How Polestar engineers EVs that can handle brutal winters
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Critters usually go into the passenger cabin via the ventilation, which doesn’t change at all depending on drivetrain, so there shouldn’t be much difference.
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Tire choice, tire choice, tire choice if you are driving in the north from late Oct-early april is insanely important.
thats much power with a "all season tire" is just asking to go rhubarb hunting(into the ditch).
even worse in winter city driving where all the intersection are finely polished.
thats said I'd glady take one of those care for a test run over one of my winters
I can get weeks at a time -30c
thats much power with a "all season tire" is just asking to go rhubarb hunting(into the ditch).
even worse in winter city driving where all the intersection are finely polished.
thats said I'd glady take one of those care for a test run over one of my winters
I can get weeks at a time -30c
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That was actually what I was trying to say. Many EVs are not suited to snow driving regardless of tyres due to factors like lack of ground clearance. They are fine in places like ours that hardly ever get snow. But forcing an inappropriate vehicle into an extreme use case seems pointless.
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How do they get in past the pollen filter? Do they simply eat the element?
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Low ground clearance is hardly an EV thing. It’s not like the Fiat 500 that just drove by has high clearance.
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But that is not an excuse to remove the RADAR altogether, like Musk did. Engineering could easily come up with a fix, but they would very quickly be fired. Musk actually overrode his Tesla engineers' concerns that RADAR should never be removed. He did that, and removed the ultrasonic transducers, as well as disabling the RADAR on the so equipped Teslas to remove potential comparisons. Heavy rain also reduces the range, but some RADAR is still much better than none. And fog has an even lesser effect on RADAR. More recently, Musk finally admitted that FSD may not (weasel words for never) achieve FSD, and totally a new non-retrofittable hardware would be required, including RADAR. President ketamine kid never stops being an asshole. I used to marvel at how well the Tesla RADAR worked. It could even see two vehicles ahead when the driver could not. Note that the below links are just two of several that contain obvious inaccuracies trying to soften Musk's message. Musk has claimed that FSD is just “around the corner” for about a decade, not just the last 5 years. And he has also clearly stated that the FSD 4 hardware is not retrofittable to existing Teslas, and Tesla would never pay for the fix or return the FSD money paid by Tesla owners. He also tries to downplay the number of FSD purchasers.
https://www.techspot.com/news/105313-elon-musk-admits-full-self-driving-likely-wont.html
https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-admits-fsd-hardware
etc.
That RWD chains only provides propulsion without reliable steering. On an AWD or 4-wheel drive vehicle, chains go on the front tires first, since that provides steering and traction. It is far easier to drag the rear end using FWD chains than to uncontrollably plow the front end using only RWD chains.
Agreed, and with Teslas that is the only choice for the front tires.
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And you are apparently unaware that brushed DC wound field motors are the only ones that try to “rev to the moon”. That is what I was clarifying. If you have a beef with brushed DC motors being discussed, take it up with the “to the moon” poster (i.e. yourself). Perhaps I explained too much by describing which motors you were quite obviously referring to, despite the initial false AC claim about RPM runaway (which incidentally cannot ever happen with actual AC motors). Varying the field current in an AC motor will not affect the RPM (assuming that the torque load is not too high for the motor), but it can change the motor behavior from acting like an inductive to a capacitive load, and everywhere in between (including resistive only). Large industrial sites will actually use this with idling (non-loaded) AC motors running as capacitive loads to correct the plant's overall power factor.
In a separate posting, I also pointed out that there are DC powered AC motors that use bipolar drivers, like bipolar steppers.
And I didn't even bring up the Inverter technology that is so common in AC line powered VFDs used in machine tools, that first convert to DC before the inverter generating an AC output. The far most common vehicular AC drives all use that same inverter technology.
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Got it, thank you. I don't see an option to edit the post anymore but it seems everyone gave me the benefit of the doubt. In hindsight and setting aside meters vs. miles, a kilowatt isn't a unit of energy so my sloppiness was worth scolding.
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Not to contradict your “Many”, but some EV'S have active air suspension that allow for ride height control over a multiple inch range. This can also be useful when pulling up to a high curb, to prevent from extracting the front fascia when backing up because the front end rode over the high curb.
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But at lease some Teslas (maybe all, I did not check) have good air filters in the path that will stop pollen and very likely even the smallest of snakes. Raccoons and similar varmints may be able to claw their way through the filter, but I am unaware of that ever being tested or reported.
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Look, I'm sorry but you have completely misunderstood my posts from the very beginning. I don't understand why you are getting so worked up. I began by quoting the article and observing that it is only DC (commutated) motors that self-accelerate (till the back EMF catches up with the applied EMF minus absorbed power.)
