Harbin is north of Vladivostok you know? But yah, Yakutsk is where you can’t turn your car off in the winter (well, they have auto start and stop now to keep the engine from freezing, no power outlets like in Fairbanks for block heaters) and often have to encase the whole car in a warming sock (which is exactly how you imagine it). Yakutsk is east of Siberia in the Saka republic though, the closest comparable city in Siberia is Norilsk (not as cold or populous as Yakutsk).
Yakutsk sounds similar to where I live now. Mind ... a lot of the Canadian prairies are "empty" (not really, lots of farms... but not a lot of cities that aren't close to the US border). Similar weather at least.
Yakutsk is the coldest city in the world. But cities like harbin and Mohe in China get really really cold for their latitudes, Harbin is on par with Winnipeg:
> Harbin's winter temperatures are closest to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Both cities are known for having extremely cold, dry, and windy winters due to their inland locations, with average January temperatures in both cities often falling in the range of -15°C to -20°
Mohe is worse:
> Mohe, China—known as "China's Arctic" with winter temperatures often dropping to -40°C or lower—has a winter climate most similar to Canada's coldest northern or subarctic communities, such as Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
They both have EVs and used by Chinese EV companies for winterized testing.
Winnipeg is far south of where I usually am, and rather near the US border. It might be comparable to China what with the sea nearby and all those lakes.
I'm out in the middle of the prairies, where -40C is a normal winter day, and 100km winds are also ... normal. Mind, -20C to -30C is far more common, and -50C almost never happens where I am now. (it was a lot more common in FSJ, or in the badlands near Drumheller).
Fort St John BC however has almost exactly the same temperatures and weather as Yakutsk. Mind, it wouldn't be considered a city on these scales.
People do NOT understand how cold Canada gets. And I'm way south of places like Nunavut, the Yukon (mind, Yukon is warmer than Saskatchewan, mostly), or any of the Northwest Territories. I guess y'all think of balmy Toronto or the like. (or - by comparison - tropical Vancouver BC. Vancouver is warmer than Seattle, for the most part. Wetter too, largely, but not as wet as Prince Rupert or Kitimat).
Anyway that's mostly not here or there for EVs. EVs on the whole work really well on the prairies - especially if they've got mitigation for -50C and +50C (both temperatures happen regularly, at appropriate times of year). For the most part, more reliable than diesel at those ranges too.
The local frustrating part is while Alberta has an ok electrical grid, Sask is an unstable grid dependent on coal and low maintenance. (I mean, we do have Uranium City too ... heh..). Saskatchewan is poor, by Canadian standards.
