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5 electric cars get thoroughly winter tested in Norway, Hyundai Ioniq Electric comes out on top

Norway’s electric vehicle association decided to put 5 popular all-electric vehicles to a thorough winter test to see how they performed under harsh conditions.

Between the Nissan Leaf, VW e-Golf, Hyundai Ioniq Electric, Opel Ampera-e (Chevy Bolt EV), and the BMW i3, the association tentatively declares the Ioniq as the winner.

They didn’t test Tesla’s vehicles, which are very popular in Norway, and instead decided to focus on electric vehicles that all compete in the same segment of more “compact” cars.

Over two days, they drove about 700 km (435 miles) in each of the cars and calculated their efficiency, charging speed, and overall performance in the cold weather.

In terms of driving performance, the team found that “the Nissan LEAF and the Volkswagen e-Golf stood out from the crowd regarding safe and steady handling”, while they weren’t fans of the BMW i3 and Opel Ampera-e.

They found the Ioniq Electric to have an average performance in winter driving conditions.

Where things get more interesting is in the overall range and charging experience in the cold.

They collected a bunch of data to figure out the impact of the somewhat significantly different electric powertrains:

The Ampera-e clearly has the biggest battery pack and longest official range, while the Ioniq Electric has the smallest battery pack.

But as we previously reported, the Ioniq is an efficiency champion and through their test, Norway’s electric vehicle association found that its winter range was similar to all the other EVs, except for the Ampera-e, despite its much smaller battery pack.

Aside for its better efficiency, the Ioniq was also able to maintain a higher charge rate than all the other vehicles, which helped it achieved the top spot.

But they make it clear that they are tentatively declaring the Ioniq the winner as none of the vehicles provide a perfect solution.

The Ampera-e is still the best choice if you require a longer range while the testers preferred the handling of the VW e-Golf over all other EVs.

Another important point to come out of their tests was the Leaf’s important energy consumption in cold weather, as shown by the data above. It has always been a problem for the Leaf due to its rudimentary battery pack temperature control.

It has always been a problem with the Leaf and some thought that it would be fixed with the new generation, but early tests show that it is still not the case.

You can read their full report here.

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Avatar for Fred Lambert Fred Lambert

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