Misc Questions about the Soul EV

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hybridbear

Active member
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
33
Location
Minneapolis, MN
We currently have a Focus Electric & Fusion Energi. Our lease on the Focus Electric is up in about 12 months so we're starting to examine our options for when we turn the Focus in. We've really enjoyed our time with the Focus, but it is a little small. We have 4-5 people in our car at least twice a week and the back seat passengers are not very comfortable in the Focus.

I have a few questions that will help determine if the Soul EV would be a potential suitable replacement.
  • Does the Soul EV have location based charging? With the Fords we can configure charging settings specific to up to 20 locations.
  • How well does the preconditioning work while connected to the charger?
  • Can you configure a specific preconditioning schedule for each day of the week?
  • Is the Soul EV really as inefficient on the highway as the EPA MPGe ratings indicate? We routinely exceed the MPGe ratings in both our cars. The EPA rating in the Focus Electric is 256 Wh/mi (removing the charging loss part of the EPA rating) and we average about 248 Wh/mi year-round.
  • I see that the Soul EV has push button start, do the doors also open automatically when you grab the handle where you never need to take the key out of your pocket? Do all 4 doors plus the hatch have this functionality?
  • What all are the features of the EV cell phone app? Can you remotely lock or unlock the car? Remote start it to run the HVAC? View vehicle location? View a history of your trips & their electricity consumption? I have not been able to find much data about this functionality. I would love to see screenshots & hear about how owners are using the app & website. I couldn't find a thread on here about it other than the one about if it works in Canada.
  • Does the Soul EV have rain-sensing wipers?
  • How well does the park assist work? Are the front sensors always on? We have the park assist feature on our Fusion Energi and more than anything else we bought it to have the front sensors to help when parking in parking lots or in our garage at home, not for parallel parking on the street which we do less than once a month.
  • Will a sunroof be an option in the US on the 2016 Soul EV?
  • Does the Soul EV have memory seats?
  • Does only the driver's window do one-touch up & down?

Ideally, we want a car that alleviates the weaknesses of the Focus Electric (no DCQC capability, very small back seat, no memory seats, no sunroof, no rain sensing wipers) while not giving up its strengths (quick acceleration, excellent location-based charging functionality, trip history in mobile app/web browser site, intelligent access & push button start and excellent driver feedback coaching) and offers slightly more range.

Thanks!!
 
hybridbear said:
We currently have a Focus Electric & Fusion Energi. Our lease on the Focus Electric is up in about 12 months so we're starting to examine our options for when we turn the Focus in. We've really enjoyed our time with the Focus, but it is a little small. We have 4-5 people in our car at least twice a week and the back seat passengers are not very comfortable in the Focus.

I have a few questions that will help determine if the Soul EV would be a potential suitable replacement.
  • Does the Soul EV have location based charging? With the Fords we can configure charging settings specific to up to 20 locations.
    It does not.

  • How well does the preconditioning work while connected to the charger?
    Just peachy in my case.

  • Can you configure a specific preconditioning schedule for each day of the week?
    Yes you can.

  • Is the Soul EV really as inefficient on the highway as the EPA MPGe ratings indicate? We routinely exceed the MPGe ratings in both our cars. The EPA rating in the Focus Electric is 256 Wh/mi (removing the charging loss part of the EPA rating) and we average about 248 Wh/mi year-round.
    The Soul is a pig on the highway; it's shaped like a brick. At or above 62 MPH I average ~4 mi/kWh or less. Below that speed I can approach 5.2 mi/kWh.

  • I see that the Soul EV has push button start, do the doors also open automatically when you grab the handle where you never need to take the key out of your pocket? Do all 4 doors plus the hatch have this functionality?
    The front two doors and the hatch have this functionality. The back two doors do not.

  • What all are the features of the EV cell phone app? Can you remotely lock or unlock the car? Remote start it to run the HVAC? View vehicle location? View a history of your trips & their electricity consumption? I have not been able to find much data about this functionality. I would love to see screenshots & hear about how owners are using the app & website. I couldn't find a thread on here about it other than the one about if it works in Canada.
    Lock/unlock, start and stop charge (with options for 80% or 100% charge), vehicle location, charging station finder, roadside assistance, remote HVAC (must be connected to EVSE), charge and climate timer scheduling.

  • Does the Soul EV have rain-sensing wipers?
    It does not.

  • How well does the park assist work? Are the front sensors always on? We have the park assist feature on our Fusion Energi and more than anything else we bought it to have the front sensors to help when parking in parking lots or in our garage at home, not for parallel parking on the street which we do less than once a month.
    It works very well and has a graphic on the instrument cluster to indicate the location(s) of obstacles. The sensors come on automatically in Reverse, then remain on until a predetermined speed (10 MPH?) in Drive. You can override the sensors (enable or disable) with a button on the console.

  • Will a sunroof be an option in the US on the 2016 Soul EV?
    Not confirmed but it's an $800 option on Canadian '16s, so it's likely for the US as well.

  • Does the Soul EV have memory seats?
    It does not have power or memory seats.

  • Does only the driver's window do one-touch up & down?
That is correct.


