Electric car in winter: the Stromer range will sink in the cold in no time

Heating, lighting, windscreen wipers: some functions reduce the range in winter – both for combustion engine and electric vehicles. With e-cars, however, the fact that the chemical reactions in the battery are inhibited when it is cold also plays a role. The more uninhibited the filling level drops. A test by the University of Wismar now shows how much Stromer consumption increases in winter.

A year on the road in the VW ID.3: for the test, the electric car covered exactly 30,594 kilometers – through the summer heat, the autumn rain and over the icy ice of the winter. And just like the temperatures, the range went up and down:

E-car much more economical than combustion car

A combustion engine model was also tested for comparison. The diesel Golf was also on the road for a year. It has been shown that the range of the combustion engine decreases less when it is cold than with an electric car. But: the diesel consumes considerably more energy. The average annual consumption is 50.7 kWh per 100 km (electric car: 14.4 kWh). “From an energy point of view, the ID.3 is the clear winner in this comparison, without having to accept any significant limitations in everyday driving,” says test leader Prof. Ansgar Wego of Wismar University.

The efficiency of the electric car is therefore much better. In the whole test, the diesel car consumed about 3.5 times more energy. The cost advantage of the Stromer in this comparison: more than 800 francs per year.