How Good Are EVs in the Cold? I Drove in the Arctic to Find Out

Yahoo

26-03-2025

I felt the car tires lose grip on the surface of the frozen lake and my car start to spin out. I knew I'd pushed it too far. Despite the advice I'd been given, I entered the corner too fast and hit the brakes too late. I thought I had the driving talent to hold the slide I was now in, but physics had other ideas. Instead of my planned smooth drift across the ice, the car went into a full 360-degree spin that sent me off the track and into a deep snow ditch.
Thankfully, the powdery snow that cushioned my crash meant I was unhurt -- as was the Volvo EX30 Cross Country I was testing. My location was a frozen lake about two hours outside of the northern Swedish city of Lulea. Volvo had invited me to put its new vehicle to the test in some of the most demanding weather conditions for any vehicle.
It sounded exciting and, of course, great fun, but it gave me an opportunity to prove to myself something fundamental about electric cars: The miles of frozen roads and icebound lakes I drove across showed that EVs aren't just usable in winter -- they can thrive in harsh, cold conditions.
The days of EVs being a rare sight on our roads are long gone. It's estimated that in 2024, more than 1.2 million EVs were sold in the US, a significant increase from the 326,000 estimated to have been sold in 2019. Electric cars have proven that they're not just a novelty driven by Ed Begley Jr.; they're fully fledged vehicles in their own right, offering enjoyable, reliable, zero-emission driving for millions of people in all conditions the world over.
But misconceptions remain around EV driving, especially in colder weather. A simple Google search on the topic will bring up a variety of US news reports on "stranded EV drivers in the snow," articles about EV drivers "wrestling with the cold," various YouTube videos, and Reddit and Quora threads -- often featuring inaccurate or misleading information -- all essentially telling potential EV owners that if they want to drive in colder months, they're better off buying a gas-powered car.
When I told a friend of mine I was going to the Arctic to drive EVs, their response was: "Do they even work in the cold?"
The answer, fundamentally, is yes. And while misconceptions around EVs aren't likely to ever go away completely, those in doubt about an EV's ability to handle colder temperatures need only look toward Norway. Despite the country's extreme winter temperatures, electric vehicles accounted for almost 90% of all new cars sold in Norway in 2024.
"Electric vehicles are getting better all the time," Maria Cecilia Pinto de Moura, a scientist in the Clean Transportation program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells me, "with new battery technology bringing down the cost of a new EV and increasing their range."
The reality is that all cars struggle more in the winter, whether they're powered by electricity or gas. Colder temperatures make any vehicle less efficient, while icy roads reduce friction, increasing the possibility of accidents. It's especially problematic for people living in rural areas, who typically rely on their vehicles for longer routes, often across more difficult roads than urban users would face.
And while EV drivers can experience more challenges than those driving gas-powered vehicles -- most notably, lesser availability of public charging stations -- driving EVs in tough winter conditions is perfectly manageable.
To find out how EVs can thrive in the cold, I journeyed to Volvo's home country of Sweden to get behind the wheel of its latest EVs and see how they handle snowbound roads and freezing conditions and find out how EV owners can help their cars go further in the cold.
Despite the difference in power source, in many ways EVs don't differ that much from internal combustion engine cars when driven on the road. In some respects, EVs can actually be safer. The battery packs typically make EVs much heavier, which can increase braking time but can also result in better traction in slippery conditions. Most electric vehicles from all brands -- including Ford, Hyundai, Kia, Tesla, Volvo, VW and an increasing number of others -- have their batteries positioned low down in the chassis. This results in a more even weight distribution and a lower center of gravity, giving a planted stance on the road and providing improved grip on all wheels.
Then there are the electric motors powering the cars, which provide instant torque to the wheels, allowing for smoother acceleration without loss of traction. Many EVs also have dual motors, powering the front and rear wheels independently, again increasing overall traction in poor conditions.
Still, I did feel slightly nervous the first time I took the wheel of Volvo's EX90 in northern Sweden and headed out on a two-hour cross-country drive. The winding roads were flanked by huge snow drifts, road junction markings were invisible beneath the deeply packed snow and at one particularly odd-feeling moment when I glanced at the sat-nav, I realized I was driving straight across the middle of an enormous, frozen lake, which evidently just becomes a road during winter.
But I needn't have worried: Driving the car in these conditions felt not just safe, it felt … regular. Almost boring.
The grip from the instant torque and dual motor drive was noticeable every time I pulled out at a junction, while the planted nature of the car from its whopping 2,800kg (6,200 pound) weight meant I never felt it was losing grip in the corners. It made the journey feel as enjoyable as any other and I didn't even feel like I needed to make many particular allowances for the snow, beyond keeping my speed in check.
