- A 2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV owner drove in freezing temperatures to see how far he could go.
- At a constant 75 mph on the highway, the EV quickly lost a significant amount of range.
The Chevrolet Equinox EV is a great electric car for the money, and the sales figures prove exactly that. The electric crossover was GM’s best-selling EV last year, with a little under 30,000 units finding new homes. It’s a popular vehicle, but how does it stand up to freezing cold temperatures?
The video embedded below is a real-world winter range test with a 2025 Chevy Equinox EV LT AWD. The owner, Joe Franz from the YouTube channel EV Motoring, set out with a full battery on a chilly Midwest night to see how far he could go before running out of juice.
The car has an EPA-rated range of 307 miles thanks to an 85-kilowatt-hour (usable) battery pack. There’s also a dual-motor all-wheel drive system.
At a brisk -6 degrees Fahrenheit, the test started with a full battery and an estimated range of 306 miles. After disconnecting the charger, the driver quickly got on the highway where he set the cruise control to a constant 75 mph.
At 52% state of charge, the car had only traveled 69 miles and the efficiency was 1.5 miles/kWh. At 112 miles, the battery level was down to 26% and the efficiency went up slightly to 1.6 miles/kWh. At 12% SoC, the car showed a warning that said the acceleration was limited due to the low battery level.
The test stopped after the car’s battery level went down to 10%, but the data was clear: 90% battery used for roughly 150 miles at highway speeds, with an average energy efficiency of 1.7 miles/kWh. The remaining range was estimated at 19 miles.
Taking the miles/kWh figure into account and multiplying it with the usable battery capacity, we get a theoretical maximum range of 144.5 miles in sub-zero temperatures at a constant speed of 75 mph.
That’s less than half the official EPA estimate of 307 miles, but let’s not forget that such estimates are produced in a laboratory under ideal conditions. All EVs suffer from, generally, 20% to 30% range loss when the temperature dips below freezing. Moreover, efficiency drops significantly when driving over 70 mph, which is why we do our range tests at that speed.
Speaking of our tests, Tom Moloughney found that the two-wheel-drive 2024 Equinox EV is capable of driving further than its EPA estimate in warm weather at 70 mph, with an average efficiency of 3.4 miles/kWh.
That just goes to show that real-world range figures can vary significantly based on the weather conditions and driving style. So do your homework before setting off on a road trip in an EV in the winter, including checking the chargers along the way on apps like PlugShare. You never know, some of them might be out of order.
