempt to drive on roads that are obviously impossible and it’s also important to keep to your own skill set you may find that a road that you’re not comfortable driving on might be passable
By someone else in an identical car but only because that driver has better Winter Skills than you do basically don’t be a hero finally EES like most modern computer controlled cars do tend to get get a little fussy when it comes to getting out of a sticky situation I.E
When you get stuck traction control in most modern EES will immediately step in if the wheels are detected as spinning sometimes spinning your wheels a little furiously does work if you’re stuck in a rut and you just need to get out of it to continue your
Trip and as various laws of the universe seem to dictate if you are stuck and you need some help it’s likely that your car’s traction control will kick in at the exact moment your car has started to move forwards out of wherever it is in fact stuck as a consequence though it’s
Always a good idea to learn how to turn off your car’s traction control so that if you do get stuck you have a way of getting out but it’s also worth noting that Common Sense prevails make sure that nobody is in the way of your car
And make sure that you don’t bury your car further by just burying the pedal to the floor the smart rule is that if you’re getting nowhere after a few tries stop and come up with another plan so there you have it pack War Drive smart and plan your charging and I hope your
Holiday trip is a very good and safe one let us know in the comments if you’re going somewhere nice and tell us about your own winter driving experiences thanks for joining me today and if you’ve got thoughts make sure you leave them Below in our Discord chat
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