New York City has the largest municipal fleet of electric vehicles, and City Hall considers them an uncomplicated success — unless it’s a chilly winter day.
A study by the city government, provided exclusively to POLITICO’s E&E News, finds that its electric vehicles are far more efficient than the city’s traditional vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel and use less energy than federal estimates.
But in the cold months, the vehicles’ range drops by a third on average. As a result, the city may need to buy more expensive EVs with bigger batteries to make up the difference.
“Cold weather has a clear and consistent impact on battery range and fuel efficiency” among EVs, the report said. “This finding has important planning implications for winter and cold weather operations.”
