Level 1 charging - climate precondition??

[DrivingForce]

I use a level 1 charger for my Soul EV and when I use the climate control "scheduled" I notice that when I get to the vehicle the vehicle loses its full charge usually to 98% from 100%. Is this because level 1 cannot keep up with the rate electricity is being used by climate control? It seems kind of absurd.

Will upgrading to a level 2 charger help?

 

[JejuSoul]

Yes.
An example: If L1 provides 2kW and the climate conditioning uses 3kW then the excess comes out of the HV battery.
If L2 provides 6kW then there is enough power to do climate conditioning.

 

[DrivingForce]

Thanks, I suppose it never occurred to me that the energy use during climate conditioning could exceed 2kW, Usually when I'm driving around climate seems to max out at 2kW and that's if it's particularly cold or hot. For some reason I thought L1 was 3.3kW but perhaps it is not.

I wish there were a mode to set it so that it only preconditions to the point where it can still maintain a full charge, but I suppose ultimately the energy will need to be spent to get the car to temperature whether I'm plugged in or not.

I'll probably install Level 2 eventually. I'm in the process of moving so it's not going to make sense for me to spend $800 on this.

I really enjoy the car so far!

 

[ksoul2084]

My experience charging Level 1 last winter was better than I was expecting, actually.

I would park outside at my office lot and plug in to the 120v plugs they provide for block heaters with my level 1 charger.

Here are my results on one particularly cold day last winter:

2016 Soul EV+

Charged from 57% to 72% in 5 hours with temp. -29c on 120v.
15% / 5 = 3% per hour
27kWh * 0.667 (SOH) = 18 kWH at 100%
18 / 100 * 3 = 0.54 kWh per hour

So even while the car used most of the power to heat the battery so it could charge it was still able to add approx. 0.5 kWh per hour to the charge state of vehicle (enough for me to get home after work).

 

[DrivingForce]

Interesting. It's not winter here yet, but winters here get around -12ºC at the absolute worst. Typical lows more like 0ºC. Right now with temperatures close to 20C, I seem to get 4% per hour charge (which seems about 1.0 kWh/hr) reliably on Level 1. I do not have a way to charge at work, but my daily commute is about 45 miles on the highway round trip. It seems that right now at 55mph with climate off, I can get about 3.3miles/kWh (calculating by % used X 27kWh max battery capacity), so I basically use about 14 kWh. Maybe if I go 65 mph and use climate I might use closer to 20kWh.

We'll see how this goes this winter!

 

[ksoul2084]

Makes a big difference if you can precondition your car before leaving work (requires at least level1 charger). It will bring the battery up to something resembling operating temps. and make the cabin warm before you leave.

If you park the car unplugged in the cold all day and then leave without preconditioning it has to do all that using battery power which will make a large dent in your range for sure. 0c Isn't really "cold" though.

 

[DrivingForce]

Is there a way to precondition the battery without activating climate control?

Seems like at this point my best option is to install a level 2 charger, even a lower power one. Just so that I have enough to keep the battery topped up during preconditioning. Then again, does losing 3% of range before I get in the car really make that much of a difference to me? Probably not.

 

[ksoul2084]

If the car is actively charging it will precondition the battery as well if it's very cold. So having the car charging up until you leave will keep the battery warmish.

 

[DrivingForce]

One thing I'm also noticing is that if the car preconditions and if I don't drive the car after the preconditioning is done (say I'm running late), the car won't resume charging to replenish the battery. So when I pull away perhaps an hour later, I'm down 3% on charge. Why is this?

I wonder if on Level 1 the car just doesn't even use the wall charge at all and uses the high voltage battery AC/DC converter to do the conditioning.