27,000 miles 86-mile range; my Soul EV commute is over

iletric · Apr 7, 2016

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.

wrickcook · Apr 7, 2016

That's a drag. 27k is not that old. Do you think it just charged to 80% or anything?
Is your miles/kWh look low? I usually have between 3.5 - 4.5 miles per kWh.

Mine is a 2016. I live in Seattle, and over the winter I got as low as 69 miles. Now that is it is in the 70s I am showing 96 miles.
Luckily my wife just has a 45mi round trip commute.

iletric · Apr 7, 2016

That is why I lease and don't buy. Learned my lesson well with the Leaf 1.

I NEVER charge anything other than 100%. I don't believe it makes any difference in battery longevity. In fact GM says 100% at all times (Spark). I mean, these cars have barely any decent range as it is, so 80% makes no sense to me.

Can't wait for Bolt/Leaf 2. Just hoping there will be a choice, meaning Nissan is not gonna wait too long rolling out their new ware. They have to keep quiet, or no one will buy their 2016 30 kWh. By next year (2017) anything with a 60 kWh battery wins, and everyone else will be scratching their heads and playing catch-up.

AndY1 · Apr 8, 2016

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.

That's pretty bad. My 2012 Ampera (European Chevy Volt), with 103.000km behind her, still has the same EV range as new.

I guess, having liquid cooled/heated battery is paying off. The car never allows it to heat above 30°C. If it reaches 31°C, it starts the AC, which cools the battery coolant and cools the battery back to 24°C. It does that 24/7 - when parked (plugged in or not), when charging and when driving.
It can also heat the battery in winter if needed, with a 1.8kW heater, which heats up the battery coolant and the coolant heats the battery cells. The heating starts if the battery temperature falls bellow 8°C and it heats it back up to 14°C.

Maybe you should take a look at the new Chevy Bolt EV this fall, which will have 200+miles of range and it's battery will be liquid cooled/heated as well.

mtndrew1 · Apr 8, 2016

Is this achieved range on a full charge or guess-o-meter prediction?

My car is terribly pessimistic with the GOM. A few weeks ago I had an 85 mile predicted range on a full charge and proceeded to drive it for 93 miles with 11% SOC remaining at freeway speeds with the HVAC on.

Are you actually doing drives and comparing how SOC depletion compares with miles traveled?

2016Electric · Apr 8, 2016

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.

So, have you gone to Kia and had the battery tested for remaining / current capacity? I'm curious what it is at and the range seems to be causing you serious usage issues...

JejuSoul · Apr 9, 2016

iletric : it is disappointing that your Soul EV has lost capacity so fast. It would be great if you could give us more data on what the actual deterioration is. You have driven the furthest and seem to have the most loss of range so far.

AndY1: I was interested in your comments about the Volt, so I checked the data. Look here - https://avt.inl.gov/vehicle-button/2013-chevrolet-volt
The Volt does do much better then the Leaf in Phoenix Arizona. Active cooling clearly works in a very hot climate. But if you compare the deterioration for the EV miles driven the Volt does no better than other Lithium Ion batteries not in Phoenix. I was curious to see if LG Chem's battery was better than SK Inno's. The Volt, Bolt and Ioniq will all be LG Chem. The Soul EV is SK Inno. I see no difference in the data.

AndY1 · Apr 9, 2016

The difference is, that when new, by default the Volt1/Ampera charges/discharges in a 22% - 85.9% SOC window, never to 100%. It compensates the battery degradation by charging to the higher SOC.

In my case, with almost 4 years old car and 103.000km driven, the SOC window has increased to 22%-89% SOC.

That means, that the usable energy capacity and driving range is still the same and it will be the same, until the upper SOC window will reach 100% (22%-100% SOC). And it looks like that's going to take some time in my case, if after 100.000k, it's at 89% from 85.9% when it was new.

iletric · Apr 11, 2016

mtndrew1 said:
Is this achieved range on a full charge or guess-o-meter prediction?

GOM of course. It has always been right on. Huge improvement from Leaf 1.0, that one was all over the map. Soul GOM is very good, and so is Spark's.

Looking forward to November - Bolt plus Leaf 2.0 announcement. See what Nissan has up its sleeve. For now I'm ICEing, as much as I don't like doing it and Soul sits, while Spark is being brought up to 45,000 miles to be returned in August.

The Greenland glaciers are melting.

JejuSoul · Apr 11, 2016

In my testing the GOM improves with use. Your number may not be accurate if you haven't driven the car for a few months.

tractioninc · Apr 12, 2016

I find my GOM to be very conservative - I can drive noticeably farther than it predicts.
82 miles is a long commute!

mtndrew1 · Apr 12, 2016

iletric said:
mtndrew1 said:

Is this achieved range on a full charge or guess-o-meter prediction?

