Help wanted analyzing Soul Spy EV Battery results

[Wizfinger]

So, I got myself an Android phone (Nokia 1 Plus) and Soul Spy EV Lite, Konnwei dongle, and today I did the first readings.

Please note:
• Battery management was reset in december and I haven't made enough discharge/charge cycles with outside temp > 10° yet. Is this necessary to get a good measurement?
• When measuring, SOC is 30% (Is it necessary to be 100% to get a good measurement?)

Here's the BMS:

Here's the cell map:

Here's the Car bit (does this show the actual accurate SOH?)

What can I conclude from this?

 

[notfred]

As we have been suggesting in the other threads, you have a bad battery. That SOH is correct. You should be talking to your dealer about getting the battery replaced.

 

[ZuinigeRijder]

Apparently your BMS has been recalibrated anyway and the SOH% is bad. You do not need to measure this at 100% SOC. So it is below 70% SOH and you should get a replacement battery under guarantee (assuming the service intervals have been done by the previous owner).

 

[Wizfinger]

Thanks for your replies!

To make my case against Kia here, I am going to write them a report and letter. They are in terrible denial and tell me this car is normal. Sorry for asking so many questions, but here we go:

- From the cell map, is there anything I can say or conclude? For instance, shouldn’t there be a lot of green cells? What do the red, grey and purple cells mean? Is the deterioration spread across all cells or is there a single cluster or part that is worse than others?

- Is the max cell deterioration pct value something I can use in my case?

- is the SOH percentage an actual car reading or is it calculated by the app? How trustworthy is this value?

- can I find any info in the app about the Power Limited mode? (Eg. Sometimes it goes into turtle mode when battery is at 60%, sometimes it never goes into turtle mode even when battery at 1%.)

- am I correct in thinking that the entertainment system / navigation uses the regular 12V battery and not the EV battery?

- am I correct in thinking that steering wheel heating and seat heating also uses the regular 12V battery and not the EV battery?

Thanks a lot everyone!

 

[notfred]

- From the cell map, is there anything I can say or conclude? For instance, shouldn’t there be a lot of green cells? What do the red, grey and purple cells mean? Is the deterioration spread across all cells or is there a single cluster or part that is worse than others?

Don't focus on the actual colours, use them to guide you as to which cells are showing different voltages. A good battery will be the same voltages on all cells, you have cells 1, 14 and 96 that are showing lower than the others and cell 1 is called out as the cell with the worst deterioration in max_cell_deterioration_n. Bad cells have higher voltage when charged and lower voltage when discharged, think of them as a smaller cup that you are trying to put the same amount of water in.

- Is the max cell deterioration pct value something I can use in my case?

- is the SOH percentage an actual car reading or is it calculated by the app? How trustworthy is this value?

SOH is calculated by the app from the max cell deterioration pct. We believe it is doing the exact same calculation as Kia's tool does. The max cell deterioration pct value comes directly from the car and is something you can use.

- can I find any info in the app about the Power Limited mode? (Eg. Sometimes it goes into turtle mode when battery is at 60%, sometimes it never goes into turtle mode even when battery at 1%.)

Turtle mode is to protect the battery. I'm not surprised that it is sometimes triggering when you have a bad battery.

- am I correct in thinking that the entertainment system / navigation uses the regular 12V battery and not the EV battery?

- am I correct in thinking that steering wheel heating and seat heating also uses the regular 12V battery and not the EV battery?

Yes. The only things that use the EV battery are the motor, the heating/air conditioning (pump and resistive elements), and a DC/DC converter that charges the 12V. These are the 3 things that show on the energy usage screen. Everything else is powered with 12V.

I suppose you could argue that everything indirectly uses the EV battery because it charges the 12V. But then that's like saying the headlights on a gasoline powered car run on gasoline rather than electricity, because gasoline turns the engine which turns the alternator which generates electricity to charge the 12V which drives the headlights.

 

[ZuinigeRijder]

Thanks for your replies!

To make my case against Kia here, I am going to write them a report and letter. They are in terrible denial and tell me this car is normal. Sorry for asking so many questions, but here we go:
....

Kia can also read out the SOH with their Kia KDS system.

Here are 2 readouts from my dealer in the Netherlands (Eindhoven) in 2016 and 2018 for my car:

KDS_20161109_154550885.jpg
KDS_20180718_140906727.jpg

My readings with Torque Pro and Soul Spy gave almost the same result.

But make sure they do the measurement, before updating again new software, which will bring the SOH to 110%.

 

[JejuSoul]

-
The important number is the State of Health (SOH) = 42.8%
This will qualify for a replacement battery under warranty.

It seems likely that the BMS has now calibrated to the correct value.
The dealer probably saw an incorrect 100% last time.
Just take the car back in and ask them to do the check again.

-----

A manual for updating the BMS is here - Service Action: Battery Management System (BMS) Logic Improvement (SA297)

In it we learn that battery calibration actually occurs as the battery is charged from less than 20% SOC to more than 90% SOC

Inform the customer that the BMS update will reset the adaptive learning values to default conditions. As a result, the displayed range/DTE (Distance to Empty) and charge times may be temporarily increased. It does not affect the actual range or battery charging time. These displayed values will gradually be relearned to reflect the actual battery condition with multiple drive and charge cycles performed above 50°F (10°C) from less than 20% SOC to more than 90% SOC.

We have been looking at the 10C as the ambient temperature. It is more likely that the 10C refers to the battery temperature. Even on a really cold day the battery will warm up during use. Calibration may occur during the winter. It's just not as likely as the summer.

 

[Wizfinger]

Thank you both, this is very helpful!

After each charge cycle (< 20% to 100%) the range starts to decrease. It went from 140, 130 and now at 120 km (while weather is getting warmer). At 100% charge the SOH is still 42,8%, battery cell map looks the same but with higher values around 4.00.

I will make an appointment at the dealer to get the SOH with their KDS system. Thanks for the photos! Last time they told me the car already has all of the latest software so no worries about updates resetting the data.

The dealership told me they have no experience with this car at all so they went on the phone with Kia HQ in the Netherlands. Every "lie" they told me came from the HQ, like "it's just the weather, this is normal for an electric car, you should not use seat heating", etc.

Thanks to the forum I now have enough ammo to ask for a battery replacement. AND I am now teaching the KIA dealership things AND I am teaching the original car dealer that I bought the car from.

(I have informed him about this. He gets his used cars from a Kia dealership in Germany. He also did not know that the SOH cannot be read on the dash, and that the indicated range is just a guess-o-meter that can be reset. I told him to confront his supplier, because he already has two more "almost brand new" Kia Soul EVs in stock which he bought from them, both neatly show a range of 140 km.)

 

[ZuinigeRijder]

Thank you both, this is very helpful!

After each charge cycle (< 20% to 100%) the range starts to decrease. It went from 140, 130 and now at 120 km (while weather is getting warmer). At 100% charge the SOH is still 42,8%, battery cell map looks the same but with higher values around 4.00.
...

At 100% SOC, my Kia Soul EV from 2014 with almost 140.000 km reads 4,14V max and 4.12V min. My Max Det is 19.8% and Min Det is 17,8%, Average 18.8%. So my car has about 91% SOH.

My pessimistic GOM only shows about 100 km range (1% battery is 1 km range ), but this is because a lot of small trips have been done in the winter. With the temperatures around 15 now this will increase over time again

 

[Wizfinger]

After a few more charge cycles, the SOH is now increased to 50.9%. The GOM now guesses 86 km on a full charge. Tomorrow I’ll contact the dealership again to claim a new battery