Yes, the range drop is real

Living in Sweden, I get asked about this every winter. The short version: expect 10-30% less range in cold weather, with the worst case being short trips in deep cold without preheating. Independent winter tests routinely measure drops in this band, and my own experience matches.

The good news: it's predictable, it's manageable, and the cost impact is smaller than the range impact suggests.

Why cold hurts EVs

Three things stack up:

Cabin heating comes from the battery. A petrol car heats the cabin with waste engine heat, which is free. An EV has to generate that heat, and resistive heaters can draw 3-5 kW. Heat pumps cut this a lot.
Battery chemistry slows down. A cold battery can't deliver or accept energy as efficiently, and regenerative braking is often limited until the pack warms up.
Everything else gets worse too. Winter tyres, denser air, and snow all add rolling and aerodynamic resistance. Petrol cars suffer this part as well; people just notice it more in an EV because the range display is so prominent.

What it does to your cost per km

Higher consumption means higher cost per km. If your car uses 18 kWh/100 km in summer and 23 kWh/100 km in a cold January, that's roughly 28% more per km for those months.

Two things soften the blow:

Winter is only part of the year. Averaged over twelve months, a few cold months might raise your yearly energy cost by 5-10%.
Even at winter consumption, home-charged electricity usually stays well below petrol cost per km. A 28% increase on cheap energy is still cheap. Try your own winter consumption number in the fuel cost calculator and compare.

Charging losses also creep up in the cold, since the car spends energy warming the battery while charging. That's part of why I keep charging losses as a separate input rather than ignoring them.

What actually helps

Precondition while plugged in. Warming the cabin and battery on wall power before you leave is the single biggest win. The energy comes from the grid, not your range.
Use seat and steering wheel heaters first. Heating a person takes far less energy than heating all the air in the car.
Park indoors when you can. A garage-parked car starts warmer, which helps both range and charging speed.
Don't panic about the percentage display. Plan with winter range, not brochure range, and the car is perfectly usable.
If you're car shopping: get the heat pump. On many models it's optional. In a cold climate it pays for itself in usable winter range.

The honest comparison

Winter range loss is a genuine drawback of EVs, and anyone who says otherwise is selling something. But it's a range problem more than a money problem. If your daily driving fits comfortably within winter range, the cost difference is a rounding error in the yearly budget.

If you're on the fence about whether an EV makes sense in a cold climate, run the numbers with pessimistic winter consumption in the calculator and see if the case still holds. For most home-charging drivers, it does.