Electric vehicles and snow

We are away at the moment, we know our village back home is at a standstill for all vehicles. Our EV is rear wheel drive so would hope in improved conditions it will cope as well as others. Four wheel drive is obviously slightly better but years ago I managed to get through snow without that luxury!

Why wound the EV battery go flat?

"Why wound the EV battery go flat?"

I think the OP means from using the heater more than usual if stuck in Snow for instance as some people are / have been.

There are two types of battery in our EV, one is instrumental one is traction. We also have a Rex (range extender to top up the battery. )

What would happen? As with any vehicle in a prolonged situation fuel etc would run out.

There is a little hint in the name "Range Extender" that in pure EV form the vehicle has less than an acceptable range for some buyers?

And of course that Range extender is reliant on what is argued the "big evil", an IC engine in some form.

Space heating is no doubt a challenge with pure EV s where  for 10 , 20 or more hours occupants are stranded in snow, as presently encountered by some unfortunates.

I am not sure many pure EVs out there today has the on-board energy reserves of our 70 liters of diesel? Further, I am not convinced the designers have really thought out how their products will cope with these rare, but life threatening situations.

Or accept these are not the devices for travel where there could be any risk of the present conditions occurring.

Re traction, here EVs could be ideal as the torque can be applied in a controllable way and without rotation, it just needs the designers to drive all wheels, not chase the economics associated with two wheel drive. That is most probably also linked to the present range limitations and could ease when better energy storage is viable?

 In the conditions that we have had,rear wheel drive is not good whereas front wheel drive has the weight where needed for better traction,and the majority of breakdown call outs in these conditions are battery failures

For common sense and practical purposes we are running an EV with a rex, 12 parts per million emission so not polluting and minimal fuel input. The next development is hydrogen so we'll see how that goes. However so far so good for us. If we can get home soon we will be using it as per usual. 

Personally JVB I would think in poor conditions the way a car is driven is the main factor.

and what about heating for the inside of the car?

I drive an Electric Van in work........it is pure EV. I do a trip in it once a week around a range of the companies sites, a journey of around 60 miles.

It has a timer to preheat the cabin whilst still attached to the mains. However once unplugged we do not use the heater as it would drain the battery too quickly to get back to base. (I've never tried turning the heater on whilst en-route as I don't fancy the walk back to camp!). I wear warm clothes, hat & if need be gloves and take a hot flask of coffee with me. You have to keep the fan sucking cold air in to prevent the windows steaming up. It gets very cold.  This is the one downside of EV's at the moment. Whilst I am being paid In work I am happy to suffer, but my OH would not tolerate this in a family vehicle.

In all other respects (or indeed the summer...!) a pure EV is a pleasure to drive, and once you get used to them far easier than a normal vehicle. I laugh now getting into a conventional car having to faff round starting engines juggling three pedals and stirring a gear lever.  

EV is the future and it is here now............but not on a cold day...!

What are these 3 pedals & gear lever you speak of ...... 🤔 Mine has a go pedal and stop pedal and gear selector for forwards or backwards 😉

As we get older I suppose that the fewer pedals the better in order to avoid confusion