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As for any battery-operated device, cold temperatures affect the battery range. Is it also available for Electric Vehicles (EV’s)?

Yes, but the cold weather alone is not the direct factor, the other processes needed to supplement in cold temperatures. The cold weather doesn’t necessarily make a vehicle’s battery drain faster. Any aspect that significantly drains the battery, such as increased usage or the warming air conditioning on full blast, could affect range.

How Much Battery Range is Lost in EVs During Winter?

The good news is that this temporary range loss is not permanent, and as the ice melts and temperatures rise, your vehicle’s expected range at full charge should return to normal. Studies show that 20 degrees Fahrenheit weather could reduce an EV’s range by 10 to 12 percent, while the use of in-vehicle climate control might amplify range loss to 40 percent.

And this is backed up by this chart of EVs created by Autoblog.com.

Source: Autoblog.com

There are two main reasons why this happens to electric vehicles during cold weather:

• In cold temperatures, chemical and physical reactions in a battery occur more slowly.

We’ll dig into some physics and chemistry lessons, but we’ll be short. In cold weather, ions flow through the battery cells more slowly than in warm weather, causing lithium to build up outside the node and turn into an inert metal. This metal disrupts the future flow of energy and uses up some of the lithium that is supposed to power the battery. In single-cell observations, this can lead to a decrease in power and range.

• Heating systems during the cold season

Traditional cars use internal combustion engines (ICE), which are rather inefficient. The energy that ICE cars don’t use to propel them forward is lost as “waste heat” which is typically just lost energy. In cold weather, however, ICE cars redirect this waste heat from the engine to warm the cabin. On the other hand, an electric vehicle (EV) has a much more efficient motor that does not generate as much heat. In the cold, available motor heat is routed to warm the battery itself, meaning that cabin heating requires a power source. Cabin heaters generally draw from the high voltage battery, reducing how much battery is left for driving.

Do EV tires wear faster during the wintertime?

EVs have a different weight distribution, and their torque and acceleration put fossil-fueled cars to shame. Accelerations like that can, however, wear out the tires over time. In addition, their added weight and its distribution, with the bulk of the battery weight often located toward the rear tires, can lead to increased and uneven tire wear.

The discussion around whether the tires wear faster on EVs is highly debatable, as tire producers run tests that show that the wear could be less damaging than on conventional vehicles.

However, any fleet owner is responsible for knowing in advance such parameters: as tire usage, battery range, and available energy.

Does your Telematics Provider offer all the necessary information for your EV fleet during winter?

You can easily face all your telematic challenges with a large spectrum of parameters for electric and hybrid vehicles. Cango Mobility has developed an entire fleet management system with Electric and Hybrid Fleet Operators in mind. 

Parameters such as Battery Remain Capacity (Wh), Battery Temperature (%), Range (km), Torque Maximum, Battery Voltage, and All tires pressure(bar) are meant to help drivers and fleet managers get through winter with ease and prevent any incidents from happening.

Read all about our Electric & Hybrid Fleet management solutions and get in touch with us to make it work for you!

Disclaimer: This article doesn’t show an opposition for the electric and hybrid solutions. Please take it as a writted debate on whether an electric vehicle means a more sustainable way of driving. 

The electric and hybrid vehicles represent one of the most popular ways to fight climate change caused by carbon dioxide emissions, which can be also implemented on the personal level, not only by companies and governments. As transportation accounts for almost 25% of the global GNG emissions, the people started to be concerned about the environmental aspect and embrace the ideas of hybrid and electric vehicles. Let’s see how much of an impact this measure could have on the environment, economy and society.

The double-edged sword of switching from conventional to electric and hybrid cars

Electric vehicles seem to be a greener option to combustion vehicles, but are they the best alternative? The number of electric vehicles sold by 2021 reached 16 million units, accounting 9% of the global sales, mainly from North America, Europe and China. Leading us to one of the concerns. 

Who actually pays for switching the world to electric vehicles? The named markets are the most prosperous in the world, but how much of the cost of becoming “greener” are they willing to pay? The footprint on the environment made by the production of electric vehicles is mainly due to the mining of the necessary metals and rare earths for lithium-ion batteries, which consumes a lot of energy and water and releases toxic compounds.

The top 5 countries that extract lithium are Bolivia, Chile and Argentina followed closely by Australia and China. Out of these countries, the biggest consumer is China and most of the resources are stored in reserves from Chile. Here are some environmental and social concerns of lithium exctraction:

• Approximately 2.2 million litres of water is needed to produce one ton of lithium
• The extraction of lithium has caused water-related conflicts with different communities, such as the community of Toconao in the north of Chile 
• Lithium extraction inevitably harms the soil and causes air contamination (a FoE report shows)
• 3.2 tonnes of CO2 are produced in the manufacture of the battery for an electric vehicle

Is there an alternative to the alternative?

According to the European Parliament, “the production and disposal of an electric car is less environmentally friendly than a car with an internal combustion engine.” And that’s because they analyzed the whole process: the extraction of the materials, the manufacturing and transportation, the energy needed to charge the batteries, and the management of waste at the end of their lifecycle made us consider the impact on the environment. 