My point was that EV motors (whether AC or switched DC) do not rev beyond the limit imposed by the controller frequency. This is correct. All the other stuff you are going on about is totally irrelevant to my simple observation.
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Oh, I'm not arguing that (or the removal of the Ultrasonic sensors). I was just adding to the previous comment about snow-buildup on the front being an issue with the Cybertruck frontlight, that snow build up with was also an issues.
I understand that is true on paper and part of the historical reason people are leery of RWD in snow... but I "think" the weight distribution and tires make a bigger difference. Especially in real world driving condition when you are following the legal speed limit of 25-30 mph in chain control (at least that's what it is in the US, not sure of other counties) and not trying to peel around turns as fast as humanly possible. At 25 mph with all-weather tires on RWD vehicle, steering in snow is typically not the issue. It is having enough traction to go up a slippery hill and/or brake while going straight as with chains on you are basically never suppose to be trying to powersteer/trail brake around turns (again we aren't taking race-trained drivers... just regular people and i've seen plenty of FWD chain vehicles with chains spin out when they slam on the brakes while also trying to turn).
Again at 25 mph, in my experience the front tires would still helping out (again assuming you have proper all-weather or snow tires). YMMV, in 25 years but I've never heard or seen someone with AWD and snow/all-weather tires need to up their chains on.
A caveat is that I'm primarily driving access roads from winter lodgings to mountain resorts and mostly North America (mountains of California/Nevada, Rocky Mountains of Colorado/Utah, and Coastal Mountains in Washington state and British Columbia and Canadian Rockies in Alberta, Oregon and Alaska) so YMMV if you are talking completely unplowed roads with over a foot of snow on the road that might be something out of my experience. feet snow (the most snow on the road I've driven through is about 4-10 inches). Below is only like 2-3 inches of accumulation.
Maybe you could share some of your experiences with chains on your AWD vehicle, when do you put them on?
Which I think is fine for like 99% of people unless you are a no true scotmans "driving uphill in the ice both ways" type of person - getting proper winter tires is a far bigger deal and most people don't bother to do that. Again, I think Elon is a basketcase man-child and the Cybertruck as many design flaws... but I think Teslas in general are fine in cold and snow for "most" regular people doing most regular things. I vaguely recall they did some cold weather performance driving as well... but for me I would never drive my vehicle like that anyone personally.
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You reminded me that in the early 1980s I found myself in Johannesburg in a Renault 5, and it snowed. Apparently first time in 18 years.
I drove along the motorway using my experience - very smooth, second gear, take your time and avoid the brakes as much as possible.
Nobody overtook me and when I looked back there was a long queue of traffic driving in the ruts I had created. Sensible people.
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Sensible? Maybe. Depends on temperature and the nature of the fallen snow. Packed-down ruts tend to be slicker (ice and/or slush) than virgin snow. I generally have more traction driving through snow than in the ruts.
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They turn it into bedding for their nest. Nice and soft, way better than leaves and twigs. They clearly haven’t read the latest studies on microplastics.
Someone else in the thread talked about raccoons. Those aren’t going in through the vents, there’s another gaping hole in your car if that’s happening. BEVs might be more resilient to the cabin floor rusting out, given there’s a giant thick battery there.
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Depends on many things. First, the rut is presumably on the road, so that’s a bonus if you aren’t used to following a snow-covered lane. Also, in thick snow the high sides of the rut will keep you on the tracks in a turn. And finally in warmer conditions with relatively little snow, the ruts will melt out quickly from the traffic so you’re now on wet pavement rather than snow. But indeed, in colder conditions the packed snow can become ice instead of wet.
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I own a 2023 Polestar 2.
Climate controls are not permanent. Switching to cameras or rebooting removes climate controls. And rebooting has to happen at least once a week because the software is still... mediocre. (On 3.1.9 and hoping they put 3.4.4. on OTA sometime this year... lack of Android Auto is really hurting.)
Also hate that climate controls expand, because I have to stare at the screen at least twice as long as I'd have to stare at a button, because I need to see where the expanded option is to press something. Heated / cooled seats and steering wheel for example. I can't really get a muscle memory for them so it takes up a lot of my attention.
Also hate the capacitive play/pause button (atop the volume knob) because my large hands brush up against it about 50% of the time I reach for the "home" sliver below the screen.
I really enjoy driving the car, but the lack of good controls is a real downside of the Polestar.
And I would loathe fully software/touchscreen controls a lot less if it was fast and reliable, but it's very slow for the first minute of use, like say when you really want to be putting your destination in Maps but you have to wait for the system to stop stuttering.
While there are so many things to like about this car (like the 476 HP in my package), the downsides make it unlikely at this time that my next EV would be a Polestar.
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