Battery Upgrades?

[maxcalvada]

I'm reading the latest EVs have battery range over 300 miles. If not right now, might it be possible in the future for us owners of pre-2020 EVs be able to upgrade to higher range batteries.

Or maybe, possible in the future to add more cells, modules?

 

[notfred]

Almost certainly not from Kia. I know there was someone posting from a country where there was a thriving independent EV mechanic culture and people were putting battery packs from one car in another one.

 

[FLKiaEV]

It's certainly possible but I don't think the Kia Soul EV market is big enough for the outside investment (both time and $$$) to create such a thing. The first generation Nissan Leaf has a much better battery replacement community simply because there were far more of them sold (and also because the Leaf batteries are notoriously bad at handling high temperature climates).

 

[Locuturus]

Going to revive this one since I'm interested in eventually having an upgraded battery (and maybe even update to NACS - at least for the ones in North America). It might be hard though since the BMS needs to be updated along with the batteries, and changing the OBC might also be an issue.

though I'd be happy with a 40kWh battery. Maybe one day the batteries will be energy dense enough for replacement and it'll happen (fingers crossed). It's too bad there just weren't enough Soul EVs (first gen).

Maybe there's a way to jerry-rig the 2020-2023 year Soul EV battery pack and harvest out the BMS and OBC+CCS1 port. I do happen to really like my 2016 Soul with the sunroof (that full body roof is nice)

 

[SlimJim]

I would also love to be able to increase the battery capacity, there are kits available to replace the leaf battery with a new bigger battery and I'd love for that to be a thing for the Soul EV but like you said they didn't make/sell enough for a 3rd party company to invest in the kits

 

[nileriver]

I was shopping for a used EV. Ended up buying the 2016+ Soul I still have. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever owned. I drove a 2016 VW EV. Had only 8,000 miles on it. Very nice car. Pristine condition. But poor range, like the Soul, which won due to 10 years warranty on the battery vs. the 8 years on the VW. I saw a lot of very low mileage, fully loaded cars. But with poor ranges. I guess my point is that it is a shame to just junk these older cars from the lower range years. Many of them are awesome machines, but for the battery. Is there not some kind of business opportunity in this?

 

[Locuturus]

I was shopping for a used EV. Ended up buying the 2016+ Soul I still have. It’s the nicest car I’ve ever owned. I drove a 2016 VW EV. Had only 8,000 miles on it. Very nice car. Pristine condition. But poor range, like the Soul, which won due to 10 years warranty on the battery vs. the 8 years on the VW. I saw a lot of very low mileage, fully loaded cars. But with poor ranges. I guess my point is that it is a shame to just junk these older cars from the lower range years. Many of them are awesome machines, but for the battery. Is there not some kind of business opportunity in this?

That's probably lots of people trading in their early EVs (at least in the US) for newer ones with CCS (and promise of NACS adapters)... the Soul has its boxy shape which is good for room, but efficiency wise probably a classic Ioniq (28kwh) is almost similar in capacity, but you get more range out of it (see Bjorn Nyland's opinions on it).

There's some egyptian guy who "supposedly" (he just drove around, I can't see any proof) added cells and "doubled range" which I kind of doubt - there's a video on youtube which you can look up, but grain of salt about the size of a Kia Soul EV... I also can't find the video anymore (forgot what I searched exactly for the algorithm to show up)... but you see channels where people have extended the leaf battery (much more involved than a commercial setup), but if you're at least electrically skilled (read: know wtf you're doing) then I suppose its possible to figure out how to do it and extend people's batteries.

I would also think that the BMS would need to be adjusted, since it'll be assuming a 27-ish kWh battery - and from Dala EV (youtube)'s channel his Leaf when upgraded from a 24 to 62kwh battery needed to be flashed so that the BMS wouldn't freak out. I suppose one way would be to experiment with a BMS+battery from a 2020+ Soul EV (you'd also need to hook up the battery coolant). but by the time you do that, might as well go buy a 2020+ Soul EV... (you'd have to be very invested in Kia Soul EVs for people in your local area to be interested, and make money doing it)