[Porsche-O-Phile]

I'm curious how these perform in crappy climates where heat is needed regularly. Electric resistance heaters are pretty inefficient and suck a LOT of juice, and I don't know any way a true EV could make heat otherwise since there's no internal combustion engine (as with a hybrid) to scavenge heat from. Warm-up time could seriously cut into range I'd think, not to mention cold weather wreaks havoc on battery performance / capacity and charging times. I'd be curious to see how these REALLY hold up over a couple of winters (although personally I'm hoping to be out of this climate soon so my curiousity is largely academic - seeing if these sorts of EVs are really up for prime time or just a publicity stunt that works sometimes, for some, under very ideal conditions).

Can a Volt (or Tesla Model S) REALLY last an hour or two in hellish stop-go commuter traffic in the middle of winter when it's 10 degrees outside and you absolutely need to run heat, defrost and lights / wipers to avoid getting killed? Can it be counted on to be reliable enough to get you through blizzard conditions during an emergency without risk of literally freezing to death in your car when the heat goes out? These are real issues for some people and some of them live not that far away from here. I'm just wondering if they're "real" or if they need to be only kept around and used as a supplement to a conventional internal combustion type vehicle.

No way I'll ever buy another GM vehicle in all my days on this planet ever again. They lost me decades ago with their rattle-trap crap from the 70s and 80s and I don't care how good the new stuff is - I'll never personally give them another dime, but I'm curious how the technology is evolving. Add to that the EV1 nonsense, the "bailout", etc. and I'll just leave it at "cool technology - curious about its practicality, not for me".