Current Events: How Our Tesla Model Y and Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe Handled Chicago’s Subzero Temps

Temperatures in the area around Cars.com’s Chicago headquarters plunged below zero in recent days, and news stories have documented the struggles of area residents with electric vehicles. We own both a 2021 Tesla Model Y, an all-electric SUV, and a 2023 Jeep Grand Cherokee 4xe Trailhawk, a plug-in hybrid SUV. Cold weather is notorious for its negative impacts on vehicles, especially electric and electrified ones. How did ours fare in these frigid temperatures?

Related: How Well Do Electric Cars Work in Cold Weather?

Plug-In Problems for Our Grand Cherokee 4xe

We’ll start with the Jeep, which Brian had. He reports:

“This should’ve been less problematic given it has a traditional gasoline engine, but it had been parked outside in my condo building’s parking lot. Since my building is right next to Lake Michigan (I promise that sounds far more glamorous than the reality), it can be even colder than other areas of the city. The ‘less problematic’ feeling was quickly dispelled when I got into the Jeep, turned it on and the check-engine light came on. Sigh. The turbocharged four-cylinder under the hood sounded fine over the noise of the ineffective defroster, and I was heading to a local dealership for some repairs anyway, so I chanced driving it after letting it run for a couple of minutes to warm up the engine and cabin.

“The SUV’s battery pack when I started was at zero percent charge, and a message that appeared in the gauge cluster said ‘Plug in to condition battery.’ With no EV charging of any kind at my condo, I can’t leave the Jeep (or any other EV) plugged in and have to rely on public chargers. My solution in the Grand Cherokee 4xe has been to use E-Save, a driving mode that relies on the gas engine to provide all the motive power and can also charge the 4xe’s 17.3-kilowatt-hour battery pack, albeit more slowly and less efficiently than plugged-in charging. The entirety of the roughly 30-minute drive to the dealership didn’t add a single percentage of charge, however, which was concerning.

“At the dealership, the service advisor hypothesized that the severe cold was impacting the electric portion of the powertrain but promised to look into the reasons for the check-engine light. The result of the investigation was inconclusive but showed no faults with the powertrain, and hours inside a relatively warm facility appeared to have the effect of mildly conditioning the battery. The check-engine light was gone, and using E-Save mode on the way home added a small amount of electric range — as it should have. Most PHEVs have a mode like this for gas-only operation.

“This experience highlights the importance of home charging even for PHEVs. With a dedicated home-charging setup, I could’ve kept the battery charged (barring weather-related issues with the charging infrastructure), conditioned the battery to improve its operation, and perhaps not used any gasoline to make my journey or operate the heater or defroster. Instead, I was left with a concerning warning that could’ve ruined a day where I wasn’t planning to take the Jeep in for service and also produced a mildly harrowing drive to the dealership where I constantly worried I’d end up stranded in dangerously cold temperatures.”

Winter Woes for Our Tesla Model Y

Damon’s experience was even more anxiety-inducing:

“As (not-so-great) luck would have it, I swapped into our Model Y a day and a half before the temperatures plummeted from around 25-35 degrees Fahrenheit to highs of around zero degrees and lows of around 10 below. Since my wife, kids and I all had Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I had made plans to take my 10-year-old son along to visit a friend of mine who lives in a far-west Chicago suburb about 50 miles away, with the majority of the trip on the Interstate 90 expressway. I knew the subzero temps would make that simple trip a challenge in the Model Y, but I set out anyway because synced-up time off is hard to come by for my family and friends. I ended up making it there and back OK, but not without uncertainty, frustration and added stress.

“When I received the Model Y, its charge level was comfortably above the halfway mark and the indicated driving range was a shade less than 200 miles. Ambient temps hovered around freezing or a little above — a few inches of snow overnight and into that morning had turned to slushy rain for most of the afternoon. By Sunday (the day before my trip), the brutal cold snap had hit, and the vehicle’s charge and indicated range had dropped accordingly. Like Brian, I don’t have a dedicated home EV charger, just a household outlet on the side of my house, but I live just a mile and a half from a Tesla Supercharger station. I had a few errands to run on Sunday afternoon, so I planned to stop by the Supercharger to charge up before my roughly 100-mile round trip the next day.

