Just Joined - Here's My EV Story

Hello All.

I purchased my Kia Soul EV in October 2015 and use it for my commuter vehicle. I travel 53 miles each direction, 106 miles a day. Menifee, CA to Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, CA. About 50 miles of my commute is the ups and downs of the I-15 and I-215. I charge with an L2 charger at both ends, home and work. At 100%, my range fluctuates between 67 and 72 miles. I'm almost always sitting at 3.2 m/kWh each way. I also normally drive 70-85 mph constantly the entire length of interstate (50 miles). Upon arriving at my destination, I typically have 10-15% battery remaining.

That's it in a nutshell, I'm not sure how good / bad these stats are and would appreciate any input that you could provide. I would love to see 4-5 m/kWh again, but I don't think my driving habits and commute will ever allow it.

I don't know how to get much more info, but would be happy to provide more if anyone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Does anyone know of a "best practices" type guide here?

Like, should I use ECO at all times or should I turn it off on the interstate?

Hi, welcome to the forum.
I would be interested to hear some more details about your car. How many miles driven? Do you notice any reduction in range?

Your car may give an understanding to the issue of battery ageing in our cars. Currently we are following two cars in Southern California. Both two years old, both having driven about 30,000miles. One mtndrew1 is showing very little deterioration (in common with almost all the other cars). The other ilectic is (perhaps) showing a lot (very much an outlier compared to all the rest).
I'll post some links below -

First here's a quote from the Best Procedures in Battery Charging thread

mtndrew1 said:

My understanding of Li-Ion batteries is that they degrade the slowest when:

-The SOC use window remains between 20-80%
-Pack temperatures are between 20-90 degrees F, particularly when charging and discharging
-Long-term storage SOC is nearest to 50%
-Duration of time stored at 100% SOC is minimal

I have my car set to charge to 80% daily and use the phone app's remote charge feature to bring it up to 100% immediately prior to departing for a trip where I'll need the range.

These are the parameters I use to care for my car's pack and JejuSoul has my battery's degradation as an outlier for how slowly it's losing capacity.

Click to expand...

Here's a topic discussing the other - 27,000 miles 86-mile range; my Soul EV commute is over

iletric said:

Yep, just like the title says.

I was waiting for the battery to heat up to see what kind of range I'll be looking at next summer. Well, we got a summer preview yesterday, 90-degree day and warm evening. Charged it up still warm and went from the "winter" 81 miles to 86 miles. Not enough to do my 82-mile commute. I could do it last summer with the starting range of 91-94 miles...

No more. Signing off on Kia Soul EV. It's now our Costco car like the Leaf was way back when.

Click to expand...

I'll be more than happy to provide any information you guys need but I need assistance in gathering info because I'm not real sure on how to do so.


I currently have 34285 miles.

My sudden interest in finding out more information is is due to the fact that I'm having issues even making my 53 mile commute back home from Rancho Bernardo to Menifee.

Immediate advice - stop driving so fast. You will get better range at a lower speed.
It seems that very fast driving to the limits of the vehicle's range may be a cause of very fast degradation.
We don't know this for sure yet though.
Until we find out if this is true, let's be cautious about jumping to conclusions and possible solutions.

When you have time take the car to Kia and get it looked at.
It is normal to get the car serviced at 30,000 miles.
You want to tell them you think the battery is degrading fast, and get them to print out a SOH report.

Can you confirm that you bought this car, it's not a lease.

The SOH report will look like this

Hey Jeju,

Is that your SOH report? (96%~)?
If so, how many KM are you up to?

I did buy my car.

Last night, on my commute home, I tried my best to stay under a specific power output on my dashboard readout:

2 bars above the green. I fluctuated up and down slightly, but never got above 3 bars.


At times, this caused me to drop under 45 mph due to the uphill climbs on my drive. I wanted to stick with it though. It took me an extra 15 minutes to get home. When I left work, I was sitting at 72 miles on my range (100% charge). When I arrived at home, I was sitting at 26 miles on my range (38% charge).

While driving 45 on the interstate isn't exactly feasible, it does show that I can get a much higher range.

The odd part for me is the mi/kWh readout:



It never seems to budge from 3.2 anymore. Whether I average 70 mph, or 45 mph, it's always 3.2 on the readout. The shorter drives in the image are my wife taking the kids to school. She is much more eco friendly when driving and she is in stop and go traffic, but still 3.2.

I have seen some whacky numbers in the history list recently, I think they introduced a bug.
But your photo does show you driving with a 3.2

Maybe watch the dash to see if it changes from 3.2.?.?

3.2 on the dashboard as well, but the sliding bar does go up and down as I drive.

It doesn't display the value for each driver, it displays the average for all drives up to that point - a rather useless way of doing things. You will need to delete the history and then it should start recording your new changed value.

