If you think Tesla is the best in everything in terms of electric cars, you’re wrong. A Chinese company is trumping the Americans.
When you think of electric cars, the first company that comes to mind is Tesla. It makes sense, as the company can be seen as one of the pioneers of electric driving. However, as it becomes increasingly popular worldwide, there are more hijackers on the coast, especially in China.
So innovation is moving very fast, because there are still plenty of areas for improvement. One of them is driving in the cold. This is because cold weather has a negative impact on range, which in turn can cause charging stress.
Tesla is beaten by unknown Chinese electric car
Tesla’s have a big advantage over many other electric cars: they often have a longer range. However, as with many other EVs, you will really have to compromise in the snow.
But even so, you still expect a Tesla to last longer in the snow. Another brand outranks Americans.
Leave your Tesla inside in the snow. (Image: Tesla)
The Norwegian Automobility Association, say the ANWB in Norway, holds an annual test that tracks the distances an electric car travels. This is done in both summer and winter weather to get the best possible picture.
Since 2020, it has always been a Tesla that finishes in first place. For example, the Model 3 won in 2022 and the Model S was the 2023 winner. This year, however, there is a different champion and it’s one you probably don’t know.
What is particularly notable in the test is that the Tesla Model 3 deteriorates the most in cold weather. The electric car finished in place 22 out of 23 cars. On a full charge, 187 fewer kilometers could be covered in cold weather. Only the Volkswagen ID.7 had an even greater difference: 194 kilometers.
Nevertheless, the Tesla managed to cover 438 kilometers in cold weather, placing it eighth in the cold, which is certainly not bad.
(Image: Yannik Zimmerman)
This is HiPhi
The winner, on the other hand, is a car brand you’ve probably never heard of. In fact, the name is more reminiscent of a Volkswagen van from the 1970s. The HiPhi Z achieved a distance of 518 kilometers. So it is the ideal car for a cold country.
HiPhi is a brand of China’s Human Horizon and it has several models on the market named X, Y and Z. The brand makes premium models. For example, the Z is the cheapest with a starting price of 105,000 euros in Germany. As a result, you can best compare it in terms of price to the Tesla Model S with Dual Motor.
As you can see, we mention the German price, because the electric car is not yet available in the Netherlands. In Europe, the brand only delivers in Germany and Norway yet. Soon, however, it plans to come to the Netherlands as well.
The HipHi Z is a 5.04-meter-long hatchback with a striking appearance. It looks like it was driven out of a science fiction movie
The Z. (Image: HiPhi)
The fact that this Z performs so well in the cold, according to HiPhi, is mainly because it has developed its own temperature management system, which thus seems to help well.
Substantial setbacks
As a result, the HiPhi Z yielded only 5.9 percent of its range, in the cold. That’s a bit different from the Tesla Model 3, which simply gave up 30 percent. Still, there were more notable losers. For example, the Polestar 2, despite being reduced in price, also yielded 30 percent in the cold. Remarkable, given that a sub-brand of Sweden’s Volvo might be expected to be cold-resistant.
But Volvo itself also did not fare too well with its own electric car. The C40 lost 30.9 percent of its range. The Toyota bZ4X and Volkswagen ID.7 did even worse with 31.8 and 31.0 percent, respectively.
Research was also done on what is the most efficient electric car, or the most fuel-efficient. There, too, Tesla did not come out on top. First place goes to the MG4 Trophy with an average of 17.9 kWh per 100 kilometers. The Model 3 comes just behind with 18 kWh per 100 kilometers.
Polestar 2 (Image: Mark Hofman / WANT)
The HiPhi Z has to compromise on that, however. For 100 kilometers, you use 23.5 kWh. So you would do well to research carefully beforehand which electric car really suits you. The HiPhi has a larger battery that loses less range in the cold, but uses more.
Although in the Netherlands we almost never encounter the real extreme cold like in northern Norway, it is still an interesting fact that some carmakers do not yet know how to deal with it properly.
