We've had an EV for almost 5 years now. We first had a BMW i3 94Ah model. It had decent battery thermal management, so it performed fine for us. Yes effective range was down quite a bit, IIRC ~150km in -15C vs ~230km in summer, but it was quite manageable.
It got totaled thanks to someone hitting us, and we ended up with a 24kWh Leaf. It doesn't have much in terms of thermal management, so with that we really notice the winter. Like, to and from work is just fine, but any significant trip in sub-zero (Celsius) conditions ain't fun. We knew it wouldn't be great, and we're looking to replace it.
I'd say for our kind of weather, which have many days below -5C during winter, and living in a city or suburbs like we do, the Leaf is fine as a second car. The i3 was good enough since we didn't do lots of long trips during winter, just a few to the cabin and such. Both the i3 and the Leaf (and others) have climate timers, so you can get the car nice and warm in preparation for a trip, using power from the grid. This helps a fair bit both in comfort and in range.
More modern cars are even better though, obviously more range to start with but also with things like battery preheating which sacrifices some of the battery energy to heat it up in preparation for proper fast charging.
I admit I do get a bit of range anxiety during winter from time to time, mostly because the consequences of running out with -10C or so outside isn't fun. If I was living more on the countryside, there's few competitors to Tesla I think just due to the range and thermal management.
All in all, we're definitely not gonna get another ICE. There's just too many things we like about the EVs.
Thanks, I figured this was the case - was kind of a tongue-in-cheek question as it's pretty obvious that if a place like Norway can have such huge EV penetration, then they can't be all that of a struggle in the cold!
For most day-to-day trips it's absolutely not a problem the periods I've rented an electric car. And even the outdoor public/slow chargers at parking spots work fine in even cold weather.
A bit annoying for longer trips. Typically "going to the cabin" type trips. Normally I wouldn't need to stop, or perhaps stop once. With a Peugeot e208 I had to stop twice, and the charging was a bit slow. Still, only turned a 4 hour trip to a <5 hour trip, and since it's not exactly something I do every week the consequence is basically zero.
When there was fewer chargers it was more of a problem. Had to time it so that from the last charger you could reach the cabin and back. But later years with longer ranges and chargers everywhere I don't really plan anything. Except when going to Sweden...
The Kia e-soul I've been using lately feels like it holds it charge much better than the e208, so probably even less of a problem.
And never had troubles getting an EV to start during winter. But may be a bit unfair comparison as the ICEs I've had troubles with are all older generations.
