Range down to ~60 miles on 100% charge

tylety · Nov 29, 2016

I know there are several old threads on this but I haven't seen anyone with nearly as bad of range as I've been getting.

I have 25 months & 25k miles on my Soul EV. Since getting the car, I have seen my range drop from 100 to 85 gradually. In the past 3 weeks (moderate SoCal weather of 70's F), my range has dropped from 85 to 65 mi on 100% Level 2 charge. Of course the dealership has no idea what to do. CPU says I'm averaging 4 mi per kWh. I should be getting ~95-100mi so either my battery isn't really getting 100% charge like it says; or no longer have all the cells on the battery?

Anyone else suffering from such significant degradation? I wasn't expecting this bad of degradation & wondering what Kia can do about it. I've started driving more conservative, on ECO and B, but haven't seen much of an improvement.

JejuSoul · Nov 30, 2016

tylety : you do know that range goes down in winter, right? I'm assuming you do.

I would like to compare your car to another in Southern California. Also In Orange County. Also two years old. Also having driven about 30,000 miles.
There's an interesting thread about it here - Battery Degradation and Performance Patterns

mtndrew1 said:
My car was the subject of Tony Williams' Soul EV range test posted on InsideEVs.com in October 2014. http://insideevs.com/kia-soul-ev-range-autonomy-demonstration-nets-100-miles/

From that date forward I have kept a running Google Sheets spreadsheet tracking how my battery performs. I'm not at all consistent with the variables here (tire pressure, HVAC use, ambient temps, average speeds, etc); I'm simply extrapolating what the car tells me on the dash and contrasting it against a known, carefully-controlled test when the car was new. I do this whenever I know I'll have a long-ish day of driving ahead with no charging interruptions to throw off the data.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kfyB1q3LMKcM1OzCnLp-CJxcLANAaIMZHRgBmgQgxGw/edit?usp=sharing
Most of the time I just charge to 80%, drive the car around like any other car, HVAC set to "Auto 74," radio blasting, and don't give a thought to range. The car just has plenty of range for me and I've never had any sort of anxiety about it.

This is all in Southern California, so the climate should be similar to yours. (And mine).
I highly recommend having a look at the YouTube video of the range test - You get a idea of what is important for maximising range. Tire Pressure, Ambient Temp, HVAC settings, Smooth driving, Elevation ...

https://youtu.be/AR3NCObaPW0

tylety - can you give some more details about your daily drive. What elevation gain is the trip?
How fast do you drive? Do you use the heating / cooling? Do you know your Tire Pressures?

mtndrew1 · Nov 30, 2016

Is actual range down or is the guess-o-meter (GOM) down?

If you start at 100% charge and drive 40 miles at 4 mi/kWh what PERCENTAGE is left? Not GOM. If you're experiencing typical SoCal degradation you should have between 50 and 60% remaining. The Soul's GOM is notoriously pessimistic.

My GOM has read between 80 and 125 miles on a full charge in the last two months. Actual degradation is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% at 33,000 miles and I still get roughly one mile per 1% SOC at 4 mi/kWh no matter what the GOM says.

tylety · Dec 28, 2016

Thx for the response guys. I've been monitoring the degradation and it's bad. I'm actually ranging between 3.5 to 3.9 mi/kWh (using some heating) driving in ECO but mostly highway miles.

In the past weeks, I'm only averaging .6 actual mi per 1% in battery. The past weeks, my weekday commute of 56 mi leaves me with ~5% left by the time I'm home. Today, 57.5 mi and 3% with orange blinking turtle mode. It's become unmanageable for me unless I charge through out my day.

Dealership has checked each battery cell and say it's all good. They can't explain why 100% is getting 60mi (or my daily commute 56 mi taking 95% of battery.

I'm going to call Kia and see if they can provide any help.

SoulEV2016 · Dec 28, 2016

use Torque Pro because you drive your car like an ICE car : EV need a other way to drive ... but you need TOOLS to see this.

The eco-drive panel is made for this :

http://www.mykiasoulev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=471&start=240#p5942