Driving distance diminishing quickly

I got my Soul EV about a month ago. Love the car, but I have noticed that the driving distance on a full charge has diminished quickly over the month. When I first drove it off the lot the screen said I could go 111 miles when fully charged. Now I'm getting about 88 miles on a full charge. Thats a big drop in a short time. I would expect to get at least the 93 miles that Kia advertises for the Soul EV for several months. I'm thinking about taking it to back to the dealership (in Northern California) to have it checked out.

Anyone have a similar experience?

Yes, sort of...I've seen a slight decline in range displayed when fully charged.

I chalk this up to the algorithm which learns how I drive the car. I certainly don't drive optimally for range (no ECO mode, heavy on the pedal). So I expect the car to show me less than 93 miles, but I also expect to be able to drive farther, since my driving is typically stop and go city type streets.

DenimHead said:

I got my Soul EV about a month ago. Love the car, but I have noticed that the driving distance on a full charge has diminished quickly over the month. When I first drove it off the lot the screen said I could go 111 miles when fully charged. Now I'm getting about 88 miles on a full charge. Thats a big drop in a short time. I would expect to get at least the 93 miles that Kia advertises for the Soul EV for several months. I'm thinking about taking it to back to the dealership (in Northern California) to have it checked out.

Anyone have a similar experience?

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That gauge is affectionately referred to as the "guess-o-meter" in EVs. It is NOT an indicator of how far the car is capable of going, it is a rough estimate of potential performance based on external temperature, HVAC use, recent driving habits, average speed, average Mi/kWh, and the like. It has "learned" how you drive, where you live, and how you like your HVAC set.

There's an easy way to tell if anything is actually wrong with your battery capacity. The usable capacity of a new Soul EV battery pack is 27 kWh (confirmed in my own car by Tony Williams in the insideEVs.com range test). Therefore if you reset a trip odometer, reset the Mi/kWh display, start off with a recently-completed full charge with all HVAC and accessories OFF, and drive for 50 miles, it's easy to do the math and see what your capacity is like.

For example, if you averaged 4 miles/kWh over 50 miles that should have consumed 12.5 kWh. That's about 46% of usable new battery capacity, so 54% should be remaining if you're still at new capacity. Adjust the math for whatever the Mi/kWh display shows (be sure to reset it before the test!). No trip to the dealer necessary.

Yep. Down to 93 full from something like 116 to start. It's all about the algorithm, no need to worry.

Same here, though I feel like I drive pretty conservatively. Mostly suburbia driving, on Eco and B mode. There are hills where I live, so I figure that's a pretty big factor.

grayhawk said:

Same here, though I feel like I drive pretty conservatively. Mostly suburbia driving, on Eco and B mode. There are hills where I live, so I figure that's a pretty big factor.

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What's your Mi/kWh average?

mtndrew1 said:

grayhawk said:

Same here, though I feel like I drive pretty conservatively. Mostly suburbia driving, on Eco and B mode. There are hills where I live, so I figure that's a pretty big factor.

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What's your Mi/kWh average?

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3.9 since I drove it off the lot.

grayhawk said:

mtndrew1 said:

grayhawk said:

Same here, though I feel like I drive pretty conservatively. Mostly suburbia driving, on Eco and B mode. There are hills where I live, so I figure that's a pretty big factor.

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What's your Mi/kWh average?

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3.9 since I drove it off the lot.

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When averaging 3.9 in my car it almost directly correlates with 1 mile per 1 percent of charge. Since the Soul's GOM is pessimistic I'd expect it to show 90-95 miles on the GOM at full charge at that average.

Similar experiences. Two things to consider.

Always zero your trip meter (A or B or both) so as to see your average speed. That gives away your range (miles covered + mile remaining). The higher the average (I've been up to 55 mph), the lower the range. It really makes a 5-8 mile difference at the end of trip.

The other is that this is winter range. Wait until we warm up to 70s, 80s, which means 50s-60s at night during charging. The battery will again show 97 miles as starting range.

This seems to correlate with my experience so far. I am averaging 4.3 mi/kWh very consistently, and my gauge shows 104 miles range after full charge. In fact, every trip for the last 10 days or so has been exactly 4.3, according to the History tab, which includes a mix of mostly suburban driving with some freeway mixed in. I am actually surprised there isn't more of a penalty (at least according to the gauge) for freeway driving (I average about 70 mph on the freeway).

For reference, I am located in the San Jose, CA, area, and the weather has been around 45-50 in the morning when I leave, and probably gets up to 65-70 during the day. My car is parked outside, so this includes reasonably cold starts. I do almost all of my driving in B (I will sometimes switch to D on the freeway), and non-Eco mode. I'm also one of those idiots that likes to jump off the line at stoplights...

