[Crunchified]

Lithiums don't work in cold temperatures? That's a new one on me. Many lithium battery formulations work in colder conditions than other common formulations. I don't read the NYT so didn't read the article, but were they climbing in temperatures well below -40° with exposed batteries? I know that lithiums are commonly used in balloon payloads that can get mighty cold!

[lstodd]

Eww, people of warm climates...

You try making a few calls in -15C 5 m/s wind (typical 55 latitude continental climate weather in winter), then see the charge bar plummeting to zero when you attempt to call up a taxi so that you don't freeze to death.

About only thing you can do at that point is shove the phone into your panties to heat it back up and then hope what's left of the charge is enough and it doesn't refreeze while you're at it.

No, lithiums don't work much below 0C. Balloon payloads use insulation and heaters, but that obviously eats into energy available.

[dpc050505]

I'm Canadian. My phone doesn't instantly die in -30c, I probably lose a bit of battery life but I can still spend the whole day taking snowboarding videos or pop google maps open after a day of ice climbing.

[gambiting]

I mean, other than this lovely anecdote, lithium batteries do, in fact, work absolutely fine I'm very cold temperatures, albeit at reduced capacity. The reason your phone shuts down is because the allowed discharge rate of the battery also goes down and it can't run its components at requested power levels, not because the battery stopped working.

Since we're sharing anecdotes - EVs are extremely popular in Norway and YouTube is full of videos of people testing the cars in negative 40 or even 50 centigrade. They work fine even without battery preheat.

[lstodd]

Man, I've been designing solar+battery offgrid installs for a few years up to my ears into battery datasheets. And I tell you, thermal is critical for the performance.

The phone can't get the current it needs exactly because the temperature is out of spec. This is the definition of "battery stopped working".

Now if you've got a tesla-sized one, and it has a good load, then you have another problem - you have to cool it, or it shoots above 50C and you get a dead battery eventually. I can imagine a 80% charge battery of this size heating itself in a few minutes of load even from -50C. Won't get the usual 2K cycles to half capacity in those conditions, but the car will still move. A bit.

In other news, Norway is overrated wrt colds courtesy of Gulfstream. Compared to say northern Kazakhstan it has a nice mild climate.

[bdamm]

They do work fine, but let's be real, they work with reduced range and increased charge times. I have an "older" Tesla with nearly 100k mi and operate in the north quite a bit. There is a tradeoff, which I personally think is worth it, but many do not or cannot make it.

It's fine to acknowledge the reality of current technology while also being optimistic about the future. Operating EVs in cold remote areas requires diligence and preparation. It's a fact.

[dilyevsky]

I had a phone go completely off on multiple occasions doing winter runs in tahoe and it wasn't even that cold (like mid-20s but with wind) so it's not so simple. And yes nearly 8000m peak it's common to have -40° temps

[admax88qqq]

> Many lithium battery formulations work in colder

It's possible, in fact probable that your phone doesn't have one of the aforementioned formulations.

[Crunchified]

These guys aren't using their cell phones to keep warm, I'm quite sure. It's true that Lithium Ion Polymer batteries, so very popular in portable rechargeable devices (and prone to the occasional thermal runaway) usually don't do well below 0°C. But that's not likely to be what they'd choose for such a mission. Simple Energizer brand AA/AAA disposable lithium batteries work fine down to about -40°, and can generally power heated socks and gloves etc. without any modification, and aren't particularly expensive given their considerably greater energy capacity and much wider temperature tolerance over alkaline formulations. The disposable lithiums weigh a good bit less than alkalines, too...for, you know, when every gram counts?

Edit: Also, these batteries aren't necessarily exposed to outside temperatures. Strategically placed near the body, they can be kept at higher temperatures for greater power efficiency - but if they are exposed to outside temps, they will not die as easily as your (pathetically useless in this situation) cell phone batteries would.