One question on a lot of people's mind is "Do Electric Vehicles work in freezing weather?", the answer is yes.

The reason why most unprepared EVs do not work well in the cold is that the batteries get cold and can't produce enough power.

Different battery chemistries behave differently in cold temperatures, some can not be allowed to reach freezing temperatures.

There are multiple solutions to this, I will list a few here.

Battery Pack Insulation:
Insulating your battery pack with Polystyrene foam or fiberglass and other lightweight high efficiency Insulations works very well to keep your battery pack warm enough for driving.

Any battery pack that is insulated must also have a way to remove this heat because if the temperature gets too high the batteries can be damaged.

You can use water-based cooling systems or simply have air vents and high airflow fans to remove the heat from the battery pack.

A practical experiment to find out if Insulation alone will be enough for your battery pack is to take one of the type of batteries you'll use in your EV, discharge it, then recharge it(to heat it up) and place it inside a box covered with your chosen insulation material, then place it outside and test the temperature of it every few hours.


Battery Pack Heating Systems:
Some people build heating systems for their battery pack which can be powered off of either the battery pack it's self or switched to powered off the electrical grid while the EV is plugged in for charging.
You can also use the heating system that was built to heat the interior of the car and pipe the heat back into the battery pack.


Charging and Driving to Warm Batteries:
The Process of charging batteries will usually heat them up, since most EV's are charged for an extended period of time the batteries get very warm.

EV owners in cold climates will charge their EV and unplug the charger just before driving, so that their batteries are warm enough to drive with.

The act of driving draws large amounts of power from your batteries which also keeps them warm, thus the heat is retained while you are driving.

For More information take a look at: EVs and Cold Weather

[cyclops2]

Cold climates quickly kill off the Good Things about EV.

[charliehorse55]

A technique I really like for especially cold weather is to water cool the batteries. Put them in a heavily insulated box, and run the same water through the engine and controller (this only works if you have at least the motor on water).

Insulate the crap out of everything, and then install a small radiator in the loop. The optimal coolant temperature is about 45C, so when it get to that temperature, you can start a fan blowing on the radiator (and putting some heat into the cabin!).

You will be getting 1kW+ of heat. Add in the heat from the batteries and you can actually have a reasonable temperature car (2-seater). If it is still too cold, you can always add a heater to the loop.

Make sure to run the cooling loop when you are charging them.