Here’s Why So Many Tesla Owners Are Stranded In Chicago’s Deep-Freeze

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Well, this isn’t a great look for America’s most popular EV brand. News outlets WGN News, CBS Chicago, and Fox 32 Chicago all report that Tesla drivers in Chicago who depend on Supercharger DC fast charging stations ran into substantial issues when trying to charge during the current cold snap. The infrastructure seems to be simply tapped-out at this time, with long wait times and reliability concerns causing a run-on effect.

One guy in an absolutely fantastic jacket told Fox (a news outlet that tends to be skeptical of EVs) “We got a bunch of dead robots out here.” Another well-dressed man spoke to camera, saying “Nothing, there’s no juice, zero percent, and this is like three hours this morning being out here after being out here eight hours yesterday.” Over on WGN, one Tesla driver tells a saga of being towed to a Supercharging station because two other locations were either full-up or unusable. WGN reports that several Teslas were towed from the Rolling Meadows Supercharging station due to running out of juice, an unusual scenario to be in.

Reports Of Supercharger Issues

It’s not just major news stations that are reporting charging troubles. If you drive an electric car, you may be familiar with PlugShare, a charging app that displays stations on a map and lets users check in at charging stations and describe how their experience went. Across the Chicago area, recent Tesla Supercharger check-ins paint a troubling picture.

One review for the Skokie Supercharger station by PlugShare user Rowan Quinain on Jan. 15 reports that arguments have broken out over charging priority.

Chicagoland Tesla owners are losing their minds because of the cold ???? I have witnessed a line about 6 cars long and three vehicles getting into fights over who gets to use the next available charger. The SC network in Chicagoland is a sh*tshow right now.

Of course, it also doesn’t help that several stations were reportedly offline during the cold snap. PlugShare user jsmay311 published a check-in on Jan. 15, stating that:

Several Supercharger stations around Chicagoland are out of service today due to the cold, and Rosemont appears to be one of them. The Oak Brook closure in particular has gotten a lot of press coverage.

Up in Northbrook, a Jan. 15 PlugShare check-in from user Rudy C. at the Northbrook Supercharging station reports malfunctioning stations and a line to get hooked up.

Three stations down (1B, 1D, 2C). On-screen charger status didn’t show a long wait due to navigation ending once you’re in the parking lot. No stated wait time but at least 5 cars in line.

PlugShare isn’t the only platform drivers are voicing their problems on. Over on the Tesla Motors Club forum, some users are voicing skepticism due to other cold climate areas like Norway and Sweden having chargers that work, while users claiming to be from the Chicago area are reporting widespread local problems. A user named Bikeman claiming the Chicago Area as their locale went in-depth on local charging station woes on Jan. 15.

These are just the stations in my immediate vicinity. There are many more locally that are either closed or nearly closed. This is a big news story locally, and it isn’t a good look for Tesla or electric cars in general.

currently…
Arlington Heights, 5 stalls out of order (O.O.O.)
O’Hare, 1 stalls O.O.O.
Elmhurst, 2 stalls O.O.O.
Oakbrook, CLOSED all stalls O.O.O.
Burr Ridge, 2 stalls O.O.O.
Naperville, 4 stalls O.O.O.
Aurora, 2 stalls O.O.O.
Oswego, 2 stalls O.O.O.
Bolingbrook, 4 stalls O.O.O.
Rosemont, CLOSED all stalls O.O.O.
Orland Park, 7 stalls O.O.O.
Country Club Hills, CLOSED, all stalls O.O.O.
New Lenox, 5 stalls O.O.O.
Flossmore, 3 stalls O.O.O.

All have wait times, some major. Many have bricked Teslas clogging the area around the stations.

My model Y is currently on “shore power” and hopefully happy. Been plugged in (outside, no garage*) for 5 solid days now and hasn’t moved in these double-digit negative temps. Been using the Prius as my daily driver because it can handle the cold better — the windows and door work reliably, whereas the Tesla is a pain for that reason. I’m lucky I have 2 cars and also have a home charging solution for the both of them. But jeez, I cannot fathom owning any electric car for these 15 days in these temps without being able to charge at home. There’s a guy at work that has one car, a BZ4x, no home charging at all, and travels 75 miles per day round trip. In this weather he says he only has 100 miles of sustained charge. He’s using 3rd party D.C. chargers somewhere. Yikes.

