Options to deal with degraded battteries other than warranty

Omar · Jun 15, 2020

Hello everyone,

I am writing this post to share with everyone some of the repairs that people in my country (Jordan - middle east) use to change or repair the main battery.

1. Many mechanics install other car batteries to the Soul EV, Nissan leaf 22 KWh batteries are widely used, while others use BMW i3 batteries (33 KWh). Also few cases used the Chevy Bolt battery (62 KWh).

2. VW Golf batteries are also used, some of them are 24 KWh, others are 36 KWh

3. Also some assembled custom batteries are used, a popular choice is 45 KWh battery made of Chevy Bolt cells.

4. Some people replaced few cells, and their cars had a great jump in SOH. I know one case who did that since around 8 months, still his car has an SOH of above 90%.

5. I know 1 guy who sent his car back to the US, and got the battery replaced under warranty, then he shipped the car back to Jordan.

So now, you can find Souls with different battery capacities in the market!, Some of them can travel 400 Km's in a single charge !

IanL · Jun 16, 2020

That's very interesting, Omar. Thanks for posting it. I'd be interested to know how they get a Chevy Bolt 45 kWh battery into a Soul !

ksoul2084 · Jun 16, 2020

Omar said:
Hello everyone,

I am writing this post to share with everyone some of the repairs that people in my country (Jordan - middle east) use to change or repair the main battery.

1. Many mechanics install other car batteries to the Soul EV, Nissan leaf 22 KWh batteries are widely used, while others use BMW i3 batteries (33 KWh). Also few cases used the Chevy Bolt battery (62 KWh).

2. VW Golf batteries are also used, some of them are 24 KWh, others are 36 KWh

3. Also some assembled custom batteries are used, a popular choice is 45 KWh battery made of Chevy Bolt cells.

4. Some people replaced few cells, and their cars had a great jump in SOH. I know one case who did that since around 8 months, still his car has an SOH of above 90%.

5. I know 1 guy who sent his car back to the US, and got the battery replaced under warranty, then he shipped the car back to Jordan.

So now, you can find Souls with different battery capacities in the market!, Some of them can travel 400 Km's in a single charge !

Yes this is fascinating to me. I love the idea of an "open market" of ideas forming around these cars with the ability to tailor and refresh the packs to meet your needs outside of the official manufacturer.

slyugo · Jun 20, 2020

Thank you very much for posting!

If there’s but one complaint I have with this car it’s the range, totally fine for my daily use but it’d be nice to have the flexibility of a 200-mile range for the occasional road trip, especially considering the sparsity of DCFC here in eastern WA.

It’s good to know there’s hope for an upgrade somewhere down the line.

Omar · Jun 24, 2020

Yesterday, I took my car to an electric car repair center, 4 cells were replaced. I still do not know the results of this repair as the BMS needs a few trips to recalculate the correct range and battery health.

Before the replacement, the car was showing 58 miles on full charge on the dash. However, it travels some extra miles in actual driving.
SOH was showing 47.3%, Max cell deterioration was 60.2%
Now, after the first charge, the SOH is 55.3%. maybe the BMS will adjust gradually

I had some talk with the battery specialist in this shop. He explained that Kia Soul EV batteries are the only ones in the local market showing sudden drop in range and stored energy. It is because some of the cells behave much worse than the others.
So he does cells replacement. While the leaf's for example, degrades gradually, and all cells normally have an equal status of health

JejuSoul · Nov 20, 2020

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Here's a DIY upgrade to a 30kWh Nissan Leaf. They add a 17.6kWh extender battery into the boot Total cost in UK £6250 inc vat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6D0PjOU3wk

Product Details - Muxsan: Nissan Leaf Battery Extender

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Here's an unusual story from Jordan from someone who claims their 2015 Soul EV main HV battery exploded.

There is a thread with some details here - Facebook: Kia Soul EV Forum

Diaa Shwekie said:
It happened to me yesterday night, was driving and range showing 60 miles left suddenly turtle sign popup and an explosion sounded from under driver seat and car stopped, smoke started to come up from under front seats and then flames started up...
...flames were coming from battery vents under the seat...
...the flames started with the carpet after the battery smoked a lot of chemicals luckily a lot of people helped me to put it off but after all the damages happened to the main dashboard...
...smoke kept going up for long time after putting of the flames...
...it was imported from USA...
...I was driving this car for almost 2 years until yesterday ...

My first thought is that this must be a DIY battery repair that has gone wrong, but I have no evidence for this.
Can someone from Jordan give some more details about this case.

Also see Import of used Soul EVs to Jordan
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