Replacing the single cells in the battery pack?

[kojairvs]

…I decided to order this battery from Malaysia, but after exchanging several emails, I came to conclusion that it was probably 50/50 a scam. So I paid through Paypal to have at least some protection. Purchased June 20, promise to arrive in 35 days, I received a tracking number and link of the logistics company. After almost 2 months nothing, no movement on the tracking of the shipment. I sent emails for an explanation, nothing, I asked for a refund, nothing. Then at the end of October I ran into an Irish company that disassembles electric cars and they have a battery for a Kia 2018. I asked through Paypal if I was covered because the shipment never arrived, after a few days they responded positively and refunded the full amount. Then I ordered a battery from Ireland which arrived as promised and I finally fitted it to my car yesterday. It works like clockwork, it did only 43,000 km and has a range of over 150 km. Today I drove it about 50 km and it dropped the percentage from 85% to 55%. You should never give up.

I now have 7 modules from the old battery that are in very good condition. The battery has been outside under a tarp since January for almost 10 months and the voltage of all modules is the same as in January.

When, unfortunately, I hope in the distant future, my new battery starts to have insufficient range or turtle mode, I have enough material to play around and change modules and later cells. I got some new experience and knowledge and a new hobby.

I’ll let you know how it’s going with my Kia after few months.

 

[IanL]

Good to hear your success! How much did the battery from Ireland cost?

 

[JejuSoul]

…I decided to order this battery from Malaysia, ...After almost 2 months nothing, ...Then I ordered a battery from Ireland which arrived as promised and I finally fitted it to my car yesterday. It works like clockwork,

Am not surprised that Malaysia was a scam.
I recently posted about a similar scam site in Indonesia.

It's really good to hear that an old 2018 pack will fit right into a 2015.
Congrats.

 

[kojairvs]

2250£ with delivery, plus 300 custom and VAT in Switzerland

 

[kojairvs]

Yes Jeju, it was the same internet site from Indonesia, but battery was supposed to come from Malaysia, at least that was my tracking details showing. It’s still offering Kia batteries .
It would be good laugh if I come one day home and find new battery on my parking.

 

[Markinson]

…
Since I couldn't get original second-hand cells (and the ones I ordered from China were the same thickness but longer by a few centimeters and could not be used), it was time to find another solution.

I've been seriously looking online for a used whole battery or module, only managed to find a person in Canada who sells modules. But he couldn't send them to Europe by airmail, and he didn't want to organize cargo by ship. There was no used whole batteries anywhere.

After much hesitation, I decided to transport the car to Croatia and have it repaired there. I found transport for a total of 1200€ to there and back.

But when I suddenly got a call that transporter was free to pick up the car, I realized that it was impossible to easily release the wheels without a battery and to roll the car onto the trailer.

I gave up on the whole operation and decided not to get upset and wait, some times things sort themselves out sooner or later.

And then at the end of May, I found an ad on the net from a company from Malaysia that sells a "new" battery for my model for only $3200. Too good to be true, isn’t it…

That offer for $3200 is a scam, I think we have already discussed it. Let it go...

But you can found a solution here: e-Service in Solymár, Hungary, (near Budapest)

https://www.mykiasoulev.com/threads...ls-in-the-battery-pack.1906/page-3#post-15183

I bought the Soul with SoH 92%, displayed range: 176km, which shortly set to 157km after a few full charge.
But after a year: 12tkm run with 99% home charging (10A) my range has been continously dropping slowly after each recharge.
My full displayed range (in today's winter: 0-2°C) is 127km.
So within a year or two, I'll look for some replacement as well.

I'm thinking of buying a chrased Kia Soul PS EV to use its cells, but obviously, I won't need all of them to replace a few in mine pack.
Let me know, if any of you are interested to buy some used cells in good condition.
In most of the cases, damaged Souls are coming with 27kW battery pack with SKI E375, very seldom you can find a newer 30kW version with SKI E400 cells.

@JejuSoul
Do you think we can use Ioniq cells as well? Or we should not mix them?

