CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — With another chilly weekend on its way to the Richmond area, many electric vehicle owners are learning their car batteries aren’t exactly built for the cold weather.
A group of electric vehicle drivers lined up outside a gas station in Chesterfield County Friday, waiting to charge their cars in the chilly conditions. One of them was Shanna Fiszer, who was driving from New Jersey all the way to Miami with plans to stop every two hours along the way, just in case.
“I want to make sure that I don’t get too depleted. I don’t want to get past at least 20 or 30,” Fiszer said about the battery level on her car.
Fiszer said she just recently got back from Europe and found her battery had almost completely drained while she was gone.
“I was just so scared because when I left it, it was an 80%,” Fiszer said. “When I came back, it was at 15%.”
The director of approved auto repair for AAA Club Alliance, Bob Kazmierczak, said batteries don’t fair well in freezing temperatures. He said they tend to die a lot faster than normal when it’s colder out.
“Anything really that gets below freezing, I would say would be the temperatures that we’d see batteries lose their charge or lose their capacity, if you will,” Kazmierczak said.
He said electric vehicles are also impacted by low temperatures more because of how much power it takes to warm the vehicle and the cabin.
“Folks will be using, for example, heat, and that’s going to use a lot more electricity,” said Kazmierczak. “And the other part of it is that, you know, cold just reduces the amount of available charge that the battery has.”
To counter this, Kazmierczak said to warm up the car while it’s charging. He also said to familiarize yourself with your route ahead of time.
“Make sure that you’re really planning your trip. So, understand the distance that your vehicle can go, and then make sure that you know where the next available chargers are,” Kazmierczak said.
A map showing charging stations across the Richmond area can be found here.
