If you have ever watched your fuel gauge or battery meter drop faster on a frosty morning than it did in September, you were not imagining it. A new test from AAA’s newsroom puts hard numbers on what cold weather does to hybrids and electric vehicles, and the gap between the two is bigger than many drivers expect.

The study, released May 1, 2026, came from AAA working with the Automobile Club of Southern California Automotive Research Center. They tested three electric vehicles and three hybrids on a chassis dynamometer, which is basically a set of rollers that lets a car “drive” while sitting in a lab. The climate control was set to 72 degrees Fahrenheit in every test, so the cars were heating or cooling the cabin the way a real driver would.

Then came the cold. At 20 degrees Fahrenheit, AAA found that the hybrids lost 22.8 percent of their fuel economy. The electric vehicles took a much harder hit. According to AAA, they lost 35.6 percent of their efficiency and 39.0 percent of their driving range.

What Those Numbers Mean On Your Driveway

Let us put that in plain terms. A hybrid that normally sips fuel will, on a 20 degree day, use noticeably more of it to go the same distance. Losing nearly a quarter of your fuel economy means more trips to the pump than you planned for. That stings, but the car still has a gas tank and a stretch of road full of stations to fall back on.

For an electric vehicle, losing 39.0 percent of range is a different kind of problem. If the window sticker or the dashboard promised a certain number of miles, you should expect to see well short of it in this kind of cold. A trip that looked easy on paper can suddenly need a charging stop, and in winter that stop is often a cold, windy parking lot.

The study also looked at the money side. AAA reported that, in the cold, running costs for the electric vehicles at public charging stations came out $86.26 per 1,000 miles higher than for the hybrids. That is a real number to chew on for anyone who assumed an electric car is always the cheaper way to travel. Home charging is a different situation, and AAA’s figure is specifically about using public chargers.

Heat Is Not Free Either

Winter gets all the attention, but AAA also tested the other end of the thermometer. At 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the hybrids lost 12.0 percent of their fuel efficiency and the electric vehicles lost 8.5 percent of their range. In other words, a scorching summer day costs you something too, though the electric vehicle range loss in the heat was far smaller than the loss in the deep freeze.

One thing worth noticing is that those two heat figures are not measured the same way. For the hybrids, AAA’s number is a loss in fuel efficiency. For the electric vehicles, it is a loss in range. They are close cousins, but they are not identical measurements, so it is best not to line them up as an exact contest.

Smart Moves For Cold Mornings

You cannot change the weather, but you can soften the blow. These are common sense steps that apply whether you drive a hybrid, an electric vehicle, or an old gas truck.

• Plan for less, not more. If you drive an electric vehicle, treat the rated range as a best case. On a very cold day, plan your trip as if you have noticeably less, and know where your charging stops are before you leave.
• Warm up the car while it is still connected. If your electric vehicle or plug-in has a preconditioning feature, using it while the car is plugged in means the battery is not paying for all of that cabin heat once you are on the road.
• Park out of the wind if you can. A garage, even an unheated one, takes the edge off a hard freeze.
• Check your tire pressure. Air pressure in your tires drops when temperatures fall. Underinflated tires make any car work harder, so a quick check in cold weather is cheap insurance.
• Go easy on the pedal. Smooth starts and gentle stops help any car stretch its fuel or its charge.
• Keep a cushion in the tank or the battery. Do not run down to the last few miles in winter. Fill up or charge sooner than you would in mild weather.

Do Not Panic, Just Plan

Nothing in the AAA findings says hybrids or electric vehicles are bad cars. They are not. What the test shows is that temperature matters, and that the numbers on the sticker are measured under friendlier conditions than a January commute in a cold snap. Knowing that ahead of time is the whole point.

If you are shopping for a new vehicle and you live somewhere with real winters, this is worth factoring in. A hybrid lost less than a quarter of its fuel economy at 20 degrees in this test, while the electric vehicles lost close to two fifths of their range. If you do a lot of long highway trips in cold country, that difference deserves a spot on your checklist next to price and style. If most of your driving is short hops near home with a charger waiting in your garage, the picture may look quite different.

Either way, the lesson is the same one your grandfather probably gave you about the family sedan: know your machine, and know what the weather does to it. The next time the thermometer dips toward 20, you will know roughly what to expect, and you will not be caught staring at a gauge wondering where all your miles went.

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