It’s not clear how much broken chargers are contributing to the issues we’re seeing in Chicago, or why those chargers are failing; a number of sources seem to imply that charge plugs can get filled with ice. Here’s a comment from a Redditor on the TeslaModel3 page:

People get lazy and don’t make sure the charging tip is secure in the stand. It falls out into slush or snow on the ground. It either freezes or gets compacted into ports on the tip. That’s why most of the chargers can’t be plugged in fully (at least the ones I tried and looked at with my flashlight in rolling meadows and Northbrook did).

And another:

Oregon here. We’ve been sub-20⁰ for the past several days. The chargers here don’t work because they get ice buildup inside the plug, so they won’t fit into the receptacle on the car. More than half of the 12 stalls were useless at PDX.

Here’s a Tesla body shop owner saying the same thing about ice in the plugs:

More Importantly: EVs Need More Juice In The Winter, And That Puts Demand On Infrastructure

Chicago is experiencing an unusual cold snap with conditions as low as -9°F on Monday as reported by CBS Chicago. Electric vehicles have a temperature window of ideal efficiency, so unsurprisingly, these conditions fall far outside of that. One Chicago-based Model S owner reported energy consumption rates of 911 Wh/mi, or about 1.1 mi/kWh. That’s still roughly equivalent to a combustion-powered car achieving 33 MPG, but it’s not great for an EV. Unsurprisingly, this inefficiency causes people to charge more often, and drivers are arriving to infrastructure being used at capacity.

Electric vehicles typically do a neat thing when navigating to a charging station: They pre-condition their battery packs to accept higher current. This is great, except when several people are in line to charge and you’re at the back of the queue, your preconditioning could wear off before you get a chance to plug in. The result? Longer charging times with a knock-on effect for everyone behind. Here’s what a Reddit user on the TeslaModel3 page had to say about how temperature affects his Model 3’s charge time:

I’ve never had a charger not work for me, but plenty of times at -30 and below I’ve struggled to supercharge. I have a RWD with the LFP battery and it will not charge if it’s cold. Simply will not. So it has to stay plugged in for 30-60 minutes before it even starts taking a charge. It’s better if you can drive at highway speeds for 30 minutes to precondition the battery, but if you can’t you’re going to have to wait.

[…]

-35c here last week in northern Canada and yes, the chargers worked. Whether or not your car will charge is dependent on battery temperature. With a cold-soaked battery you will get no charging at all for the first 30-40 minutes, and then 5-7kW, gradually increasing to 50kW over about an hour. VERY SLOW. The secret is to precondition to charging and then drive on the highway at at least 100kph for at least 30 minutes, then you might get 80kW or so, which is adequate.

Here’s another Redditor’s input:

As for the car, every time I precondition the battery before charging the car will still many times think that I didn’t do it (I assume because it is so damn cold). And man, I can’t even explain how much charge I’m going through every night I drive UBER. I’m having to hit the charger three times every 8 hours.

And here’s someone who claims to have been at one of the full Chicago charging stations:

I was one of those people yesterday in Chicago, I have a home charger and started the day with 100%. I had a few plans around various locations for a total trip of about 120 miles. I figured it wouldnt be an issue, even for my 23 SR 3. I was wrong. At 110 miles in, I had 3% battery. It was -12*F all day. I tried 2 supercharger stations, both were packed full. My car died waiting for a stall to open at the second one. It sucked.

It’s also worth noting that Supercharger stations failing in cold weather doesn’t appear to solely be a Chicago issue. One Tesla Motors Club forum poster by the screenname Mr. Nuke claims similar outages happened in Iowa during the same timeframe.

Again, just passing what is going along here. -5 below is actually a warm up from the past several nights The high here yesterday was -8. Heading East from Omaha to Des Moines 4 of 8 are down in Shelby Iowa, 3 of 8 down in the West Des Moines supercharger, etc. My only point is whatever is happening here isn’t unique to Chicago. It spans multiple construction crews, multiple generations of superchargers, multiple utility providers, and apparently several states. It is going to “warm” up over the next two days here and then get quite a bit warmer comparatively again. We’ll see if some of these magically come back on line on their own or not.

Then there’s the wildcard of Supercharger stations being frequented by drivers for hire. Looking at news footage of the jammed-up Tesla Supercharging stations, many models shown charging feature fleet plates, and some individuals interviewed drive for rideshare services like Uber. As Uber driver Darryl Johnson told WGN:

It’s horrible. It takes two hours, to wait, you might wait an hour, it takes two hours to charge, then the charge leaves really quickly so now you’re back at the charger twice a day, so it’s actually horrible.

It should go without saying that rideshare drivers don’t follow the same driving patterns as typical commuters. They’re on the road constantly, using the fastest charging options to stay in the game and keep making money. As incentives and low running costs continue to make EVs attractive options for rideshare drivers, more infrastructure will be needed to keep up with demand.