 

[Markinson]

…I decided to order this battery from Malaysia, but after exchanging several emails, I came to conclusion that it was probably 50/50 a scam. So I paid through Paypal to have at least some protection. Purchased June 20, promise to arrive in 35 days, I received a tracking number and link of the logistics company. After almost 2 months nothing, no movement on the tracking of the shipment. I sent emails for an explanation, nothing, I asked for a refund, nothing. Then at the end of October I ran into an Irish company that disassembles electric cars and they have a battery for a Kia 2018. I asked through Paypal if I was covered because the shipment never arrived, after a few days they responded positively and refunded the full amount. Then I ordered a battery from Ireland which arrived as promised and I finally fitted it to my car yesterday. It works like clockwork, it did only 43,000 km and has a range of over 150 km. Today I drove it about 50 km and it dropped the percentage from 85% to 55%. You should never give up.

I now have 7 modules from the old battery that are in very good condition. The battery has been outside under a tarp since January for almost 10 months and the voltage of all modules is the same as in January.

When, unfortunately, I hope in the distant future, my new battery starts to have insufficient range or turtle mode, I have enough material to play around and change modules and later cells. I got some new experience and knowledge and a new hobby.

I’ll let you know how it’s going with my Kia after few months.

Hi,

I'm also happy for you.

As you said: your new battery is comming from a 2018 Soul, which has the new cells inside... I'm surprised that with such low milage it has only 150km range.

BTW: Have you took some photos of the project?

I'll not give up on hounting for a crashed Soul with the newer SKI E400 cells, so I can replace it fully once, when I fed up with the slowly dropping range of my 9 yo original E375 battery. But in the meantime, I must ask you: do you offer some cells for sale?

 

[IanL]

That offer for $3200 is a scam, I think we have already discussed it. Let it go...

But you can found a solution here: e-Service in Solymár, Hungary, (near Budapest)

https://www.mykiasoulev.com/threads...ls-in-the-battery-pack.1906/page-3#post-15183

I bought the Soul with SoH 92%, displayed range: 176km, which shortly set to 157km after a few full charge.
But after a year: 12tkm run with 99% home charging (10A) my range has been continously dropping slowly after each recharge.
My full displayed range (in today's winter: 0-2°C) is 127km.
So within a year or two, I'll look for some replacement as well.

I'm thinking of buying a chrased Kia Soul PS EV to use its cells, but obviously, I won't need all of them to replace a few in mine pack.
Let me know, if any of you are interested to buy some used cells in good condition.
In most of the cases, damaged Souls are coming with 27kW battery pack with SKI E375, very seldom you can find a newer 30kW version with SKI E400 cells.

@JejuSoul
Do you think we can use Ioniq cells as well? Or we should not mix them?

If you use any but the original type of cells, I would expect problems, as the BMS will not be able to manage them appropriately.

 

[JejuSoul]

You could build your own BMS though.

 

[kojairvs]

Today was my first day driving to work and back home.
47.5 km in one direction towards work from an altitude of 850m to 600m. Of that, 45 km on the highway:
The battery was at 85% and the estimated range was 153km, cells at 3.98V
When I got to work:
The battery was at 64% and the predicted range was 113km, cells at 3.72V
When I returned home:
The battery was at 30% and the predicted range was 48km, cells at 3.54V

Of course, there is a climb on the way back and therefore it consumes more electricity.
So about 100 km driving on the highway, a little under 60% of the battery is required and the voltage drops by 0.44V
Of course, if we drive on local roads where the limit is 80 km/h, I assume that the range would be a little higher.
For me it is perfect because I can charge it at home at night and therefore the savings due to the difference in the price of fuel and electricity here in Switzerland will be about 10chf per 100km. I should roughly cover at least 25000km per year and that's about 2500 chf, the value of my used battery
Of course, I expect the range to weaken after 25,000 km and then I will deal with repacking the cells

 

[kojairvs]

I’ll repost my question from different thread…
«
Hi,
I have one quick question.
Can someone compare this 2 cells
E4050 from Kia 2015
E4300 from Kia 2018

My understanding is that they are same capacity 40 Ah, and if that is true, are they compatible to put together?

Thanks
«

 

[kojairvs]

Sorry Markinson, as long as I own my Kia I’ll selfishly keep them all, , took 10 months for them to fall in my lap .

