BUFFALO, N.Y. — Motor club federation AAA recently published a study on the effect of temperature on electric car performance. The cars tested were the Nissan Leaf Plus, Tesla Model 3s, BMW i3s, Chevrolet Bolt EV, and Volkswagen E-Golf.
What they found was that each cars performance was adversely affected when the temperature dropped to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Elizabeth Carey, the AAA Director of Public Relations and Corporate Communications for Western and Central New York, described how the findings in the study were tested in a controlled testing area where technicians could accurately measure how electric vehicles would react in extreme climates.
"What they found was that if your driving in temperatures that say they get as low at 20 degrees which we see in Western New York all the time, you're gonna lose that charge on your battery so you're only going to get about 59% worth of what you wanted to get on that so you're losing about 41% of your charge on your battery if you're driving in 20 degree temperatures and you're also using heat in your car at the same time," said Carey.
The study also found that on average, an outside temperature of 20°F, resulted in a cost increase equal to an additional $24.27 for every 1,000 miles while an outside temperature of 95°F, resulted cost increase equal to an additional $7.94 for every 1,000 miles.
The full study can be found here.