Cold Region Testing Performed?

[Underwood7]

Elon Musk has reignited imagination and American Ingenuity in everything he does. I’m very proud to call myself an American because of the strength I witness from people like him and his team of dreamers.

Alaska is secretly more advanced in the readiness for electric vehicles than any other state in America, despite the obvious harmful effects of colder temperatures to battery load, endurance, and lifecycle.

You’re probably thinking I’m referring to heated garages or something else we obviously have in abundance that would outweigh these challenges and keep our knickers on cloud 9 at the same time.

What we have is 110/220 outlets provided for free in parking lots at most major shopping stores.

Drivers here are required by necessity to have more advanced battery heaters, trickle chargers, and heaters installed on their transmission pan/oil pan/transfer cases in order for their vehicles to sustain after it drops below 25°F, and it becomes crucial as it continues on to -50°F and -60°F. This weather pattern sustains for weeks in regions of and around Fairbanks and further north.

If Mr. Elon Musk were to apply something of the same principle or his own design to protect the batteries, Tesla would immediately be competitive in Alaska as the price of fuel here compares to California and Hawaii year round.

It’s warmer towards Anchorage and the population is much more dense as well, so the engineering/marketing humps would be much smaller to get over from the beginning than attempting to provide in the coldest areas.

Thank you for reading this, I hope it’s considered.

 

[907Firefighter]

Talkeetna here and work by Anderson... -40’s ss you know aren’t uncommon. I preordered as the 500+ mile range will get to me work with the 200 mile commute. The range drop in winter should still be ok for me with that range as 50% loss would still get me to work... hoping to see some test mules in 2020 winter!!!
I’d love to test for them/Tesla.

 

[ajdelange]

The problem for Alaska is not the cold so much as that there in NO charging infrastructure to speak of and that's because there is no market there. Scandanavia is, I assume, comparably cold and the hottest selling car in Denmark is the Tesla Model 3. Scandanavia is loaded with Super Chargers. Alaska has none. Check PlugShare.

120/220V outlets intended to support oil sump heaters are not sufficient for supporting BEVs which require a minimum of 5 kW to charge in reasonable time (the CT will need a bit more). There are only 4 destination (public Level 2) chargers listed for Alaska. There are doubtless a fair number of Tesla owners in the state and as there are no Level 3 chargers they are clearly getting by with Level 2 chargers in their homes or at their offices. There are several RV parks and campgrounds listed as having NEMA 14-50R outlets. You can do Level 2 charging at those.

There was a time when the whole USA was like this. Early Tesla owners were pioneers and you all are going to be pioneers too until some critical mass is reached at which point Elon will decide it is worthwhile to install super chargers or someone else decides to put Level 3 stations in Alaska. It's a chicken and egg thing. But note that 85% of charging is done at home even in the lower 48.