2016 Soul EV+ Battery Replacement - Remanufactured?

[raskal]

Blimey. What mileage do you have on your 2018 Soul ? Is it the 27kwh or 30?
I also have a 30kwh 2018 Soul with 50k miles on the clock still showing 100% soh.
I've never been particularly fussy about charging. Always take it to 100% on the home charger, rarely goes below 50% .
Every 6 weeks I go on a 500+ mile round trip and use public charging network, recharging every 50-80 miles, again either as much as the car will allow ( 94% on DC) or as much as I need to get to the next chargepoint + 20 "just in case" miles.
Range is still 120 miles in warmer weather, 100 in colder.

I have 96,000km (60,000miles) on it.
Thanks for adding your data, maybe I'm not so responsible for killing the battery.
afaik, all 2018's came with the 30kwh battery, but I haven't actually checked

 

[raskal]

I use the timed charging option on my 2018, knowing roughly how long it takes from 30% to 80%. That way you don't have to switch off by hand. At 16A, it takes about 5hr 20min, and at 32A about 2hr 50min. Just make sure the "override timer" button is not pressed!

wow. I hadn't noticed that setting the end time is possible. Thanks!
still, if we had the option to turn off automatically at 80% that would have been great

 

[FLKiaEV]

Hi all
This thread has been a great read, I appreciate everyone's thoughts!

My 2018 Soul EV is down to 69.2 % SOH, my dealer wants to wait until it's around 67% before requesting a replacement. We were planning to wait until the spring to have it tested again, but with the experiences here, I think we'll have it checked sooner as the wait times here are at longer than I expected.

As for charging; AFAIK, Kia took out the option to charge to 80% for the 2018 year, so I'm not sure how I can reasonably charge to only 80%. The only way I can see it working is to calculate when 80% would be reached and go outside to turn off the charger.

And fast charging, my belief was that the car requested the charge rate from the DC fast charger. The maximum I've ever seen was 66kW, and I have been to a bunch of 100kW chargers. Since our range has gone down (currently at 103km), we've had to use fast chargers a lot more often

According to the actual warranty (at least in the US), if the SOH drops below 70% it is already eligible for replacement. I can't imagine why the dealer wants to wait since the battery is only going to get worse, unless he just doesn't want to deal with replacing the very expensive battery. I would contact Kia Customer Service directly and get the ball rolling. These things can take a while: I had mine replaced in my 2016 Soul EV and it took over 8 months from beginning to end. Luckily they offered to supply me with a rental, but I'm sure they weren't thinking it would take that long! (Final rental cost for them was $11,000!)

Kia's Customer Care number is 1-800-333-4542 (Not sure if this is global or US only)

 

[FLKiaEV]

I use the timed charging option on my 2018, knowing roughly how long it takes from 30% to 80%. That way you don't have to switch off by hand. At 16A, it takes about 5hr 20min, and at 32A about 2hr 50min. Just make sure the "override timer" button is not pressed!

There's a timed charging option? It seems that when doing level 2 charging, the vehicle initiates everything and does not send charging status info to the EVSE, so unfortunately this means that even if you have a smart EVSE it can't know what your state of charge is. It just continues untuil the car says "Stop". Otherwise the EVSE could be told to stop at 80%. There are apps that can control charging to a point, but the Kia one does not work anymore because 3G protocol is no longer supported (that's what the Kia modem uses to communicate with).* Also, from what I understand the 80% option was removed because some government agency said so, but I'm pretty sure Teslas have this option so not sure why it wouldn't apply to them.

* There is another option though: The OVMS: Open Vehicle Monitoring System. Kia Soul EV is one of the cars that it supports: https://docs.openvehicles.com/en/latest/components/vehicle_kiasoulev/docs/index.html Main page: https://docs.openvehicles.com/en/latest/introduction.html

 

[JejuSoul]

The 80% option was removed not by regulation but in order to increase the stated range measured by the American EPA. ( Environmental Protection Agency )
The American EPA website gives you the info about fuel efficiency. If a car has an 80% option, they reduce the efficiency by 10%. (because they take the average of 100% and 80%, and consider the car is fully charged at 90%). Hence its stated range is only 90% of the actual full range.
Kia and Nissan were forced to remove the 80% in order to compete with other cars that weren't effected by the reduction.
( A flexible selector for the charging option was not penalized in the same way.)

