In December 2023, the news dispersed on the Internet that the electric vehicles that had sat down in severe frost caused congestion on Germany's roads. We decided to check whether anything like this happened in reality.
A picture that supposedly depicts a German highway, blocked due to "sowing" electric vehicles, Published some Media, Information And Entertaining resources. Users of social networks were also shared by photography (X, "VKontakte"), Platform blog (" "Zen" Livejournal) And forums. The image became popular in Telegram: it was placed channels "Freshness"(275,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Zlaya Prof"(177 000),"Mishovets Yegor"(73,000),"Club service"(72 000),"Open Ukraine | Open Ukraine"(57,000) and others.
December 2, 2023 South of Germany covered a strong snowfall, causing a transport collapse. The region was suspended by air traffic, trains to Munich were detained and canceled, and the movement of public transport in the capital of Bavaria was also limited. The neighboring countries suffered from bad weather: Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland. In particular, a 20-kilometer traffic jam from trucks was formed on the key Czech Czech D1 highway between Prague and Brno. There were congestion on the D5 highway connecting Prague with Germany. Temperature In the region on the night of December 3, she reached –17 ° C. Nevertheless, “verified” could not find information in the authoritative German or other European media that the causes of any of the congestion were electric vehicles discharged in the cold. It was not possible to find in the media reports and a dispersed (or similar) photo, demonstrating the consequences of bad weather in Bavaria.
The image of the snow -covered track with stuck machines, which accompanies most posts with the news analyzed, was made long before the snowfall that covered the south of Germany. Judging by the results of the search by Google images, it has long been used in media materials about winter weather (for example, “”Ural week"Published it in an article in 2014 about cold colds, Life In the same year, they illustrated them the news of the upcoming precipitation in Moscow, in 2021 "Murmansk Bulletin»I called on the residents of the region to be careful in snowfall, accompanying the message with the same picture). Took a photo on February 2, 2011 agency photographer Associated Press During a snowstorm in Chicago (USA), when hundreds of cars were stuck on the main street of the city for the night. However, in this case, “verified” could not be found that the cause of the congestion became the discharged electric cars. It is noteworthy that the photo is not the first time used to illustrate posts (often biased) about the unreliability of batteries in electric transport. AFP factor in July 2022 already refuted Similar messages (then the snowstorm in the American state of Virginia was then the information farm).
“Verified” could not find out who and where he was the first to post a photo of a snowy route and knelt it with bad weather in Germany. It is possible that this originally happened abroad, however, in the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, the earliest such post that managed to find was published in the Telegram channel "Freshness»December 3, 2023 at 14:13 Moscow time. This channel was previously noticed in the publication of inaccurate information. For example, “verified” refuted the messages posted there that Ukrainian Porn actress Nancy Hey announced the nomination for the president of the country or that the Western media are calling for Chipping children.
Electric cars really Less practical In severe cold, rather than machines with an internal combustion engine (ICE), since physical and chemical reactions in the battery at low temperatures are more slow. Another reason is that the electric car is forced to spend additional energy on the heating of the cabin, while in machines with the internal combustion engine, part of the heat generated by the engine can be used to maintain a comfortable temperature inside. In addition, it is impossible to charge a car with a battery in the middle of the highway in the absence of a specialized infrastructure nearby - this is what the authors of the posts that published the common photos from Chicago under the guise of Germany explain the traffic jams.
Nevertheless, repeated experiments have repeatedly testify that the risk in a couple of hours to “plant” the battery in a traffic jam in the cold is not so great. In January 2022, enthusiasts from YouTube project Dirty Tesla We conducted a test on two models of electric car manufactured by this company. In one of them was installed Thermal pumphelping to redistribute heat in the car. The batteries charged up to 90%, in electric cars installed the cabin at 21 ° C and left them in the cold about -10 ° C. After 12 hours of the experiment in the machine, which was equipped with a heat pump, the battery was discharged only to 58%, and in the other - up to 47%. Of course, the experimental conditions did not quite correspond to the weather in Munich in early December 2023, but it is reasonable to assume that at –17 ° C in a few hours, they would not begin to massively discharge to zero.
Experts of the Universal German Automobile Club in March 2022 conducted a similar experiment. Volkswagen and Renault electric cars were left overnight with the combined overall lights, heated seats and a heating salon up to 22 ° C. The temperature that night varied from –9 to –14 ° C (which is closer to Munich –17 ° C). As a result, in 12 hours, Volkswagen spent about 80% of the battery charge, and Renault - about 70%. That is, even at such low temperatures until the battery is completely discharged, the driver will be able to stand in a traffic jam in very comfortable conditions from 15 to 17 hours, depending on the model of the machine.
It is significant that, by statistics For 2022, which is cited by the Institute of World Natural Resources with reference to the International Energy Agency, Norway became the leader in the share of electric vehicle sales, where the average temperature In winter, it is about –7 ° C, but can fall much lower, up to –40 ° C. It is unlikely that the Norwegians would have so actively acquired electric cars if in winter they regularly quickly discharged and froze on the tracks. In the second and third places in the ranking of countries by the share of the acquired electric transport - Iceland and Sweden, which also cannot boast of warm winter.
Thus, a photograph of snow -covered cars on the road was taken in the American Chicago more than a decade before the snow storm that fell on Germany in early December 2023. There is no confirmation that the discharged electric cars affected the occurrence of that congestion, even if there were such in it. Judging by the repeated experiments, there is no reason to believe that low temperatures comparable to those observed in Germany can cause mass discharge of electric vehicles in traffic and, as a result, the formation of congestion on the roads.
Photo on the cover: screenshot SK News (primary source photo - Associated Press)
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