Analysis of a replacement battery.

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It is now 2 1/2 years since I had the battery replaced on my white 27kWh 2015 Soul EV.
On December 30th 2019 the car had driven 86,993km before getting a new battery.
On June 18th 2022 the odometer reads 126,379km. That's 39,386km on the new battery.

Here's the latest Torque reading



The new BMS does not show the same deterioration data as the original.
At the last service two weeks ago the SOH was 100% 'as expected'.
Although perhaps I shouldn't be so optimistic - see below for discussion on my original car.

Here's the navi display when last charged to 100% SOC.



Although after 39,000km my blue 27kWh 2015 Soul EV was just beginning to lose the 'early year's buffer' and occasionally show a reading lower than 100% at this stage. The new algorithm for the BMS offers no way to determine the buffer size.
If the 'early year's buffer' is 10% of the battery's capacity and the warranty is 70% of useable capacity,
then the 160,000km warranty limit will be reached at 40% loss of real capacity.
Hence if the deterioration loss is linear the battery will lose 10% each 40,000km.
That is what happened on my blue car and may be what is happening with the new battery.

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Both of my cars are 7 years old. Both went in for annual service recently, and both had their transmission oil changed.



The blue car has driven about 94,000km and still has the original battery. The official KIA estimate of SOH is 94.9%.
I will make a report about this car on the Battery Ageing Model thread.
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That is simply amazing to me.

I had my battery replaced almost two years ago and my range is rarely much more than 100km on a full charge (2016).
Granted, I'm often driving on the highway at 115km/h, but I've never enjoyed the so called 150km+ range that others have frequently mentioned.

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Here's the latest charging profile of my replacement battery.
I don't charge to 100% very often.
Compare this with Previous charging profile.



This is a 28.8A charge from 19.5% SOC to 100% SOC.
It took 4 hours 13 minutes to fully charge.

Note the energy added is equivalent to a useable battery capacity of 30.09kWh.
The final resting voltage at 100% SOC is 397.2V

There's a small vertical jump in the SOC line at the end. I think this jump in SOC is purely because I don't charge to 100% very often and the BMS doesn't know exactly where 100% will be.

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Here's another TeslaBjorn video
It's a follow up to the previous video about this car mentioned here :- They Don't Age Well!

The analysis is full of mistakes but it's worth watching anyway.
The 27kWh version with 96 cells does not get upgraded to a 100 cell pack, hence it is not the same pack as the 30kWh version.
His method of measuring the pack capacity using the displayed energy consumption does not work.
The displayed energy consumption does not work the same way after a battery upgrade as it did before.

https://youtu.be/mg0SQ4EdKp4

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It is now 3 1/4 years since I had the battery replaced on my white 27kWh 2015 Soul EV.
On December 30th 2019 the car had driven 86,993km before getting a new battery.
On April 24th 2023 the odometer reads 134,509km. That's 47,516km on the new battery.

There is no readable degradation of the battery.
The range is still above 200km.
There must be some degradation but without dismantling the car and testing the cells in a lab, I have no way of knowing.

I was going to say the E400 cells are doing a better job at longevity than the original E375s.
But today I got a recall!

see :- Battery Recall for cars with E400 high-voltage battery.

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Hello from Norway.

I had my battery changed in late september 2022, with battery code 37510E4250R.

I have tracked the SOH and logged it since battery swap and I actually see now a reduction in SOH. Its now on 104%. I've seen that in a couple of days in been going back and forth from 104 to 110. Its only been driven about 5000km.

Havent seen a reduction in range, and I'm charging to 90%, only to 100% every 5th charging or so..

Should I be worried? :shock:

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Hi Kim,
My replacement battery is 37510E4200.
That is a new battery with 96 E400 cells and no battery heater.

Your replacement battery is 37510E4250R.
That is a new battery with 96 E400 cells with a battery heater.
But the last digit on yours is R. This is the first time I have seen the code R.
It may be the code in Europe used for Remanufactured packs.
In the US they write the code like this 37510E4250-Reman

Maybe the service technicians can tell you whether the box of cells was from Korea.
If it came from Korea then you have brand new cells.
Otherwise the cells must have come from stock or another car.

Either way the E400 cells are far better than the original E375. I have no degradation data for any car built after 2018 with the new cells.
So even if your 'new' cells are 5 years old they are probably still good. Just not as good as brand new ones.

I don't know how you are measuring 104% SOH.
The new battery has a new BMS.
No one has ever deciphered the code for this version of the BMS.
So the only way to measure the SOH is to take the car to KIA and have them use the official tool.

Perhaps you could post the GOM estimate of range when charged to 100%, and post your actual range when driven. This would give an idea of how good your battery is.

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Thanks.

Will the battery heater then kick in at low temps?

The SOH is read by using the OBD port. BMS is calculating SOH and sends it out on the CAN-Bus. This is the same as the Kia dealership are using to determ if the battery is bad.

So I guess then I really dont have anything to be worried about by now.

I see now that I havent charged it to 100% since march. Will try to fully charge it later. Now im getting 115km at 90%, so around 125-130 at 100% is my guess.

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It is now 3 1/2 years since I had the battery replaced on my white 27kWh 2015 Soul EV.
On December 30th 2019 the car had driven 86,993km before getting a new battery.
On July 22nd 2023 the odometer reads 135,718km. That's 48,275km on the new battery.