 

[kojairvs]

This is my car last Saturday, did take me 4 hours from beginning to the first drive

 

[JejuSoul]

I moved this reply from the other thread.

These are not the codes for the cells.
E4050 is a 27kWh battery pack with a heater. Used E375 cells that are 37.5Ah
E4300 is a 30kWh battery pack without a heater. Used E400 cells that are 40.0Ah
Unless the older pack has been changed to use newer cells they are not compatible.

Battery heating elements

 

[kojairvs]

Thanks Jeju,

Yes, my old battery pack has the heaters and the new one doesn’t.
Now I now that my old cells (individual) have 37.5Ah, which means that the CELLS (2 cells in parallel which BMS recognizes as one) have 75Ah.
New battery than has CELLS of 80Ah (2 times 40Ah cells).

From here I can plan for the future, how to proceed when/if I mix and match different capacity CELLS.

From what I understand, and my knowledge is just the basic, we can put 2 batteries with the same nominal voltage but different capacities together. It’s not recommended because they will not charge/discharge in the same way which will reduce their overall life and performance, but electricity will flow.

 

[kojairvs]

 

[kojairvs]

What you are seeing on this graph above is situations on the end of life of my old battery.
Red is number 1 cell which provoked turtle mode.
Green is number 2 and was as good as all other cells except for maybe no 96 with minimal difference.
Battery was “full” 100% but capacity was far from original value, I’ve measured that I could put only around 8kWh in January from empty to full.
Cell 1 had close to 3.95V
All other cells had only 3.8V
BMS will stop charging whole battery when no 1 goes “full” (is it 4.1V, not sure?)
To me this looks like that we could put easily another 0.2V on 95 cells which would store loads more energy but we could not because of one “f…..” bad cell which lost its capacity (no more enough electrons to travel back and forth).
Now we can imagine that number one’s capacity was far below 75Ah and others had something closer to original 75Ah.
But BMS was still letting car drive despite big differences in capacity.
From the graph you can see that car was “turtling” after 20 minutes, driving on the local roads not faster than 80km/h and going uphill slowly like a turtle keeping eye on the live graph’s reading to make sure no 1 doesn’t drop under 2.5V.
That was my situation in January.

 

[kojairvs]

As we can see on this same graph, other cells when stopped the journey stabilized at around 3.5V. They all lost 0,3V. If I made journey off only 20km with 0.3V dropping, my car could make more than that if I had something to put instead of cell 1 in January.

 

[Markinson]

As we can see on this same graph, other cells when stopped the journey stabilized at around 3.5V. They all lost 0,3V. If I made journey off only 20km with 0.3V dropping, my car could make more than that if I had something to put instead of cell 1 in January.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I've learnt a lot from this whole thread.

I got your point about keeping the cells for yourself.

About cell compatibility:
As I wrote here: https://www.mykiasoulev.com/threads/replacing-the-single-cells-in-the-battery-pack.1906/post-15183

E-service in Hungary offers to replace old packs with used, newer packs from other cars (not necessarily Kia/HyundaI, but preferebly, whichsoever is available for them to purchase from the used/damaged cars market).
Since they don't touch the BMS's deep settings, the old BMS will charge the newer cells to the same Voltage level as the original SKI E375 limit, eventhough the newer cells have higher Voltage limits & could be charged higher, but the old BMS will stop the charging process sooner. According to e-service, this will help to keep your newer cell alive for longer period, as the old BMS will never reach the possible 100% charging level of the newer cells.

Also the displayed range will not be exact, as the real possible range will be higher, because the newer cells can keep more charge compared to our old geniune cells even though their full charge level will not be reached ever, but our old BMS is programmed to show only 210km as max. (or something like this, they said).

They are not mixing different cell types, but replacing the full cell-packs, which can fit into the old battery housing, keeping the old BMS.

I think, mixing the E375 & E400 cells would not be a good solution on the long run, especially I would not recommend to pair the different types in once circiut, but surely better than nothing.

So, in case they can do this with cells from batteries disassembled from other car types, maybe it's not a big deal, so maybe I can also do that as you did, but using cell packs from a crashed Ioniq (2nd gen.).

What do you think?