[Maakuth]

It sure does, at least when you need the heater. In a conventional car, you'll get lots of extraneous heat from the engine, so heating is basically free. In the case of an electric car, an electric heating elements must be used with the same battery power as the electric motors. That is bound to hurt the range.

[georgemcbay]

Even if you don't use the heater, cold weather reduces the effectiveness of the chemical reactions needed for a battery to supply power, causing the battery to drain faster (sometimes substantially so) and the Tesla is all battery.

[jblow]

I have driven a Tesla Roadster for 3 years. The heater does not impact range much.

[recursive]

In what climate?

[Florin_Andrei]

Now, those electrical engines, electrical though they may be, still don't have 100% efficiency. I don't know how many kW the Tesla engine is putting out, but even at 90% efficiency you still have 10% of all that power wasted as heat. That's a lot of heat. Maybe it could be used for heating?