Auto locking of charging cable

[JimGord]

It appears that the charging cable locks in the outlet when the doors are locked. Returning to the vehicle means owner has to unlock doors to remove charge cable. Reason is to stop vandals unplugging the car when charging unattended
Alternate school of thought is to be able to leave cable unlocked, so that if vandals get frustrated being unable to disconnect cable, they do not take their frustration out on your car. You can do this on a Leaf (separate switch)
Anyone know if this can be turned on/off on the Soul?

 

[mtndrew1]

This is a new feature on the 2016 model so you probably won't find much help here just yet. Not a lot of people have experience with it.

 

[sweetwagon]

Sorry to hear that. e-Golf also has this "feature" with no way to disable - much to the chagrin of it's owners. Hopefully there is a disable feature in 2016 Kia Soul EV.

 

[SiLiZiUMM]

I didn't find a way to disable it yet too. I have to check the manual again when I have time.

I think it should unlock itself when charging is done...

 

[EV2016]

This is kind of disappointing. Where my wife works there are parking spots next to the designated spots for charging where the cord will reach. This allows the next person to remove the charging chord when the other persons car is fully charged. With visible charging indicator lights like on the Soul and on our Focus, you can see when the car is finished charging. I'm more worried that another EV driver would get so angry that they couldn't charge that they would force the chord out which could then damage the charging port on the Soul. I think this feature should definitely be selective. I hope that it could be done with a software update after Kia gets enough negative feedback about it.

 

[fanbanlo]

I wonder if this is the ONLY difference in the 2016's.

 

[SiLiZiUMM]

I checked again in the manual yesterday and didn't found a way to disable it. I hope too we can have the option to disable it in the future.

I wonder if this is the ONLY difference in the 2016's.

From the press release: "Additional 2016 enhancements standard across the Soul EV lineup include a charge port nozzle lock, an illuminated Aux/USB port, and two new exterior colors: Shadow Black and Bright Silver.". Also, the Titanium with sunroof (like mine) has LED interior lignts.

 

[fanbanlo]

nice, thanks.

Illuminated Aux/USB port... hmm, never noticed. I've always found that's the ugliest part of the car. It looks so unfinished with all those ports left open.

 

[EV2016]

And why in the heck would you need to buy a sunroof to get LED interior lighting. You would think that in a car that runs off of electricity, and offers various ways to reduce battery usage, that LED lighting would be standard equipment. You can't tell me that in the quantity that KIA could buy the LED lights that it would add that much to the cost of the car.

 

[gabeyd]

This was my first Mod on my 2016 Soul EV. I got under the hood and disconnected the power from the little motor that moves the lock pin. It's pretty easy to find - look under the emergency lock release, you'll see the little box that has the motor, and you'll see wires on a plug going into there. You have to cut a zip tie, then pull out the grey plug release, then you can unplug the motor. No more lock.

This just wasn't going to work for me on my shared charging at work. I can't go out and unlock my car every day when it is done charging so the next person can take it. It's crazy that they didn't make this optional.

 

[PIFOUKIA]

Hello from France,

My SOUL EV arrived yesterday at my french dealer and when I checked it, I saw a lock/unlock button under the hood near the charging door, may be is it to manually engage or disable the lock system ?

 

[mtndrew1]

Maybe it's a manual release in case the mechanism is faulty? I think the Leaf has a similar way to release the cable from the lock if it goes kaput.

 

[SiLiZiUMM]

If I remember correctly, it's indeed a manual release for the whole charger door in case the button doesn't work in the car.

 

[Tekguy26]

This post hasn't had much activity in a while so thought I'd comment. I had this very same issue the other day. Was at Brookfield Place in Toronto on the weekend where they have tons of EV parking spots with charging stations. One of the requests is to LEAVE port unlocked or disable alarm if any so that a parking attendant can unplug and charge another waiting vehicle if necessary. The spots are setup in pairs with the EVSE in the middle. Naturally I don't lock my vehicle until I'm done all my business. I realized that locking the door also locks the port though. Oh well, there were tons of available spots so I just left it there. But it got me thinking when I got home how the hell do I avoid this? I don't want to be that guy that's bogarting the charging station because my car wont release the nozzle when it's done. The only conclusion I came to was to lock the doors before plugging in the nozzle. That seemed to work, but it doesn't feel clicked in and feels that it could fall out if tugged.

Not sure if that's the intended method or not.

 

[notfred]

That is the intended method and the cable should still click in properly.

Locking the car pushes out a pin over the cable latch. However the pin is not fixed in place and can be pushed back in. That's what will happen if you plug in after locking. You may not have had the cable all the way in, but just far enough for it to make contact.

 

[Tekguy26]

Can confirm with notfred. Just tested today at a public charger. Was able to disconnect and reconnect when locking door before plugging in cable.

So not sure why the previous poster disconnected the locking mechanism as a fix.

 

[SiLiZiUMM]

Can confirm with notfred. Just tested today at a public charger. Was able to disconnect and reconnect when locking door before plugging in cable.

So not sure why the previous poster disconnected the locking mechanism as a fix.

From my experience, depending on the charger used if you DON'T push the pin manually after locking the doors and before plugging the cable, the car may not charge.

It happens on my home charger and on older EVSE here in Québec (which happens to be the ones from EV Solutions -- like those : http://roulezelectrique.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/communauto_circuit_electrique.jpg ). If I lock the doors before and plug the cable, the car will begin to charge at L1 speed (you can tell by the charging time estimate) and the car will stop charging after ~4 minutes.

 

[Tekguy26]

It happens on my home charger and on older EVSE here in Québec (which happens to be the ones from EV Solutions -- like those : http://roulezelectrique.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/communauto_circuit_electrique.jpg ). If I lock the doors before and plug the cable, the car will begin to charge at L1 speed (you can tell by the charging time estimate) and the car will stop charging after ~4 minutes.

Well, when I walked away from the car, it was in reserve charging mode. I set the reserve time so I can leave the charging threshold at 80%. That's something I wish could be set in bypass mode. Because if somebody disconnects me, then tries to reconnect me, charging will not resume.

 

[MikeGraff]

That is the intended method and the cable should still click in properly.

Locking the car pushes out a pin over the cable latch. However the pin is not fixed in place and can be pushed back in. That's what will happen if you plug in after locking. You may not have had the cable all the way in, but just far enough for it to make contact.

I just wanted to say thank you very much for this information.

Among the many reasons I had decided against the VW eGolf was it's annoying and unfriendly cable locking behavior. We have several of these eGolfs at work and they just also happen to be owned by people who never come to move their cars from the charging station in a timely fashion.

Imagine my horror on taking delivery of my new Soul EV and finding the charging cable locked when the car was locked. But after finding this post and testing on my own car I can confirm that if you lock the car first and then plug, the cable remains unlocked. Still not as good as the auto-lock feature on my old Leaf, but at least I'm not stuck with the locking behavior.

 

[wrickcook]

As stated by SiLiZiUMM...
I have found if you lock the doors first, the port is not locked, but it usually cuts off charging after a few minutes.

My wife frequently went out to a low battery (no charging had taken place) until I had her stop locking the doors first. Problem disappeared.