On one occasion, my co-driver had to brake hard when we came up on some reindeer lying down in the road. He braked hard, the car slowed and the reindeer simply got up and wandered off. No drama, no skidding off the road, no hard-to-explain reindeer-shaped dents in the car.
Things changed when I arrived at the frozen lake where Volvo had carved a racetrack into the thick ice to allow us to test the cars off road. Here, the goal wasn't so much to feel how normal it is to drive EVs in winter but to push the limits of the vehicles and, quite frankly, to have some fun trying to make them go sideways. And it was fun; I've driven performance cars on regular tracks before when my aim at all times has been to try to avoid going into a slide and spinning into the barriers.
But out on the ice, sliding became my goal. I loved the feel of powering into a corner, giving the steering wheel a quick flick and feeling the car's rear wheels lose grip, putting me into a slide and trying to hold it in an artful drift around the corner, excitedly feeling as though I'm channeling the spirit of the late, great Ken Block. Sometimes I managed it -- despite the car's various traction control systems fighting to regain control -- while other times I lost control entirely and plowed harmlessly into the snow at the side of the track.
It's the sort of "controlled recklessness" I've never done in a car before, because it would have been illegal, dangerous or both. But on this closed track in safe conditions, all bets were off.
Even so, I found it remarkable how much control I did still have on the ice, especially when I wasn't driving like I had a death wish. At normal speeds, the car would go around the track with as much sideways razzle-dazzle as you'd want when driving your grandma to a bake sale. It didn't spin its wheels when accelerating from a stop and the brakes worked exactly as I'd expect them to.
It's important to note that the cars we were driving -- the Volvo EX90 and new EX30 Cross Country -- were fitted with studded winter tires, which do make all the difference in these conditions. Having driven snowbound roads without winter tires, I know just how terrifying it can be.
In 2019 I took the VW Golf R (a gas-powered car) on a road trip from Geneva, Switzerland, across continental Europe and back home to London. It was a mammoth journey and, while most of the route encompassed blissful miles of curving tarmac, I made a big error in taking a high-altitude mountain pass.
While the mountain road information boards showed that many routes were closed, the Julier Pass that I needed was marked as open. So I pointed my car firmly upward and enjoyed the dynamic curves of the road and the increasingly impressive views as I climbed higher up the pass. But as my altitude increased, so too did the amount of snow on and to the side of the road.
Sure, I slowed my speed right down to accommodate the lack of traction but I felt comfortable that the four-wheel drive of the Golf would be enough to see me up and over. I quickly realized how wrong I was as I gently tested the brakes and found them to be effectively useless -- as was the steering. Panic began to take over as I realized I had little control over the car and every corner I came to became a bigger challenge to get the car around.
At this point I made the decision to take off my seatbelt and keep one hand ready to pull on the door handle. So convinced was I that the next bend would send the car sliding off the edge of the mountain, I was preparing to bail out, letting the car (and my luggage) go over the side, while I hopefully stood a chance of jumping to safety.
When that bend arrived, I actually managed to slide the car into a conveniently placed snow drift, stopping the car with little more than a gentle bump. I was then able to turn around and head back down, finding a nearby hotel to rest for the evening and have a beer to settle my nerves.
This was a huge learning experience for me in winter driving with any car. First, I hadn't checked what tires were on the car and, as it turns out, they were not suitable for snowy conditions. Second, I wrongly assumed that the mountain road being marked as "open" meant it was actually safe for any car to pass. It really only means that it hasn't been closed with barriers so you still need to exercise a lot more sense in driving it in off-road capable vehicles with correct winter tires, studs or snow chains fitted.
It was a lesson I remembered only too clearly when I drove the Lotus Eletre EV a mostly blissful 4,000 miles to and from Barcelona last year. After a stop in a fairly rural charging station in northern Spain, I took a route that wound its way first through forests before starting to climb higher into the hills. While this road wasn't considered a "mountain pass" like the one I'd previously driven, the quick buildup of fresh snow on the road started to ring all-too-familiar alarm bells with me and I made the decision to turn back and plan an alternative route.
The problem I faced this time, however, was that I was in an EV, not a gas-powered car and I'd calculated the distance to my next charging point based on taking this route. Doubling back and finding a different route meant adding a lot of extra distance to my journey, leaving me suddenly suffering from the dreaded curse of range anxiety.
