As much of the country battles the bitter cold—electric car owners are facing another problem. Their car's performance drops when the temperatures dip. The driving range isn’t as long and the charge isn’t as strong.

“EV batteries just tend to perform a little less," says Andrew Garberson, head of marketing for Recurrent, an electrical vehicle battery research company.

Garberson says two issues contribute to these problems.

One - electric car batteries operate on chemical reactions and when it’s cold, those chemical reactions slow down, and that reduces the car's driving range.

The second issue is when it’s cold—we crank up the heat. In electric cars, though, the heaters run on stored energy--which means less energy for driving long distances.

“A lot of the reason an EV will lose range in the winter is because it has to work so hard to keep its driver warm,” Garberson said.

Those limits have one Nebraska lawmaker criticizing the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden has proposed stringent vehicle emission regulations that would result in 67 percent of new vehicles being electric by 2032.

But U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts says Nebraska’s rural landscape means drivers in the Husker state could end up losing out in winter storms.

"Many rural communities across Nebraska are more than one hundred miles from the nearest charging station," Ricketts said in a video statement posted to social media. "Electric trucks are not practical when you’re hauling livestock. You can’t just pull over on the side of the road to charge for two hours when you’re hauling a truckload of cattle in zero-degree temperatures."

Tests by the consumer advocacy group consumer reports showed that EV driving range dropped by about 25% on average in highway cruising in sub-freezing weather when compared to days with warmer temperatures

There is some good news though…

“There’s no lasting impact on EV batteries from cold weather,” Garberson says.

Reporting from CNN was used in this story.