The range is still above 200km.


The OBD data is here. Not sure what the deterioration data is showing yet.


The recall date for updated BMS software due to battery fires has not been announced yet.

damn! you must be hypermiling that car, how fast are you going?

So SOH updated in this morning, now at 99,4%. I'm afraid.

The GOM is at 112km at 100%.

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It's been a hot summer.



Energy efficiency = 7.8km \ kWh. It's not hypermiling.
But I live on an island and the max speed limit is 80km\h.

That's really efficient!

My 2016 has gotten 16.7kWh/100kms this summer (that's approx. 6.1km/kWh I think) with mixed in town driving (50-60 km/h) and some highway (115-120 km/h) - no A/C though.

Still not bad at all compared to most other EVs.

JejuSoul said:

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It's been a hot summer.



Energy efficiency = 7.8km \ kWh. It's not hypermiling.
But I live on an island and the max speed limit is 80km\h.

Click to expand...

Yes, mine is currently showing 5.2 m/kWh which equates to 8 km/kWh. The speed limit on our island is 40 m/h = 64 km/h, so it does suggest that lower speeds improve economy! Btw, I drive in Economy Mode, and always in B.

JejuSoul said:

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It is now 3 1/2 years since I had the battery replaced on my white 27kWh 2015 Soul EV.
On December 30th 2019 the car had driven 86,993km before getting a new battery.
On July 22nd 2023 the odometer reads 135,718km. That's 48,275km on the new battery.

The range is still above 200km.


The OBD data is here. Not sure what the deterioration data is showing yet.


The recall date for updated BMS software due to battery fires has not been announced yet.

Click to expand...

Hi Jejusoul, just curious - is it only the new batteries that have the increased range (218km)? My 2016's replaced remanufactured battery 37510E4252R has about 155/160km with HVAC on the GOM, 169km without (early December in Vancouver, around -10 to 10C) I drove it around and tried to figure out how much capacity I ended up with, and my best guess is about 28.5kWh.

The original range in the 27kwh 2016 in the winter was around 100km... so I just assumed it was a winter weather thing.

IanL said:

Yes, mine is currently showing 5.2 m/kWh which equates to 8 km/kWh. The speed limit on our island is 40 m/h = 64 km/h, so it does suggest that lower speeds improve economy! Btw, I drive in Economy Mode, and always in B.

Click to expand...

I get about 5.2 m/kWh as well (when it's not too cold), but I do it without Eco Mode and in D. Both the individual and the Eco+D methods work, but I think over the seven years I've been driving this vehicle, I can one-pedal the car better than the algorithm. And, honestly, I just think it's fun to be absolutely as efficient as possible. I also don't indulge myself in the AC or heater much. Those do make a difference, so, for drivers who would normally blast the climate controls, Eco Mode could be really helpful.

Who out there gets better than 5.2 m/kWh? Pleas share how do you do it.

There's a really good video of a battery replacement by carwow.
Everything here is done by the book. All safety procedures adhered to.
It's very unlike the Ukraine battery replacement videos we see.



At the start of the video we see the wooden crate containing the replacement battery.
It looks very similar to the one my new battery came in.
But in the comments the service guy states that this is a re-manufactured pack not a new one.
It also has 28.8kWh printed on the outside.



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On the other hand we also have this video by TeslaBjorn.
7 year old Kia Soul gets brand new 30 kWh battery on warranty.



Note both these numbers relate to usable capacity. No one knows the total capacity.
Until someone measures it in a lab we never will.
We were lucky that the original 27kWh Soul EV was tested at the AVT lab before Trump closed this program down.
The original 27kWh Soul EV has 30.5kWh total capacity. Nothing is known about later versions.
Manufacturer advertisements are not the same as independent lab tests.

buddhaauthor said:

I get about 5.2 m/kWh as well (when it's not too cold), but I do it without Eco Mode and in D. Both the individual and the Eco+D methods work, but I think over the seven years I've been driving this vehicle, I can one-pedal the car better than the algorithm. And, honestly, I just think it's fun to be absolutely as efficient as possible. I also don't indulge myself in the AC or heater much. Those do make a difference, so, for drivers who would normally blast the climate controls, Eco Mode could be really helpful.

Who out there gets better than 5.2 m/kWh? Pleas share how do you do it.

Click to expand...

Here you go. Achieved 5.4m/kWh thanks to BMS recall and resulting power limp mode.

kimdavi said:

Here you go. Achieved 5.4m/kWh thanks to BMS recall and resulting power limp mode.

Click to expand...

Most impressive! (Though "BMS recall" and "power limp mode" are not fun.) Sorry.

Managed to get 14.5-16 kWh/100km today after I did a reset to try to see what I was doing/or not after some new all-weather tires. (Was at 18-20 immediately after the tire change, was 16-17 before the change.) Will charge it all the way up to 100% and do a drive to 10% and below range test to see how much usable capacity I have on my reman battery.

buddhaauthor said:

Most impressive! (Though "BMS recall" and "power limp mode" are not fun.) Sorry.

Click to expand...

Overall, the past couple of weeks haven't been too terrible. I retrieved my car from the dealer after enduring a six-month ordeal involving a BMS recall, BMS replacement battery, and a second instance of limp-mode that was unfixable. It reached a point where I lost patience and demanded my car back.