Sadly the unintended effect of a government edict in the US took away a useful feature for all users globally.

----

OVMS is a great tool but but charge control for the Kia Soul EV is not supported. There has been no development work on this project for our car since the developer sold his Soul and bought a Niro.

 

[IanL]

There's a timed charging option? It seems that when doing level 2 charging, the vehicle initiates everything and does not send charging status info to the EVSE, so unfortunately this means that even if you have a smart EVSE it can't know what your state of charge is. It just continues untuil the car says "Stop". Otherwise the EVSE could be told to stop at 80%. .....

Pages 9 & 10 of the Owners Manual "Set Charging Times" describes the choice of either charging to 100% or setting start and end times. The entire process is controlled by the car - the EVSE just supplies current when the car draws it.

The ridiculous EPA ruling re charging to 80% was rescinded in 2019 or 2020 or thereabouts, so later cars do not suffer, but KIA has not modified our software to take advantage of it.

 

[mikejody]

Greetings, I'm new here, and have appreciated this thread. I have a 2017 Kia Soul EV with 40K miles. I now get about a 65-70 mile range in the winter, about 100 in the summer. That is way down from when I purchased it used in 2019, used to get about 85 in the winter and 130 in the summer.

I'm wondering what to do about it. Does Kia replace the battery? I remember getting a "Recall" in the mail for the battery, but it said they were currently "working on a solution" and would notify me when the solution was available.

 

[FLKiaEV]

The 80% option was removed not by regulation but in order to increase the stated range measured by the American EPA. ( Environmental Protection Agency )
The American EPA website gives you the info about fuel efficiency. If a car has an 80% option, they reduce the efficiency by 10%. (because they take the average of 100% and 80%, and consider the car is fully charged at 90%). Hence its stated range is only 90% of the actual full range.
Kia and Nissan were forced to remove the 80% in order to compete with other cars that weren't effected by the reduction.
( A flexible selector for the charging option was not penalized in the same way.)

Sadly the unintended effect of a government edict in the US took away a useful feature for all users globally.

----

OVMS is a great tool but but charge control for the Kia Soul EV is not supported. There has been no development work on this project for our car since the developer sold his Soul and bought a Niro.

Leave it to American government to react the wrong way. An ICE car's gas tank can also be filled to only 80% capacity. I wonder why that one doesn't apply... It would be really nice if Kia/Hyundai did a firmware update to reintroduce the 80% option since it was rescinded (they came to their senses). As for OVMS, I hope another Soul EV owner takes over the project since it's open source. There probably aren't enough electric Souls out there to make it worth their while though.

 

[ale]

Greetings, I'm new here, and have appreciated this thread. I have a 2017 Kia Soul EV with 40K miles. I now get about a 65-70 mile range in the winter, about 100 in the summer. That is way down from when I purchased it used in 2019, used to get about 85 in the winter and 130 in the summer.

I'm wondering what to do about it. Does Kia replace the battery? I remember getting a "Recall" in the mail for the battery, but it said they were currently "working on a solution" and would notify me when the solution was available.

How does one tell if my 2016 has had the battery replaced in the past before i got it?
I did get the letter about the recall but don't know if my car is eligible.
Fortunately not having any problems , still getting 93 miles in summer, 70-76 in winter.

 

[raskal]

According to the actual warranty (at least in the US), if the SOH drops below 70% it is already eligible for replacement. I can't imagine why the dealer wants to wait since the battery is only going to get worse, unless he just doesn't want to deal with replacing the very expensive battery. I would contact Kia Customer Service directly and get the ball rolling. These things can take a while: I had mine replaced in my 2016 Soul EV and it took over 8 months from beginning to end. Luckily they offered to supply me with a rental, but I'm sure they weren't thinking it would take that long! (Final rental cost for them was $11,000!)