Really, more infrastructure could’ve solved most of the issues experienced in Chicago. Not everyone can charge at home, particularly travelers and people living in many apartments. While it’s more than likely Tesla’s Chicagoland Supercharger network is more than adequate for mild weather needs, severe weather can result in some severe needs, and that’s before we even consider other automakers adopting NACS in the near future. Sometimes, even the best charging networks in the business fall short, indicating how far we need to go.

[Hat-tip to Sacha!]

(Photo credits: Fox 32)

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124 thoughts on “Here’s Why So Many Tesla Owners Are Stranded In Chicago’s Deep-Freeze”

  1. Living in the Chicago ‘burbs, and having a Kia EV6, I had zero problems in this weather – but I’m fortunate in that I charge at home in a garage. Sure, my range dropped, but so does MPG for ICE’s.

    What I don’t get, is that the charger locks to the vehicle – why can’t that same method be used for the plug when NOT charging (gas pumps require you to replace the nozzle). If someone doesn’t replace the plug, the next person gets session paid-for by the previous user… icing problem solved

  2. Half of the population of the USA lives in an area that could experience a cold snap like this.

    Many of those people are the suburban commuters or urban dwellers who should be a strong target market for EVs. Stories like this make EVs seem a lot less suitable as year-round primary transportation.

  3. “While it’s more than likely Tesla’s Chicagoland Supercharger network is more than adequate for mild weather needs”

    Chicago: known for its mild weather

  4. All three of my ICE vehicles start and run during this frigidness, but they all sound like a sick, dying cow that’s ingested a tin can full of marbles.
    Really, it’s a miracle that anything functions in this weather.

  5. Decided to drive my Chevy Volt instead of the Polestar the last few days since its 0F every morning and the Volt started with no issues sitting outside, engine is running on high RPMs trying to warm up the cabin fast (fantastic job by the way, between the electric heat and ICE heat assist the car is warm in 2 min) and I am getting bad fuel economy (25mpg instead of 40mpg) but everything works as intended.

    My Chevy Blazer battery died after not moving it for a few days in the cold, I don’t want to jump start it with these temperatures, I will wait. In the meantime the Polestar is plugged-in in the garage and I get notifications so often that the car is active, keeping the battery alive.

    My poor Honda Insight is under a snow bank lol the wind got the snow really high in that spot and I cant see the wheels. Hopefully it starts right away during Spring time.

  6. Yeah, most EV:s these days have the battery conditioning if you use car navigation to go to the charging station. Still there’s quite hits to charging speeds. Brothers EV6 seems to have pretty good preconditioning system, my Skoda Enyaq 4x (AWD ID4 with less capacitive stuff) not so much. But I anyho charge mostly in home, so it’s not really an issue.

  7. Counterpoint (if I may). Our EV charges in our garage so I will spend 0 minutes standing in this frigid cold filling my car with gas. wins are wins and I’ll take it.

  9. So, as somebody who works with LI-ion batteries in equipment a lot I can tell you that this is a problem EVERYONE should have seen coming and owners of EVs should have been well aware of… You have a convergence of several factors here causing bedlam.

    The first is that Li-ion batteries lose a bunch of capacity as the temperature drops, especially when you get below 32 degrees F. Cold enough (varies by manufacturer but usually around 0F) and they will not work at all and go into a dormant state. Long story short you see reduced range when it is cold.

    Your next issue is that they also will not charge below 32F. If the battery is too cold you are SOL until it warms up.

    Then you compound the above issues by trying to solve them. To get that capacity back or to be able to charge when it is cold you heat the battery. On the discharge side, you are now adding a heavy draw to a battery that is already having a capacity issue. On the charge side, you have to pull a large draw from the nearly dead battery to get it warm enough to charge it. If you have a really low battery you are going to deplete what little it has left trying to get it warm enough to charge. You’re trying to heat a MASSIVE thermal bank too. Going from 0F to 33F is going to take a significant chunk of time so… yeah… not great.

    On the charger side, you have two issues. The first is you have very dead batteries taking a big draw plus trying to feed the heater. This is hard on any charger in the best of situations but extreme cold degrades all things and it stresses out the chargers even more.

    Arctic temps are a terrible environment for EVs.

  11. Open butthole OPEN BUTTHOLE O-PEN BUTT-HOLE

    BUTTHOLE PLEASE WORK

    BUTTHOLE

    BUTTHOOOOOOOOOLE

    WHY MUST YOU BETRAY ME, BUTTHOLE?

