I think most people live in relatively warmer areas, and in truth most are doing fairly short drives to and from work. And if you can afford a Tesla it may start the journey from a heated condo garage. 
I’m more amazed that vehicles operate at all at minus 35C. I don’t think the designers even understand those conditions.
Lots of people have bought the EV vehicles not understanding the limitations in cold climates and have paid thousands of dollars only to find out the vehicle does not have the performance they said at the dealership. I went to a Tesla dealership sat in one and start asking questions after he showed me how I could drive across the United States in a Tesla. The man could not answer my questions about extra people and luggage weight loads and cold. I figured it would take twice as long the drive across the USA in good conditions and that’s if you could find a charging stations not being used so you could charge up your vehicle while you sleep at the only high priced motel close by or go and eat at the close by high priced restaurant and then walk around waiting a few hours for the fast charging to be completed. Why I could go find some crap wood to cut up and be on my way in that a mount of time in my wood gasifier truck. Not really but close.
Bob
They do get it.
Its a question of how many people want a car designed with that in mind.
Most cars are designed for larger markets.
A Canadian would sit high off the ground, with a really great heater and no one else would buy it
All wheel drives are the choice around here. The Subrau is the number one seller it is a great snow car with it’s higher road clearance. There’s one Tesla in town and I have never seen it up at the Mission Ridge Resort or on the snowy streets in town. I did how ever see the Toyota EV car. They had trouble in the in the parking lot on snowy days, needed some pushing to get going. I think a more aggressive studded snow tire would of helped.
Bob
Hi Wallace
if I understand
the big advantage of this type of electric generator is to be disassociated from the demand power of a vehicle engine ?
(it is the battery that releases the power in synchronism with the vehicle )
but does this generator adjust to the charge of the battery?
should it be restarted whenever the battery requires it?
Thierry
The answer to your questions is basically yes.
The charging set was designed to extend the range of an EV.
Alone 5 hp is not enough in most cases to run even a small electric cart.
But added to an EV.
This might double its range.
If you can slow down, even stop and wait this will likely charge a car in a few \
See images in this link for how these are used in China.
Chinese electric cars are not so good
But in some places its all you can buy or it is cost prohibitive to try and liscence a gasoline or diesel car.
That is where these fit in.
Its a stop gap measure to improve the range and performance of these cheap Chinese Evs.
Here is a real slick unit for stationary aplication.
I have a dealer on ebay that i have bought tractor implements off a few times, and 3 years ago while he was filling a container up in china i asked him if he could bring 3 of these small 24 volt stationary generators back for Brian and myself and 1 spare , i think i paid with shipping about AU$200 each for them , nice and quiet little units but lacking in power when run on charcoal , great if you run out of charcoal and run on petrol though in emergency’s .
Dave .
Merry Christmas everyone , hope your day will go as well as ours is right now, about to head off for food at the mother inlaws
It depends on the vehicle. GM put a lot of time in designing their car for performance in both hot and cold climates. GM used used case scenario for rating so they didn’t get sued because there are a bunch of Tesla fanbois who hate gm. Plus all the ev haters. Tesla doesn’t de rate based on not ideal conditions.
There was extensive work done to design the heating and cooling systems to operate efficiently. As well as the battery packs to keep them warm.
The Nissan leaf does not have active temperature control. So that battery is hanging out in whatever climate you have.
I think there is just quite a bit of misinformation floating around. Part of that is bias or pure misinformation and part of that is the difference in designs and company philosophy.
Show me what you got.
I can make them stronger.
Calculate the btu’s or watts you need to keep frost off windows at minus 20 driving down the highway. You’d need a duplicate battery bank just for heating. Space heating from batteries makes little sense.
What about designing a windshield with better thermal properties than glass? I imagine the lower density of polycarbonate probably sheds less heat, and would be much slower to frost up.
Yeah probably quite a bit. They haven’t solved all the problems yet. It is why we were trying to avoid mandates in the US.
And really the vast majority of the people won’t have that issue or at most like once a year.