An EV's range is one of the biggest factors people consider when choosing their vehicle, and it's understandable that someone might be concerned about their battery life dropping when the temperatures are low. After all, you don't want to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere because your car was suddenly unable to drive the same route you did in the summer. A 2024 survey by the Canadian Automobile Association indicated that more than two-thirds of Canadians find the drop in range in the winter to be the biggest concern for EVs.
It's true that batteries don't perform as well in lower temperatures. The cold causes the electrolyte fluid found in lithium-ion batteries (the ones most often used in EVs) to thicken, which slows down the rate at which the lithium ions can move between the anode and the cathode.
Jargon aside, what that simply means is that, when cold, batteries aren't able to hold as much charge as they otherwise would. Some studies have shown that EVs can lose up to 25% of their maximum range in freezing conditions. It's not just range that's impacted; an inefficient battery also won't charge as quickly, so you may need to spend longer at outdoor public charging points.
But before you cancel your Polestar 3 order, let's add some context on the side of EVs. While it is true that EVs can lose up to 25% of their range in the cold, some studies show that gas-powered cars can similarly be up to 20% less fuel efficient in the same conditions than they would be when it's warm. What electric motors and the more familiar internal combustion engines have in common is that they both perform worst when starting from cold; batteries are inefficient when cold and so are the internal workings -- and fluids -- of an internal combustion engine. Once they get warmed up, overall efficiency improves.
That's typically an easier task for a combustion engine vehicle, as the engine itself generates a lot of heat while in use, providing an effectively free heat source to circulate into the cabin, keeping the driver warm on cold days. An EV's electric motors produce little heat naturally, so the conditioning of the batteries and the heating of the cabin has to be done artificially, using electric heaters powered by the car's batteries. It can be a significant drain on available range.
There are simple solutions here. Most EVs allow you to turn on the heating systems ahead of your journey, often from the comfort of your warm couch using an app on your phone. This process, called preconditioning, warms the car up while it's still plugged in, taking the energy from the grid and ensuring your car still has its maximum range available when you get inside. With a prewarmed cabin, many drivers may only need to use the heated seat function to stay warm, keeping the battery-draining interior heaters turned off.
Parking your car in an indoor, heated garage will go a long way to ensuring your EV is always ready to go, though this isn't an option for many. For those who have to park their cars outdoors, simply removing snow buildup or using a protective cover when it's parked for longer periods can help speed up the conditioning process.
But EV technology is evolving quickly. Regenerative braking, for example, is standard on almost all EVs; take your foot off the accelerator and the car will slow down, essentially turning the electric motors into generators that capture energy to put back into the batteries. Some estimates suggest regenerative braking can add as much as 20% back into an EV's range, while also having the benefit of saving wear and tear on the car's brakes.
Many newer EVs are now also fitted with heat pumps, either standard or as optional extras. Much like the increasingly common heat pumps fitted in houses or offices, heat pumps in an EV work to move the heat around from the batteries to the cabin and back using much less energy than a typical electric heater. A heat pump can be critical in keeping an EV and its batteries working optimally, so it's absolutely worth selecting this option if you're speccing up your next electric car and are concerned about winter performance.
And the batteries themselves continue to be optimized for best performance in all conditions. I was invited into the heart of Volvo's battery testing facility at its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden, where I saw row upon row of what looked like gigantic walk-in ovens. These testing chambers allow stacks of battery cells to have their power cycled at temperatures ranging from minus 30 to 70 degrees Celsius (minus 20 to 158 degrees Fahrenheit), with varying degrees of humidity.
The battery cells are plugged in and drained and recharged in a way that simulates real-life use and allows Volvo's teams of engineers to better understand how temperature affects battery performance, how to optimize it for different conditions and how to improve overall battery longevity, no matter what country or season you're driving in.
While Volvo is not the only car manufacturer to have these facilities, its position in a country that typically sees both extreme cold (minus 20 Celsius/minus 4 Fahrenheit) and hot (30 Celsius/86 Fahrenheit) temperatures gives it a natural advantage in creating EVs that can flourish, no matter where the mercury sits.
"We are still learning how battery electric vehicles are to be optimized for different temperatures, including cold climates," says Karin Almqvist, Volvo's head of propulsion and energy. "Living and developing cars in a country that has extreme subzero temperatures does give us a particular advantage, though, and we have a great history to build from with a lot of knowledge."
While an EV's range may be one of the first things you'd consider when deciding which vehicle to buy wherever you live, for rural drivers, longer range is even more important. A driver's home may be further away from stores, schools, relatives or places of work, so individual journeys are typically longer versus those of urban drivers. Public transit systems are likely to be more difficult to use, if they're available at all, meaning owners rely on their vehicles more than urban drivers.