Kia's Customer Care number is 1-800-333-4542 (Not sure if this is global or US only)

My dealer's thought was that 69.2% might be argued by Kia Canada as being within a rounding error of the computer measuring the SOH. I'm not concerned about them honouring the warranty, I've got loads of time/mileage before the warranty runs out.

thanks though, but this dealer has been good to deal with and I mostly trust them

yesterday I did a 53 km freeway drive at a max of 105km/h and used 82% of the battery. Then I stopped at a DC charger that I've used many times before, but this time was only getting 10kW (that was at 60% charged). I gave up at that rate, (it had started at 32kW)

there's more than degradation going on with the battery

 

[JejuSoul]

... there's more than degradation going on with the battery

No. It is behaving the same as all the others.
Yours is the first 30kWh car I've seen with degradation though.
For the first few years degradation seems fairly linear and is spread out equally across all the cells in the battery.
At some point one cell seems to cross a threshold and rapidly worsens.
That one cell is critical for the overall health of the battery.
Both acceleration, regen and charging will all be limited by that one bad cell.
The only data that Kia uses to determine the overall health of the battery is the degradation value for that one cell.
Sad but true. That is the way Kia designed their packs.
With Tesla one bad cell is easily isolated by the BMS and the battery works smoothly.
For us one bad cell means early death and an entire pack replacement.

BTW I got my battery replaced at 69.5% SOH

 

[mikejody]

How does one tell if my 2016 has had the battery replaced in the past before i got it?
I did get the letter about the recall but don't know if my car is eligible.
Fortunately not having any problems , still getting 93 miles in summer, 70-76 in winter.

I'm sorry but I fail to see how what you said here answers my question.

 

[JejuSoul]

I was looking for info on who the battery re-manufacturers are. Came across this from Australia.
It's not our car. They mention the Niro EV and the EV6. Interesting nevertheless.

Partnership Announcement - Kia Australia and Infinitev Forge Game-Changing Partnership to Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle, Electric Vehicle Batteries

​

 

[suttercane]

Hey so anyone know anything about this battery pack?
"remanufactured pack assembly battery - kia (37510-e4253r)".
I was told this was the battery they are going to replace mine with due to degradation. I am in Canada btw. Also replacing the BMS and the gasket around the battery tray.

 

[JejuSoul]

Hey so anyone know anything about this battery pack? "remanufactured pack assembly battery - kia (37510-e4253r)".
..

It's a re-manufactured pack.
It has a battery heater.
It is assumed to have E400 cells, so is subject to the battery safety recall, which is why you will get the new wiring harness.
It costs US $1740, which is ten times cheaper than a new pack.
The last digit 3 is either the third version of this pack or more likely they just update by 1 each year to show how new it is.

 

[suttercane]

It's a re-manufactured pack.
It has a battery heater.
It is assumed to have E400 cells, so is subject to the battery safety recall, which is why you will get the new wiring harness.
It costs US $1740, which is ten times cheaper than a new pack.
The last digit 3 is either the third version of this pack or more likely they just update by 1 each year to show how new it is.

View attachment 123

Thanks, I am likely paying out of pocket for this, I am concerned about it being remanufactured, but the new packs are crazy expensive. What kind of range are people seeing with these remanufactured packs? I tried searching the forums but didn't really see much

 

[uspurs]

Thanks, I am likely paying out of pocket for this, I am concerned about it being remanufactured, but the new packs are crazy expensive. What kind of range are people seeing with these remanufactured packs? I tried searching the forums but didn't really see much

Not sure what year and mileage you have, or what the warranty in Canada is (here in the US, 10/100) - we had the battery on our '17 replaced (with a reman pack) last summer under that warranty and the BMS recall about 6 weeks ago. Coming out of winter here in the NE and the GOM is showing 108 on a full charge; with our typical driving - 4/4.2 M/kWh, 110 miles is realistic.
Of perhaps greater concern is the number of people who've had battery failures after the BMS / harness recall here.

 

[suttercane]

I am out of warranty as of sept 2023 warranty in canada is only 8 years. It's a 2016 with 93,000km. Did you get a remanufactured battery? 108 miles range would be amazing. I am used to below 50 miles

 

[uspurs]

I am out of warranty as of sept 2023 warranty in canada is only 8 years. It's a 2016 with 93,000km. Did you get a remanufactured battery? 108 miles range would be amazing. I am used to below 50 miles

I have just edited my post, as I realised I omitted that we got a reman pack.

 

[Locuturus]

I’ve got a reman pack - I think mine says E4252 instead of 53. But I got mine replaced Dec 2023, so that sort of makes sense?

Fully charged I’m getting about 160km/165km with the hvac on. (So 102miles?) with it off about 170km? It’s a GOM so at this point I’ll take what I can get. For reference I’m in Vancouver, and the weather is around 8-14C currently.

I haven’t done a full range test in a while though.