(VIDEO) In what condition does a Nissan Leaf and a VW ID3 remain after a week of staying at -12 degrees and below in Norway and how quickly the two heat up | PiataAuto.md – The website of the car world from Moldova

Some electric cars, especially those produced about 10 years ago, without active battery management systems, are not too happy if they are left outdoors at -12, -15 or even -30 degrees for a long time, for that inevitably their battery also ends up having the same temperatures. A youtuber from Norway did an experiment comparing a first generation Nissan Leaf and a current VW ID.3.

Both were parked outside for a week in temperatures between -12 and -26 degrees Celsius, only the VW was plugged in and the Nissan was not. Given how small the capacity of the Leaf’s battery is, and how degraded it is already, we could expect that it would have discharged within a week, but it didn’t, the car still had about 70%.

It started, even though the computer indicated a battery temperature of -11 degrees. It could be driven, but the next experiment was to activate the passenger compartment heating while stationary.

The VW had a full battery, obviously, due to being plugged in, and turning on the pre-heating showed a huge consumption, which increased from about 5-6 kW to over 9 kW! With such consumption you heat a large house. It seems that the car was consuming double because it was heating both the battery and the passenger compartment, and at such temperatures it activated the heating via PTC, not via the heat pump, although normally at -12 the heat pumps have no problem working .

The VW warmed up faster, obviously, but it’s impressive how much it consumed, and how it managed these regimes. The Leaf consumed energy for 30 km for heating and remained with 43 km of autonomy after the whole operation, so it wouldn’t hurt to switch to an outlet again.