Then there's the terrain itself, which can often be more challenging than driving on urban roads. Steeper hills, winding roads and being generally more exposed to inclement weather means many rural routes are less efficient for all cars to drive on. Couple that with the generally poorer availability of charging stations outside of urban zones and it's understandable why the rate of EV adoption is 40% lower in rural versus urban areas of the US.
The result is that long range from a vehicle becomes even more important for rural drivers and as such, the impact of cold weather can play a more significant role. But even here, EV drivers can thrive.
In 2024, Pinto de Moura, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, interviewed four EV owners living and driving in rural areas with harsh winters, including Alaska, Michigan and Virginia, and found that despite the challenging environment, all drivers "were totally at ease driving EVs in all kinds of weather, even in extreme cold weather, such as in Alaskan winters."
But Pinto de Moura did find that the drivers acknowledged that availability of public charging stations in rural areas can be problematic. For some, longer journeys in the cold were not impossible but required more careful planning to avoid range anxiety. This supports the findings from a 2024 survey by Plug In America that found that the majority of EV drivers in cold weather states were confident about taking long-distance drives but they acknowledged that extra steps may be required.
"Range is clearly a main concern in winter driving," Pinto de Moura tells me. "Given the characteristics of rural driving, it makes sense that range anxiety is more of an issue here."
Still, the average range of all electric vehicles has more than tripled in the past 10 years, with some models today -- such as the Lucid Air -- offering ranges of more than 500 miles between charges. It's a huge departure from the measly 84 miles of range offered by the 2014 Nissan Leaf, and even that number could be difficult to achieve out on the open road.
It's not just the average range that's increased, either; the number of public charging points has skyrocketed in recent years. In August 2024, the Federal Highway Authority stated that the number of public charging points across the US had doubled in the previous three years, with about 190,000 available at the time the report was published.
In 2015, I wanted to experience rural EV driving myself in the UK. While public chargers were slowly being introduced in a handful of urban locations, with a few more scattered along some of the busier highways, driving out into the countryside was another matter entirely. It was estimated that in 2015, the UK had only about 2,200 public EV charging points -- a number that grew to more than 73,000 at the end of 2024.
The Nissan Leaf I took on my journey had a theoretical range of about 100 miles -- although the realistic range was closer to 70 -- which meant my 500-mile round trip would require numerous charging stops.
Finding chargers at all was a challenge and finding fast ones even more so. One of my early stops was at a Nissan dealership -- the only charging point in the entire area at that time -- which didn't open for more than an hour after I was due to arrive, forcing me to make an additional stop beforehand. Later, I'd planned to visit a hotel that advertised its EV charging point, which turned out to be little more than an extension lead screwed to a fence. Which didn't even work.
On my return journey, things got worse. I arrived at my carefully planned charging point with only a few miles in the "tank" to find that the single EV charger at a massive gas station was out of order and nobody was picking up the phone on the helpline number ("nothing to do with us, pal," I was told by the staff inside the gas station). In the end I had to load the car onto a truck to take it to a working charge point. It was a farce.
Cut to 2023, when I drove thousands of miles across the UK and Europe in the VW ID5. The car's 300-plus miles of quoted range along with the plethora of available fast chargers -- especially on France's highways -- meant that this long-distance journey was an absolute anxiety-free breeze. Never have I been more convinced about the feasibility of doing long journeys on electric power alone.
My time with Volvo in frozen Sweden showed me that driving EVs in winter conditions needn't be any more challenging than driving gas-powered cars. In fact, driving its electric cars on public roads and frozen lake race tracks proved to me that EVs can feel safe and enjoyable even in some of the most difficult conditions it's possible to drive any car.
Range -- and its potential reduction in the cold -- remains the biggest challenge EVs face when temperatures plummet, but even this is quickly becoming a nonissue thanks to longer ranges on newer EVs, battery and heating optimizations and an increase in the availability of public chargers.
But the biggest factor in helping EVs thrive in the winter remains with the driver. Taking some basic extra steps such as fitting appropriate tires for additional grip, preheating the car while it's plugged in to avoid unnecessary drains on the battery and planning routes on longer trips more carefully will help take the anxiety out of winter driving.
The fact that the vast majority of new cars sold in Norway are EVs is perhaps the best real-world evidence that snow, ice and cold temperatures are no match for these vehicles -- or the people driving them. With a bit of extra planning, your EV can handle your journeys in the winter just as well as it will in the summer.
Travel costs related to parts of this story were covered by the manufacturer, which is common in the auto industry. The judgments and opinions of CNET's staff are our own.
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