Tesla owners in the Chicago metropolitan area are reporting that they are struggling to charge their electric vehicles (EVs) in recent cold temperatures as waves of Arctic air sweep through America.
Several motorists told local news outlets that they had been stranded at charging stations in the cold with cars with dead batteries, while successful charging was taking far longer than usual. They also claimed that many of the charging stations were not functioning.
The arrival of an Arctic blast of cold air over the weekend brought dangerously cold chills to central states and led to winter storms elsewhere, including a wintry mix of precipitation in the Southeast and lake-effect snow—when a cold air mass moves across long expanses of warmer lake water—downwind of the Great Lakes.
"Our batteries are so cold it's taking longer to charge now," Brandon Welbourne, a Tesla owner in the Evergreen Park area of Chicago, told local news station KABC. "It should take 45 minutes, [but] it's taking two hours for the one charger that we have."
He said that he had seen at least 10 cars being towed away after their battery died, with too much energy being expended keeping the car warm while drivers waited.
Tyler Beard, a Tesla owner in the satellite town of Oak Brook, Illinois, told Fox32 that his car remained on zero percent battery after attempting to charge it for three hours at a time on two successive days.
"This is crazy. It's a disaster," Chalis Mizelle, another Tesla owner, told the outlet, adding she abandoned her car to ride with a friend after it failed to charge.
Newsweek approached Tesla via email for comment on Wednesday.
According to NPR, the issues are not specific to Tesla, but any electrical device that utilizes a lithium-ion battery; colder climes have been known to cause cell phone batteries to lose efficiency.
However, of 1.2 million EVs sold in the U.S. last year, 55 percent were Tesla models, estimates from the Kelley Blue Book suggest.
In its owner's manual, Tesla advises motorists that they should drive to a charging location 30-45 minutes away or precondition the battery before driving in order to adequately warm the battery so it can sustain charging.
It notes that "cold weather can increase energy consumption because more power is required for driving, cabin and battery heating," and says a blue snowflake icon will appear on the car's touchscreen when the battery is too cold.
With another surge of Arctic air predicted to arrive by the end of the week, meteorologists expect more heavy snow to fall in shoreline regions of the Great Lakes, while the Northwest—which has a high proportion of EVs—is set to receive another Pacific storm front.
It is not the first time that EVs have suffered due to extreme weather. In the wake of Hurricane Ian in 2022, at least a dozen electric cars caught fire after being exposed to salty floodwaters that caused them to short circuit.
Have you had trouble charging your Tesla in the extreme cold weather? Email aleks.phillips@newsweek.com.
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Aleks Phillips is a Newsweek U.S. News Reporter based in London. His focus is on U.S. politics and the environment. ... Read more
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