“Sunday did not get off to a great start. Before I could even get into the Model Y, I had to pour warm tap water over the door handles because all of them were frozen shut thanks at least in part to the earlier rain; Tesla’s flush-fit door handles clearly were not designed for optimal performance in nasty winter weather. Since some of the door handles continued to be a hassle through Sunday and Monday, I ended up opening those doors from inside the vehicle so my passengers could get in.

“As it turned out, Sunday’s short trips (with the vehicle sitting parked at least 15 minutes at each of my three stops) didn’t allow the battery much time to warm up before I arrived at the Supercharger. I also neglected to select the car’s option for battery preconditioning, which warms up the battery to speed up the charging process — not that it would have had a lot of time to heat up the battery anyway since the Supercharger station was just a few minutes away.

“So, I arrived at the Supercharger with a frigid battery and a charge level of just 38% and an indicated range of 112 miles. After a few attempts to ‘persuade’ the frozen-shut charge-port door to open by hitting it with my fist as hard as I dared, I was successful in both getting the door to open and not breaking it. I plugged in and the car began charging. The ambient temperature was 5 below. Based on our TeslaFi data-tracking app, the Supercharger took about 10 minutes just to warm up the battery to the point that it was accepting a charge and adding range. After 28 minutes, the Supercharger stopped charging (apparently, this Supercharger station had a 30-minute charging limit). In that time, the battery was charged only to 52%, with an indicated driving range of 160 miles — seriously inefficient for a DC fast charger. I thought about plugging in again, but there were other Teslas waiting to charge, and I figured I would have more than enough juice to at least make it out to my friend’s house with range to spare …

“… Or not so much. With the climate controls, especially the defrosters, on high for a good chunk of my drive (the bulk of which was at expressway speeds), the Model Y was eating up driving range at close to double the range-estimate display. By the time I pulled into my friend’s driveway, the Model Y’s battery was down to 13% and I had an indicated driving range of 40 miles — and I knew those numbers would drop even further as the battery got cold again. My friend doesn’t have an EV charger, so after a quick hello, I pulled out of his driveway and headed to a nearby Supercharger station, arriving with just 10% charge and an indicated driving range of 30 miles. Thankfully, I did remember to precondition the battery this time (well, sort of — entering the Supercharger’s location as a navigation-based destination automatically starts the preconditioning process). That and the fact that the battery was already warmed up from my hourlong drive meant this charging session was much more efficient even though the ambient temperature was 6 below zero. The battery went from 10% to 76% in 33 minutes, and I ended the session with an indicated driving range of 236 miles — enough to drive back home after our visit without gritting my teeth.

“Based on the news stories I’ve seen, other Tesla-owning Chicagoans weren’t as lucky as I was in these conditions. For my less-than-ideal trip-planning and charging practices, I only paid in extra time and extra anxiety, not an immobilized vehicle and a tow truck. Nevertheless, I will avoid driving a Tesla or any other EV in subzero weather if I can — at least until I get a home charger installed.”

More From Cars.com:

• Driving 3 EVs in Zero-Degree Temps: What Could Go Wrong?
• Your Guide to EV Batteries: Premature Death, Range Loss and Preservation
• EV 101: A Video Guide to Electric Vehicles
• What to Know Before Purchasing an Electric Vehicle: A Buying Guide
• How Long Does It Take to Charge an Electric Car?

The prospect of driving an EV, or even a PHEV, in severe cold can be daunting — but we have lots of tips and advice to help allay your fears. It’s also worth noting that the best practices for mitigating the cold’s effects are almost always easier if you have your own home-charging equipment. Getting through winter with an EV or PHEV without home charging is possible — the above two stories show how we managed — but it’s also not advisable.

Then again, we won’t pretend that gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles operate flawlessly in subzero temperatures, either.

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