HOW FAR CAN ELECTRIC CARS GO IN WINTER?

Last summer, we compared car ranges in warm conditions; now we’ve repeated the test in the chill. Here’s how our contenders got on...

If you’re a regular reader, you might remember that last July we put 10 electric vehicles (EVs) through a ‘drive ’em till they die’ test to find out how realistic the official (WLTP) range figures are – the figures you’ll see in a brochure or on any manufacturer website.

We discovered that the answer is: it depends on the car. The Porsche Taycan, for example, got very close to the official figure, whereas the Fiat 500 fell 29% short. Importantly, though, none of the cars we tested actually matched its official range, even in near-ideal conditions on a warm day. We know EV batteries don’t work as well in cooler conditions, so what happens to their ranges in winter, when the mercury plummets and the wind picks up?

To answer that very question, we decided to repeat the test on a chilly day in February. We used five of the same cars as last summer – to allow a direct comparison – and also added five new models. Our results show how lower temperatures can affect EV ranges.

HOW WE DID IT

For obvious reasons, it wouldn’t have been safe to deliberately run the cars out of charge on a public road, so we carried out the comparison at our test track in Bedfordshire.

We used exactly the same loop as last summer, with 2.6 miles of simulated stop-start urban driving, four miles at a steady 50mph and eight miles at a constant 70mph. The high proportion of motorway-speed driving reflects the fact that if you plan to drive your electric car a long distance in one hit, you’re likely to be using the motorway network.