Chevrolet Equinox EV Winter Range Tested In Freezing Temps. It Didn’t Go Well

It was -6 Fahrenheit when this owner set out with a full charge. Not ideal conditions for maximizing range.

2025 Chevrolet Equinox EV LT AWD

Photo by: EV Motoring (YouTube)

Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

Jan 30, 2025 at 12:00pm ET

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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.

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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.

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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.

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