Ideally, we want a car that alleviates the weaknesses of the Focus Electric (no DCQC capability, very small back seat, no memory seats, no sunroof, no rain sensing wipers) while not giving up its strengths (quick acceleration, excellent location-based charging functionality, trip history in mobile app/web browser site, intelligent access & push button start and excellent driver feedback coaching) and offers slightly more range.

Keep in mind that the Soul has quite a bit more range than the Focus. The Soul's 80/100% charging options mean that the EPA sticker is based on the average of the two. At a full charge the Soul's EPA range would be 103 miles, or 36% greater than the Focus. A few features on the Soul that aren't on the Focus that I've really enjoyed are the heated steering wheel, heated back seats, air conditioned front seats, auto-folding mirrors, driver-only climate option, huge cargo area (seats down), heat pump (HUGE energy savings in chilly weather) and DCQC.

Thanks!!
 
Thanks so much for your detailed reply!!
mtndrew1 said:
  • Does the Soul EV have location based charging? With the Fords we can configure charging settings specific to up to 20 locations.
    It does not.

  • Does it always start charging immediately upon being plugged in? On the Ford we have a profile configured for home so that the car charges overnight unless we otherwise tell it to charge immediately. When we go to a public charging station the car knows that it is not at home & will charge immediately.
    mtndrew1 said:
    • I see that the Soul EV has push button start, do the doors also open automatically when you grab the handle where you never need to take the key out of your pocket? Do all 4 doors plus the hatch have this functionality?
      The front two doors and the hatch have this functionality. The back two doors do not.

    • Ok, that would be a bit hard to get used to since we can lock & unlock the Fusion Energi from all 4 doors and the Focus Electric can unlock from all 4 but only lock on the front doors. Quite often we go to put things in the back seat first so it would take some retraining to grab the front handle first always. Do both front doors have a sensor to lock the doors? Does grabbing the driver's door handle unlock all doors or just the driver's door? This is a configurable setting on the Fords.
      mtndrew1 said:
      • What all are the features of the EV cell phone app? Can you remotely lock or unlock the car? Remote start it to run the HVAC? View vehicle location? View a history of your trips & their electricity consumption? I have not been able to find much data about this functionality. I would love to see screenshots & hear about how owners are using the app & website. I couldn't find a thread on here about it other than the one about if it works in Canada.
        Lock/unlock, start and stop charge (with options for 80% or 100% charge), vehicle location, charging station finder, roadside assistance, remote HVAC (must be connected to EVSE), charge and climate timer scheduling.

      • Can you remote start the car to run the HVAC while the car is unplugged? We do this a lot in the Focus. For example, we might be out & about and not everyone is getting out of the car. In the Focus I can turn off the car & then remote start it to keep the HVAC going. This way the car doesn't honk at me for getting out with the key & I don't have to remember to leave the key somewhere inside the car. Also, in the winter while going into a store I would remote start the Focus as soon as leaving the car so as to keep the heat running and the car warm when it's below 0 F outside. In the summer I do this to keep the car cool inside, especially when doing errands like groceries where I don't want the groceries baking in the hot car in the sun.
        mtndrew1 said:
        • How well does the park assist work? Are the front sensors always on? We have the park assist feature on our Fusion Energi and more than anything else we bought it to have the front sensors to help when parking in parking lots or in our garage at home, not for parallel parking on the street which we do less than once a month.
          It works very well and has a graphic on the instrument cluster to indicate the location(s) of obstacles. The sensors come on automatically in Reverse, then remain on until a predetermined speed (10 MPH?) in Drive. You can override the sensors (enable or disable) with a button on the console.

        • Do the front sensors work all the time, such as when pulling into a parking spot? Do the front sensors work when in reverse, such as backing out of a parking spot?
          mtndrew1 said:
          • Does only the driver's window do one-touch up & down?
mtndrew1 said:
That is correct.
Do owners find that annoying? I would have to go back to my first car, a 1998 Chevy Lumina to have a car with only the driver's window being one-touch. Every car I've had since has had at least both front windows or all 4 are automatic. Ford.com indicates that the Focus doesn't have all 4 windows as one-touch but in reality they are so I had to ask about the Kia in case their website was also wrong.
mtndrew1 said:
Keep in mind that the Soul has quite a bit more range than the Focus. The Soul's 80/100% charging options mean that the EPA sticker is based on the average of the two. At a full charge the Soul's EPA range would be 103 miles, or 36% greater than the Focus. A few features on the Soul that aren't on the Focus that I've really enjoyed are the heated steering wheel, heated back seats, air conditioned front seats, auto-folding mirrors, driver-only climate option, huge cargo area (seats down), heat pump (HUGE energy savings in chilly weather) and DCQC.
The heated steering wheel, heated rear seats & cooled front seats are features that are very attractive about the Soul. The increased cargo area is also a plus, but increasing passenger space is more critical to us. I'm very curious to see what kind of improvement we would get in winter range with the heat pump. We have had a few winter days where we've had to stop at a public charger in order to have enough range for the day.

How well does the driver only HVAC work? If you run it with passengers in the car can they notice the difference in cooling or heating for them? Does it save a meaningful amount of range?
 