One thing you might try is turning off Eco mode. I was averaging 3.7-3.9 mi/kWh while in Eco mode. When I turned it off, my efficiency jumped up to the 4.3 range. And "throttle" responsiveness improved too.

I wanted to circle back and report that what was mentioned in the responses to my original post is correct. Now that the weather is warmer, I am now getting up to 100 miles on a full charge.

That's nice, how warm is 'warmer'?

That is similar to what I am seeing. The weather has been flipping between sub-zero / near zero, and high single digits (Celsius ... that would be low 40's F). Although the reported range doesn't seem to change, the driving range reduces approx 25% - 30% on the sub-zero / near-zero days. On cold days I use 40% of battery to get to work vs warmer days use only 30%. I watched the climate system consumption yesterday, and it average approx 700w for the first 2/3 of the drive and dropped to approx 300w for the last 1/3, with a temperature change of -2C to 0C ... but I think it was more the vehicle had either fully warmed or was experiencing less heat loss by approx the 2/3 way mark ... and I was driving slower in the last 1/3 (< 60km/hr vs 85+km/hr for the first 2/3).

@irfca- That energy number you posted really helps show the effectiveness of the heat pump. Similar temperature outdoors and my cabin heater (w/o heat pump) is using anywhere from 3-4 kw/hr

New owner, late to this thread. Its summer here in Atlanta. My guess-o-meter says 111 miles/charge. I use eco mode and B all the time. We have very slight hills in my area and I do 95% city roads. I use the AC sometimes, but not all the time. I use the seat cooling more than the AC. I average about 4.1 mi/kwH and am pretty happy.

I read the earlier comment about turning eco mode off to improve range. That is interesting - can anyone confirm and explain this? Thanks.

Elm said:

I read the earlier comment about turning eco mode off to improve range. That is interesting - can anyone confirm and explain this? Thanks.

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Eco mode limits the motor's torque output and thus the energy spent while accelerating -- extending range slightly by making the car slower. The unintended consequence for some drivers may be that, in Eco mode, they spend more time on the throttle or deeper on the throttle to compensate for the lack of acceleration and thus use the same or more energy to do so than when Not in Eco mode.

Of course, it's also a single anecdote from a single driver, so your results may vary

I'm of the impression that Eco also increases off-throttle regen torque in B mode as well and limits HVAC consumption.

If off-throttle regen is indeed increased one could also posit that some drivers are inadvertently jumping on and off the throttle, increasing regen events instead of coasting, thereby becoming less efficient.

Eco+B only improves efficiency when the driver carefully modulates the throttle position to avoid regen events in steady-state driving.

I generally use regular d mode with eco driving on... i use b if i have room to spare and some extra regen i could gain before hitting the brake.

one of my best trips from niagara to vaughan was 140km with about 56km to spare once getting home.. all highway with about 40% of driving in traffic i think my avg speed was around 75-80km/h

my worst was driving to niagara with a heavy headwind.. i stopped to charge at about 117km.. with about 32km range left on the guess meter .. i didn't check my average speed this time.. but was driving around 100km 80% of the trip with cruise on about 50% of the time.

I'm overall happy with the car.. I just wish they didn't lean out so much performance beyond 60-70km hr.. happy with the power before that speed.. even thou shes not a tesla.. next car hopefully

dondon said:

One thing you might try is turning off Eco mode. I was averaging 3.7-3.9 mi/kWh while in Eco mode. When I turned it off, my efficiency jumped up to the 4.3 range. And "throttle" responsiveness improved too.

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In another thread, I had suggested turning off Eco mode as well, but, after some futzing around with settings, I've learned to embrace our computerized overlord. I was driving around mostly in non-Eco + B, and was getting around 4.2. Now that I drive in Eco + D, I get 4.3 and I think I should be able to improve numbers over time. I live in the bay area too, btw.

One "major" change I did in all this was turn off the "auto reset" setting for the Energy Consumption gauge in the dash display. When I was driving around in non-Eco+B, I would sometimes get 5.3 or better on some trips, so I was convinced that it was the way to go. However, when I turned off the auto reset, it slowly dropped to 4.2 and stayed there. When I turned Eco back on and drove for a couple days, it went up to 4.3 and stopped. I no longer get wild changes in the consumption gauge, so I assume the GOM is probably more accurate as well.

Although I miss my poor-man's Ludicrous mode, Eco has enough oomph to smoke people that deserve it.