The final question is whether the full life cycle of an electric vehicle  is less harmful to the environment compared to conventional cars.

There are some voices that claim that 80% of the electricity comes from fossil fuels. In an ideal future, all vehicles run on 0 carbon emissions power. The populations in the busy cities may benefit from a less congested atmosphere, but to make sure that the electric cars represent the best alternative, the solution stands in making energy the clean “fuel” for electric cars.

Until then, technology advances in researching and developing alternatives to the alternative: hydrogen vehicles, BioNGV or Biomethane, Biofuels. We’re keeping an eye on the producers to announce their innovations in terms of cleaner transportation.

Conclusions

Our telematics solutions are able to read data from electric, hybrid and fuel cell vehicles as well. If your company switched to an electric fleet, make sure you use the right telematics to collect accurate and reliable data.

Bianca is here to hear more from you and help understand which solutions fit your needs and how are they created in order to offer you the best insight. 

Schedule a call with Bianca.

No matter the size of your fleet, using telematics adds value from day one of implementation. The managers unlock the possibility to understand how their vehicles (no matter what type – cars, trucks, trailers, ships and many more) can become an important data provider for their business. Simply put, telematics supports fleet tracking, management and prediction of what will happen to various parts of the vehicles. That being said, the expenses with a qualitative telematics system is a long-term investment that proves its efficacy from day one of implementation.

Improved Fleet [add your needs] Depends on Better Data

You can complete the sentence with “real-time visibility”, “KPIs”, “operating costs”, and more. Better data means accurate data. Once you choose the telematics provider that is able to read all your fleet data in an accurate manner, your “everything” related to your fleet will improve.

A telematics system is way beyond GPS Tracking. While this technology alone is very powerful for any fleet manager, with benefits such as reduced fuel consumption and maintenance costs (leading to higher revenue), a mature fleet management system provides data that help improve almost every aspect of a fleet, from driver behavior to vehicle performance.

Added to the cost advantage, fleet managers can benefit from many more aspects when choosing accurate telematics. Our top advantages, based on the opinion of our customers, are described below:

1. Improved safety

We would call this aspect the most important, as we speak here about human lives. Not only drivers’, but also the other participants in the traffic.  Telematics solutions such as Driver behavior automatically tag both bad and good driving events and provide a monthly safety score for the entire fleet and individual drivers. Based on this data, fleet managers can train and support drivers to obtain better scores and thus, increase safety.

2. Regulations compliant

The complicated set of trucking and other vehicle regulations could be hard to follow by fleet managers and drivers as well. Telematics help fleets comply with those regulations by monitoring driving hours, and managing logging systems. By relying on a complex and effective Fleet management system helps avoid penalties and drivers sidelining.

3. Reduced vehicle breakdowns

Vehicle maintenance is hard to track manually. It means that somebody would technically check each vehicle manually after each trip. Telematics do this automatically, eliminating the guesswork and increasing the tracking maintenance based on the miles driven and events instead of calendar dates. Once you install a telematics system that diagnoses early errors and issues, your fleet works at high efficiency scores and you avoid any minor issue become an expensive problem.

How much money are companies willing to spend for a qualitative fleet management system?

No matter the size of your fleet, telematics are aimed to support fleet tracking and management and provide real-time data, to help managers detect issues and errors… only if they are optimized correctly and use quality data.

The most discussed topic when it comes to telematics is their price. Our CMO, Bianca Barbu, often wears conversations around this subject.

“I hear pretty often comments related to pricing when it comes to telematics. The most common lines are: “ohhh, it’s expensive” (compared to what), “I have now different prices from X” (yes, you do, but the present solution that you have didn’t solve your problems), “I don’t need so many features” (you do not use all the features from your smartphone, but you are prepared and you buy a new smartphone every year- not to mention the price).

When we make a buying decision for ourselves we consider high-quality products even if they are expensive because they look better, they last longer and they fit our needs.

I am curious to know about the buying decision when it comes to telematics products and services.”

This situation created the need to consult other fleet managers’ opinion on the subject. Asked “What a reasonable price for a telematics solution means to you?” on a poll, here is what they answered:

In order to deliver the promised results and add value to the insights offered, fleet managers need to acknowledge how important it is to opt for a qualitative solution. You can see here how much an inefficient solution influences the data obtained, in an example on fuel measurement.

What does a good telematics provider offer?

Let’s start with answering the question What does Cango Mobility not offer? Poor data. We strive to improve our solutions continuously to track and manage our customers’ fleet efficiently and adjusted to the real parameters. While it is important to note that telematics are not a one-size-fits-all solution, be sure that they can be optimized and personalized to any company’s needs. 

No matter what parameters you wish to optimize, track and manage, the only important thing to keep in mind is that they need to offer qualitative data (meanig real data), so you can instantly intervene and fix any error.

If you are willing to understand and maintain your fleet efficiently, do your company a favor and opt for a qualitative telematics solution.

Bianca is here to hear more from you and help understand which solutions fit your needs and how are they created in order to offer you the best insight. 

Schedule a call with Bianca.