Click to expand...

GOM of course. It has always been right on. Huge improvement from Leaf 1.0, that one was all over the map. Soul GOM is very good, and so is Spark's.

Looking forward to November - Bolt plus Leaf 2.0 announcement. See what Nissan has up its sleeve. For now I'm ICEing, as much as I don't like doing it and Soul sits, while Spark is being brought up to 45,000 miles to be returned in August.

The Greenland glaciers are melting.

If you do your commute today, what is your remaining SOC when you get home?

What was the remaining SOC following your commute this time last year?

mtndrew1 · Apr 12, 2016

tractioninc said:
I find my GOM to be very conservative - I can drive noticeably farther than it predicts.
82 miles is a long commute!

Same with mine. My round trip commute is 24 miles and the conditions are almost always similar.

My GOM starts the day (with an 80% charge) at ~68 miles predicted range and I generally get home at the end of the day with ~60% remaining SOC. It's very rare that I don't get 1 mile or greater per 1% SOC, yet the GOM remains pessimistic.

JejuSoul · Apr 13, 2016

From April 11th

iletric said:
The Greenland glaciers are melting.

The Greenland melt season that usually starts as May rolls into June and has never initiated before May 5th just began on April 11th of 2016. That’s 24 days ahead of the previous record set only six years ago and more than a month and a half ahead of the typical melt start. see https://robertscribbler.com/

Of less relevance is this negative comment about the Soul EV on the mynissanleaf.com forum - http://mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18266&start=400#p458229

iletric · Apr 13, 2016

mtndrew1 said:
What was the remaining SOC following your commute this time last year?

My starting range was 91-96, home range 5-11. I am therefore missing at least 5 starting miles. My return range now would stand at 0-6 miles. It's just not prudent at this time. And I had to keep it at 63 mph, forget heat, to make it.

Soul is driven occasionally, it does not sit. It's used for SF trips or when I'm off and need to drive somewhere. Or when I drive the elders around or there are 3 occupants. Spark is not up to any of the above.

I'm curious to see what the starting range will be once summer is in full swing. Ultimately, I look forward to time when this conversation makes a moot point, and becomes mere quaint reminiscence, as we'll have progressed to 200-mile and up EVs.

mtndrew1 · Apr 13, 2016

iletric said:
mtndrew1 said:

What was the remaining SOC following your commute this time last year?

Click to expand...

My starting range was 91-96, home range 5-11. I am therefore missing at least 5 starting miles. My return range now would stand at 0-6 miles. It's just not prudent at this time. And I had to keep it at 63 mph, forget heat, to make it.

Soul is driven occasionally, it does not sit. It's used for SF trips or when I'm off and need to drive somewhere. Or when I drive the elders around or there are 3 occupants. Spark is not up to any of the above.

I'm curious to see what the starting range will be once summer is in full swing. Ultimately, I look forward to time when this conversation makes a moot point, and becomes mere quaint reminiscence, as we'll have progressed to 200-mile and up EVs.

That doesn't answer the question though; what was the SOC at the end of your commute then and the SOC if you do the same commute now?

When my car was new it regularly reported 115 miles at a full charge and now it reports about 90 miles. My SOC at the end of my very consistent commute is identical though, indicating that the car has lost little actual capacity and instead has adjusted its range prediction. The actual range I can drive the car has barely changed over the last 24,000 miles despite what the GOM says. I have not lost 25 miles of capability despite the dash readout.

JejuSoul · Apr 13, 2016

Just saw this quote on the facebook page. (37K miles = 60k km)

RJ Hadley said:
One year and 37k miles, warmer temps returning and I hit 89 GOM this morn after 240v charge. Will try trickle tonight and see if I can actually see 90 again!

iletric · Apr 14, 2016

mtndrew1 said:
That doesn't answer the question though; what was the SOC at the end of your commute then and the SOC if you do the same commute now?

I am not taking the chance to find out at this time. Not until I'm starting with at least 91, because I've done THAT, and I know I can make it back with at least 5 GOM miles remaining...

Btw, my workplace miles remaining was 51 to 56. At 51 I'd have to slow down going home. See what happens once we have consistent 60F nights and 85F days. I'll post if the starting range moves up. Have a sneaky suspicion it won't.

mtndrew1 · Apr 14, 2016

My GOM is so entirely unrelated to SOC and achievable range that I literally ignore it.

wrickcook · Apr 14, 2016

I not only enjoy driving my Soul, I love the difference it is making.

Isn't there a Kia or Nissan dealer on the way home? Stop for a 5 min Chademo charge, grab something to drink, and you are off.

27,000 miles 86-mile range; my Soul EV commute is over

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