Electric Car Batteries Lose More Than Half Their Range In Cold Climates

From BloombergBusiness, "Electric Cars Can’t Take the Cold: Batteries generate power less efficiently as temperatures drop." by Jeff Plungis:

The batteries used by the greener cars generate electricity from chemical reactions that work less efficiently as temperatures drop. In tests conducted by the American Automobile Association, an electric car that ran for 105 miles at 75F went only 43 miles at 20F—a 60 percent reduction in range.

That’s causing anxiety in places such as Maine, a mostly rural state where people drive long distances for work, shopping, and recreation. "People said don’t worry about it," says Tom Brown, president of the Maine Automobile Dealers Association of the battery range problem. But, he says, "California is not Maine. They’ve got more people in five city blocks than we do in the whole state."***The bottom line: Nine states have adopted California’s targets for electric car sales, even though the batteries don’t work well in the cold.