Finding the chase and cutting to it

I like winter, from when the leaves start to drop from the trees to when the  rain is sheeting down and when you wake up and the snow has decided to stay beyond the rising of the sun.

It is no where near that cold outside yet (this is a picture from Dec 2010), though after the warm summer, it might as well be.

This drop in temperature, from 20°C to 9°C has brought concerns to many I speak to about the electric car.  The chief one being, doesn’t it take longer to charge in the cold?

Obviously, now really isn’t the coldest part of the year.  I have many pictures showing conditions in East Anglia during January and February, which is when the UK is at its coldest.

This is when we first had our car.  The only time we had a slight concern was visiting my parents with the new car and needing to charge it up from their 13Amp socket.  The car was outside with the cable running in to their garage and it was 2°C during the whole charging time.

Now we have our home charger, things are much more civilised.

The Leaf displays the temperature of the battery while you are driving.  This shows that during the cold, the battery heater does come on automatically or its cooler, ensuring the battery is at optimal temperature for use.  This means when you start charging, this equipment is being run from the electricity source.

Also, because we’re not using the air conditioning the impact of driving on the lithium-ion batters is much less.  The dash can show that break down.

Basically, because the car is producing no C₂0, I am not worried.  When we go and see my family, we use the fast charger at the Nissan garage in Norwich, on a Saturday.