Winter weather presenting EV owners with 'frustrating' challenges
Electric vehicle owners faced a new string of challenges when frigid temperatures and wintry conditions gripped the Midwest.
"It's been a little frustrating," one woman told FOX Business. "I had to charge, like, multiple times every day the last couple days. I had to wait for, like, 45 minutes for a charger and then I pull in. It doesn't work, and then I pull out and then someone else takes the next charger. And then I had to wait again."
Electric vehicles are facing issues including decline in performance, weaker battery life, increased charge times and even long lines.
"I was at 50% when I got here, usually from 50 to like 80, 90% it will take like 10, 15 minutes. It's taking an hour and 20 minutes," one driver shared at a Tesla charge station near Chicago.
One expert told Fox Chicago that cold weather can impact the ability of electric vehicles to charge properly.
"It’s not plug and go. You have to precondition the battery, meaning that you have to get the battery up to the optimal temperature to accept a fast charge," said Mark Bilek of the Chicago Auto Trade Association.
Over the weekend, charging stations essentially turned into car graveyards as temperatures have dropped to the negative double digits, Fox Chicago reported.
"It's just frozen," another Tesla owner said. "And so I'm now getting it towed to the Tesla Service Center because that's my only option at this point."
Weighing in, O'Leary Ventures Chairman Kevin O'Leary discussed the "striking" reality of electric vehicles.
"The adoption rate and the limitations of EVs in Europe and here domestically are evident," Mr. Wonderful said Wednesday on "Varney & Co." "We've never actually had this kind of cold. So now we're testing the battery longevity and everybody's learning about lithium batteries and freezing cold weather."
The "Shark Tank" star also told host Stuart Varney that the world is at an "inflection point" in the move to switch away from gas cars.
"The bigger issue here is when you consider yourself going green, buying an EV, it's also coming to the fore that you have to make that electricity. And right now, we burn a lot of coal to make that electricity. So in the long run, if this is going to work, we have to find other ways of making electricity," he said.
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"This whole thing is a very complicated equation. In addition to that, you've heard the market rule. At Hertz, they're dumping them. This morning, from Davos, the CEO of Uber claimed that it would be great if we can get more people to buy EVs, that they would drive in them. But if people don't want to do that as drivers, they are not going to do it. So we're at an inflection point."
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