    WHY

    WHY, BUTTHOLE WHY???

    BUTTHOLE!

    BUTTHOOOOOOOOLLLLLEEEEEEE

    (This is either me after pizza night or a Tesla owner with a frozen-shut chargeflap. All bets are off in this weather, I guess.)

  12. So it sounds like just adding a small heating element to the NACS plug to melt ice would be a smart thing to do?

    Some of these things seem so obvious. Also, like maybe add a standardized port with an actual key for dead battery situations so you can plug in a portable emergency battery.

    1. Yeah or just charge people $Texas if the the plug touches the ground. I’d be kind of horrified if I saw someone doing that with a gas pump and honestly this doesn’t feel any different.

      2. This is an unattended public charging facility. Those plugs ARE going to be dropped. They should have been designed to handle that inevitable situation without dying.

      1. Push plate will freeze around the plug prongs, then you’d have to push REALLY hard to connect. I like where you head is at though. There are simple solutions out there.

        2. At that point you’re in no worse shape than you are now, which, admittedly, is still not ideal. Really shouldn’t be a problem if the plate has a decent wiping gasket to prevent anything infiltrating behind it.

          I’ve always been surprised that I’ve only seen them on a few pieces of farm machinery. Never had one fail. Connector full of dust? Cool. Smack the knob on the back, junk gets shoved out. Junk didn’t get shoved out? Hit it a few more times.

  13. Hahahahahahaha.

    And your god Elon does not want you working remotely so you better hurry up and buy an ICE car so you can get to work, or be really stoic and take the Metra.

  14. As the owner of a 2011 Ford Focus EV since new, I have a few comments.
    (1) Regarding high power consumption for short drives. Yeah, that happens if you heat your cabin to toasty temperatures. During cold snaps most of the energy is being wasted warming up your cabin and keeping it warm. When it is crazy cold, I set the cabin to 16C (61F) and my range is not impacted nearly as much. 61F is perfectly comfortable since I’m already bundled up in appropriate winter jacket/hat/etc. This is really, really important for short drives to save battery power, for, you know, driving.
    (2) The Ford uses resistive heating, so it is way less efficient than newer cars with heat pumps most of the time. However, heat pumps become much less efficient with heating the colder it gets. So cold snaps like right now will definitely mean more energy is required to warm the car.
    (3) I’ve never had a problem charging the battery when its cold using our Level 2 home charger. I sometimes even use the 120V charger (we have two EV’s so sometimes it get relegated to 120V when the other is charging) and it works, albeit slowly.
    (4) I suspect someone is going to chime in about batteries needing to be replaced to pile on why EV’s are useless and should never be made/purchased.
    Summer range when new: 100-110km (this is spirited driving having fun not granny driving). Summer range this past summer 90-105km. So around10% loss in range. My wife can still get 130km with their driving.
    Winter driving when new: 60-80km. Now: 50-65. So around 15% loss in range. Not sure why I’ve lost more range in the winter. But it is manageable for a city car.
    So, this car’s battery shows that they can definitely last a long time, and likely for the effective life of the car.
    (5) I’m sure some will think (and probably state) my Ford is useless as a car and how they heck do I use such a low range car. Heck, it works perfectly for me. It is a city car and it is great for getting around. My high school age kid gets to use the car nearly anytime they want, and they are happy as can be. What won’t work for you is perfectly fine for me.

    1. “What won’t work for you is perfectly fine for me.”

      Exactly why we need to allow consumer-demanded options in the marketplace and not dictate what technologies can be sold.

    2. About #1, both our DDs have seat heaters on the front seats which I find is enough to keep me warm since I have a coat and hat on already. I use the regular heater usually set at 65 F (+ sometimes the ac) when the windows start to fog up usually when there are other people in the car due to warm humid air (body heat + breath).
      That said this morning it was negative single digits here so I did use the regular heater + at times the ac to keep the windows clear

      1. Absolutely!! Only using the heated seats is a great strategy for sure. It works great to minimize using the regular heater in a lot of situations.

    3. I can’t drive in a winter jacket. I’m a thick fellow, and fill most of my allowed seating area with me. I also very much enjoy cranking the heat in a car – WHILE running the heated seats.

  15. Cold days in the upper midwest are already a pita. I would not want to add this to the list of crap I have to deal with. If I didn’t have a garage I wouldn’t consider an EV. Maybe I’m just lazy or not adventurous enough. But that sucks.

    1. I fully expect to likely get probably a Model Y for our next daily*, that said this situation described happening in Chicago 100% Does suck indeed, That is a complete faff.

