# Electric driving in winter: range, charging and preheating > Why your range drops in winter, how much margin to plan for, and how preheating, driving style and a warm battery help at the fast charger. Published: 2026-01-13 · Language: en · Source: https://laadpaalvinden.be/en/blog/ev-winter-range-and-charging/ On a cold morning your dashboard shows fewer kilometres than yesterday, even though the battery is just as full. That is not a fault. How much range you lose depends on your car, your trip and the temperature. ## Why does your range drop? Two things are going on. In a cold battery the chemical processes run more slowly, so the battery works less efficiently. And you heat the cabin with power from that same battery. A petrol car uses waste heat from the engine for this, while an EV produces so little waste heat that it has to spend electricity. Short trips hurt the most. The car and battery are still cold and the heating is working flat out. ## A worked example Take an imaginary car with a 60 kWh usable battery. Say it uses 18 kWh per 100 km in summer and 22 kWh per 100 km on a cold day. Those are assumptions, not measurements. - Summer: 60 / 0.18 is about 333 km. - Cold day: 60 / 0.22 is about 273 km. You lose around 60 km. That does not sound dramatic, until you had planned a 300 km trip that only just worked in summer. Want to know your own figures? See how to [calculate consumption in kWh per 100 km](/en/blog/calculate-ev-consumption-kwh-100km/). ## Preheat while the car is plugged in This is the biggest win. Set a departure time in your car's app and let the cabin warm up while the car is still on the charger. The power comes from the grid, not from your battery. Say the heating draws an average of 3 kW for 15 minutes. That is 0.75 kWh. From the battery that costs you roughly 4 km of range (0.75 / 0.18). Plugged in, it costs you no range at all, and you get in without an ice scraper. It pays off mostly at home. You can read more in [home charging: the best way to drive electric](/en/blog/home-charging/). ## Heat smartly - Use the seat and steering wheel heating. They warm only you and use far less than bringing the whole cabin up to 22 degrees. - Don't set the temperature higher than you need. Every extra degree costs energy. - Does your car have a heat pump? Then it heats more efficiently than a plain electric resistance heater. Check the specifications to see whether yours has one. ## Driving style and parking Park in a garage when you can. A battery that spends the night in a warmer space starts less cold. On the motorway consumption climbs quickly with speed, and even faster in winter because cold air is denser. Driving 10 km/h slower gives you noticeably more range. Check your tyre pressure too: it drops in cold weather, and soft tyres raise consumption. Winter tyres can push consumption up a little, but on snow and ice they belong on the car for safety. ## Fast charging in winter A cold battery charges more slowly. The car limits the charging power to protect the cells, so at the charger you see far fewer kW than the maximum until the battery warms up. How that works is explained in [the charging curve of a battery](/en/blog/charging-curve-fast-charging-slows/). What helps: 1. Drive a good stretch first, preferably on the motorway. The battery warms up on its own. 2. Use the car's built-in navigation to route to the fast charger. Some cars precondition the battery when you do. Check the manual to see whether yours does. 3. Top up more often and in shorter stops instead of running the battery nearly flat. If your car has no battery preconditioning, a stop in the cold can stay slow. Allow some extra time. ## Plan your trip with a buffer Take the same car and a 300 km trip. You would rather not drive down to the last kWh, so say you stay between 90% and 10%. That is 80% of 60 kWh, or 48 kWh. At 22 kWh per 100 km that takes you about 218 km. So you need at least one charging stop, and with a headwind or snow you may need a second. If you are going far, leave with a full battery. For daily use you don't need to charge to 100%. Why 80% is often enough is covered in [charging to 80 percent](/en/blog/why-charge-to-80-percent/). ## When does this matter less? If you mostly drive short distances in town and can charge and preheat at home, you will barely notice winter. You start each morning with a full, warm battery and cover your daily distance with room to spare. The tips above count mainly on long trips, in frost and at high speed. Planning a long trip? Read our tips on [fast charging on trips](/en/blog/fast-charging-on-trips/) and find your charging stops in advance on the [map](/en/map/).