The major issue is a hybrid would work better but the far right wing doesn’t want them and the far left wing wants bevs. So they are stuck in the middle…
I disagree on that, windows fogging over or frosting over is unacceptable, heat has to be generated to maintain visibility.
Carl is right about better insulating possibilities, but they will still need glass surfaces to resist damage. Even doubling R value would be a minimal gain.
So I think that brings efficient heating back to a combustion process. A propane heater would be simple and efficient. But onboard charging, CHP as Wallace presented, would beat all comers.
Plastic windshields likely would have to be replaced a lot more often because of scratches.
I am a “right winger” I guess because this entire subject seems mute to me. You buy an EV so you don’t have to buy that terrible commodity, petro. The EV is powered by the dreaded product coal, or an atomic material that creates a “waste” that the we are not able or willing to get rid of. Then the new EV has such poor performance that you have to buy this generator to increase the performance up to what we are use to. The new generator, runs very inefficiently on that dreaded commodity we were trying to avoid in the first place— petroleum. I hope by being a “right winger” you don’t think I am incapable of honestly wishing you all a Merry Christmas. TomC
I think the principle of a steady state generator tweaked for efficiency for battery boost, or as a range extender makes reasonable sense. If a vehicle needs 100 hp peak power, but only 10 - 20 cruising, electric boost fits the energy needs to a tee.
Gary how do they determine the mileage you will get out of a battery charge ---- normal driving with some highway and some town. Petro they distinguish from “highway” to “around town”. I don’t know so I’m asking— a full size car like a Chev Impala can be run down a flat road at 55 to 60 mph on 20 Hp? If that is true this generator doesn’t have a 20 hp engine so it could not propel the car at that speed when the battery is run out, can it?? TomC
I would have to look up the figures again, but cruising power requirements are surprisingly low. And electric has theoretically limitless torque and instantaneous horsepower. So you could do a primarily electric with range extension from a steady state generator CHP system, or weighted more towards IC power, but still with electric power storage for peak performance.
Any which way it is figured it should allow more steady state efficient performance.
I do agree it matters where the electricity is coming from, if it’s coal, and line losses are factored, IC is probably more efficient in energy terms.
Actually I would have to look up the number again but an gas engine in a car is only about 30% effective so even if your power plant is coal the BEV is more energy efficient because the electric motor is crazy efficient over 90% the line losses and charging losses are only about 15% and a coal power plant is far more efficient them the gas motor in your car. But in reality if you want to compare the efficiency of a BEV on the power grid with a gas car you should use the grid avg power for all sources. In the USA 62% of the electric grid comes from ff and only 29% of that from coal.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3
As to how they calculate the fuel milage equivalents that is kind of complex. For starters the highway vs city efficiency test is done by charging the car to a full charge then letting it sit “overnight” I think a 12 hour minimum time. Then the electric car is drive through the same road test that an ICE car is driven for the city testing recharged and run through the highway testing recharged and the energy required to recharge the batteries is used to calculate the energy per mile. There is a standard equivalency calculation for how much energy is in one gallon of gas which is used to come up with the conversion between kw per mile and gallons per mile. Which is really just a calculation to try and make it comparable to a gas car for shoppers who understand miles per gallon. But the most important number on the sticker is cost per mile which is way less for the electric car. I could search down a article on the way window sticker are calculated if someone is really interested in more details. But basically the batteries are fully charged allowed to sit overnight to stabilize and them run though the same test procedure as the ICE car and recharged monitoring how much electricity is needed to recharge the batteries.
I have a couple of questions / doubts about the cost per mile of electric vs. IC. Does that factor in the battery pack replacement cost, and what is the estimate for lifespan of a battery pack? Also, what does the entrained energy for recycling or manufacturing a lithium ion battery pack look like? I am guessing those aspects figure significantly into over all efficiency.
On the other hand, with electric power on board, the mechanical drive train could be dispensed with, regenerative braking employed, cutting weight, consequently energy needed to drive, and maintenance concerns.