Ah, good to know. I will look at doing that this weekend.

notfred said:

It doesn't display the value for each driver, it displays the average for all drives up to that point - a rather useless way of doing things. You will need to delete the history and then it should start recording your new changed value.

Click to expand...

Actually, it seems that you haven't reset the energy meter for a very long time - if ever? What you see is, as quoted, the average consumption since last reset of the energy meter, but I don't think it would make any difference to delete the history.

There is only one global energy meter, not connected to the two trip counters and read 'as is' to the history trip log. It needs to be manually reset between every trip to make the trip history useful, which in practice makes the trip history useless!

Here's how it works on my car. My software my be different to yours.

To reset the running average for the energy consumption. Press the reset button on the steering wheel when you are looking at this screen on the dash.


Here is what it looks like after I reset.


You can also set it to auto reset from the settings menu on the dash selected on the steering wheel .


The History page on the Navi screen is not the right starting point to reset the running average for the energy consumption.
That page has a delete function in the menu tab at the top. If you press it you will go to this screen, where you can mark which trips to delete.


Here is what it looks like after I deleted all the trips. Doing this this has not reset the running average though.

I use AUTO RESET and the indicator on each trip with the GPS screen is right (but i don't have an Uvo serie = no connexion to internet/3G mobile data).

Pay attention that the AUTO RESET work with a charge strategy (more than 10% of deviation).

There's am interesting thread 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.

Click to expand...

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

mrshaver - can you give some more details about your daily drive. Is your home in the mountains? What elevation gain is the return trip from work?
Is your home much cooler than the coast? Do you use the heating / cooling? Do you know your Tire Pressures?

I may have given the wrong impression about me living "in the mountains" or something. I do not live at extreme elevations, I live in the Inland Empire (Menifee). It's just a higher elevation than where I work (Rancho Bernardo, San Diego).

I used http://www.usclimatedata.com/ to get this.


Home:


Work (I used Escondido as it's close by and didn't want to use San Diego since it may skew the data too much):




I used https://www.mapdevelopers.com/elevation_calculator.php to get the following.


Home:
434.6 meter or 1425.7 feet

Work:
213.7 meter or 701.3 feet

The route:


Keep in mind that this drive is 53 miles and these graphs are only a few inches wide. Some of these inclines/declines seem much more drastic on the graph.

Elevation changes along the the trip to work:


And of course, the trip home is just a reverse of the above (and much more taxing on my car):



So, while the elevation difference between my house and work is only 220.9 m (724.4 ft), my drive is much more complicated than that.

I'll have to get my tire pressure and report back.

Got my SoH . . .


91.2%

wow

Thanks for posting that battery report. Your deterioration is bad. It is very much an outlier compared to all the other reports we have had. You will have to make a choice on whether to keep this car, because it will not be able to make your commute soon. Especially not at the speeds you like to drive.
That your SOH is around 90% means your car has already lost 20% (the 10% buffer and 10% from usable). Without that buffer and with less usable capacity deterioration will likely increase faster because you are stressing the battery more at the very top and the very bottom of its discharge range.
The very high battery temperatures in your car are also likely to be a major contributor to fast deterioration. That your temperatures are up to 97F in November is amazing. My car never went that high in the summer, and my climate is warmer than yours.

If it were me I would drive this car as you are now for another year and get a free battery replacement. Then gift this car to your wife, and get a longer range EV for your commute. (eg Chevy Bolt). With a new battery, and treated gently the Soul EV will easily last ten years and be a great car for her.

If that doesn't work for you, I suggest contacting Tony Williams. He lives in San Diego, and was very involved in the disputes with Nissan about battery deterioration in the Leaf. Or try asking for advice on the MyNissanLeaf Forum. There are a lot of similar experiences there. You may have some claim that this car was wrongly sold to you because it doesn't work for your specific case.

A third option is just to sell the car now, before the deterioration gets worse. It will still be a good car for a long time to come if treated gently on a short commute. You will lose out due to depreciation, but will avoid all the stress and complication that the first two options entail.

Thank you for providing info and feedback here. Very helpful.


I'm running into a separate issue while exploring my options of getting rid of the car. The Kia dealer offered us 18k for trade-in. It was in a fender bender, 2 small punctures on the front bumper, and has 35k miles. Also, we still owe 37k.

Maybe I should look into Tony Williams? How would I go about doing so?

And to make matters worse, we may be looking to move away from SoCal within the next year and there will be no Kia EV dealers anywhere near us at our new location.

Google is your friend.



Tony Williams
R&D Manager
Quick Charge Power LLC
TonyWilliams (((@))) QuickChargePower.com
http://www.QuickChargePower.com
Twitter: QCPower
1-844-EVPARTS
1-844-387-2787 ext 701

San Diego EVent - organizer, bimonthly EV meetings.