      I hope these same news outlets plus here (Autopian) do follow up on this story to see Tesla’s response and solutions that are implemented at these locations to mitigate

      If the reports are true that is a LOT of SC locations to go down all at the same time, I understand the cold temperatures and challenges that can introduce (I live in MN), but Tesla SCs seem to work consistently well in Norway and other routinely cold locations

      * unless something better (price, range, practicality, reliability, repairability) comes out in US market in the next few years.

      1. The problem is that demand for charging goes up (because you are heating the car and battery and get lower miles per charges) in the cold AND charging takes longer (cause batteries are cold and charging rate is limited). Add in physical failures with the chargers (ice in plugs, dead cars blocking spots, etc.) and this is what happens.

        The issue, again, is the charging infrastructure. We bought an EV but are 0% reliant on public charging. It’s been fine in the cold. Otherwise, our EV car works like any other car for us and we like it that way.

        1. 100% agree with current battery tech in below zero F weather, charging to 90% overnight in a garage (preferably heated to just above 32 F IS the way to go.
          I think Tesla (Model 3 and Ys at least) now have a heat pump as the primary heat source And a resistive heater as secondary for – F weather…
          I wonder if both heat systems could be used in tandem to rapidly heat the battery pack in situations like this?

  16. The weather isn’t killing just Teslas. I learned the hard way that my Zero DSR/X long term loaner is programmed not to accept a charge at temperatures under 32 degrees. That’s been a Zero thing for a while.

    It also doesn’t run at all at temps below -4 degrees and the charge drop is something like 2% per day in these super freezing temps. So, the bike has died and since it’s so darn cold, I can’t charge it! I had to roll the frozen 500+ pound chunk of electric ADV into my wife’s garage in a desperate attempt to warm it enough to accept a charge.

    Edit: Yes, that means it’s entirely possible to ride this bike on a 20-degree day and then get stuck somewhere because it won’t charge.

    1. Uh, do you ride the Zero when it is this cold?? If you do, you are one hard core bike rider!!!
      I would ask Zero, but I would hope you can just leave the bike winter stored in the cold not plugged in?

      1. I’m too stubborn/foolish to stop riding when it gets cold. So long as the roads are clean and dry, I’ll ride. Coldest run on the Zero thus far was 20 degrees. Coldest run on a bike period was probably 10 degrees or so.

        Edit: Zero recommends leaving it unplugged with a state of charge of around 60 percent. Once the charge drops below 30 percent, it’s recommended to charge it back to 60 percent. The problem, of course, is if you’re storing it somewhere that’s not heated and thus cannot charge once the temps get too low.

    2. I’ve seen small tent-like shelters for protecting motorcycles. Some of them mount semi-permanently to the parking surface and then expand up and over the bike to ensure all of it is covered, right down to the bottom of the tires.

      It seems like the next iteration should be a heated enclosure. That would alleviate some of the issues with electric models and frankly ICE bikes would benefit as well. If there’s going to be a charging connection there anyway…

      (I’m thinking about home parking/charging here; it wouldn’t help get an adventure bike home, unfortunately.)

        1. Far from the same use case as cold dry roads. How do studs help with that? You need pliable rubber that can grip below 5C/41F, especially when you only have two contact patches.

          1. Two different things. Look up the Mitas XT-434 for studded tires. For regular winter riding, the rating is called “M&S” (mud and snow). Those kind usually have a special tread patterns and rubber compound. Mitas makes M&S winter tires too, but other more mainstream brands like Heidenau, Avon, Dunlop and Bridgestone also have serviceable varieties.

      2. I’ve been riding in the cold since the year I got my license. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I wait for the roads to be nice and dry and take things easy. The tires on this particular press loaner aren’t winter tires, but they maintain decent, predictable grip in the cold.

        1. I’ve done it and it can be white knuckle. Not my idea of fun anymore. I see a surprising amount of bikes go down in early spring when riders get itchy. Most often it’s sport bikes that require more camber and are on racy rubber that has no grip on a cold surface. Usually low speed manoeuvring on top of that. Exactly how I once went down in a parking lot no less. It wasn’t the cold then, it was a lot of loose surface sand that broke my traction on slick tires.

          I put winter tires on my car for a reason and that’s with four contact patches and a far more stable platform for balance and steering. It takes just once less inch of stopping distance or avoidance to make a difference.

          Stay safe! 🙂

    4. Mercedes Jason alluded to this over the weekend, will you be making an article about this situation? I would rather comment on that particular article than on this thread, I have some thoughts.

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