I am incapable of formatting the replies as nicely as you have, so I apologize in advance for the non-quoted response. Here goes:

Does it always start charging immediately upon being plugged in?

The way the Soul handles this is to have a daily charge timer that's persistent. Then, if you're out and about and want to have the car charge immediately (public charging, for example), there's a button on the dash right next to the charge door release button to override the charge timer. DC charging is always "charge immediately." But you roll up to a public charger and depress the override button and it'll ignore your timer settings until you depress that button again. Location-based seems cooler but the Soul's setup works just fine for me.

Does grabbing the driver's door handle unlock all doors or just the driver's door? This is a configurable setting on the Fords.

The two front door handles have a button on the face of them and depressing that button unlocks or locks the car depending on its state. On my car when I walk up and push that button all four doors unlock but that may be a configurable option that I haven't explored. For the hatch, walking up to the car and squeezing the hatch release pad opens the door with no additional interaction. The car will remain locked when you close the hatch though, unless you've unlocked the other doors first.

Can you remote start the car to run the HVAC while the car is unplugged?

You cannot and I find this irritating. My Volt allowed me to remote start whether or not the car was plugged in and I miss this feature. Furthermore, there is no remote start option from the keyfob, so if you want to remote start the HVAC it's gotta be plugged in. Maybe they'll update this for 2016?

Do the front sensors work all the time, such as when pulling into a parking spot? Do the front sensors work when in reverse, such as backing out of a parking spot?

I don't know the answer to the second of those questions but I'm inclined to believe that in Reverse, only the rear sensors are active. In my office garage the Volt used to BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP at me when I put the car in reverse because the front of the car was by the wall and I don't believe the Kia does. After backing out in the Kia, the front sensors are engaged until I've hit some speed threshold and then they're off and remain off all the way around until I do the Reverse/Drive dance again. You can tell the status of the parking sensors by whether or not the console button is illuminated. Once the light shuts off, the sensor suite is off in its entirety.

Do owners find that annoying? I would have to go back to my first car, a 1998 Chevy Lumina to have a car with only the driver's window being one-touch. Every

I would prefer auto up/down all the way around of course, but I've acclimated just fine. This seems to be one of those little luxury items that's beginning to vanish from cars unless you spend big bucks. My last several cars have gently cascaded from all auto up/down windows to auto up/down fronts/auto-down rears, to all auto-down/driver only auto-up to now just auto up/down on the driver window and nothing on the rest. I've discovered with Kia that they're extremely clever about where they cut costs; DC charging, a giant battery, and a heat pump are standard equipment but little stuff like the only having an auto driver window allow that to happen at this price point.

increasing passenger space is more critical to us

I can fit four grown adults in the Soul in complete comfort with no knees banging the dash or seatbacks, plenty of headroom, and no incessant whining from anyone. Having rented a modern Focus the passenger space in the Soul is greatly improved.

I'm very curious to see what kind of improvement we would get in winter range with the heat pump.

I live in frigid Los Angeles so I'm not the best barometer here, but I can give you a little taste of its effectiveness. On ~40 degree days running the heat in the Volt in eco mode the resistance heater would pull ~3.5 kW continuous and provide pretty marginal output. On the same type of day in the Soul, it runs at ~1.2 kW for a few minutes and then drops down to 500W or less for the remainder of the day, frequently cycling down to 0W after the cabin has warmed. Between that and being able to heat everyone's buns and the driver's hands, HVAC demand is way down in the Kia. The same goes for the cooled seats, where I can dramatically reduce my need for A/C. As an aside I've read that once the ambient temp drops down to ~10-15 degrees there is no efficiency improvement with the heat pump as compared to a resistance heater. It's really just a boon for chilly to cold days, not arctic.


How well does the driver only HVAC work? If you run it with passengers in the car can they notice the difference in cooling or heating for them? Does it save a meaningful amount of range?


If I forget to turn the function off passengers will start whining on warm days, so it must be at least somewhat effective at reducing the need for additional HVAC load. I haven't done any A/B comparisons so I have no idea its true effectiveness, but for the driver it's just as comfortable as having the whole car conditioned so I just always use it. The Soul's HVAC, as a whole, is extremely efficient in my experience.
 
mtndrew1 said:
I am incapable of formatting the replies as nicely as you have, so I apologize in advance for the non-quoted response. Here goes:
It's all good. It's just a matter of copying & pasting the /quote code in brackets and the quote="username" in brackets to be at the beginning & end of each snippet to quote.

mtndrew1 said:
Does it always start charging immediately upon being plugged in?
The way the Soul handles this is to have a daily charge timer that's persistent. Then, if you're out and about and want to have the car charge immediately (public charging, for example), there's a button on the dash right next to the charge door release button to override the charge timer. DC charging is always "charge immediately." But you roll up to a public charger and depress the override button and it'll ignore your timer settings until you depress that button again. Location-based seems cooler but the Soul's setup works just fine for me.
How do you configure the delayed charging time window? Ford's set up allows you to create Value Charge Profiles for each saved location. You can configure charge windows based on "cost", $, $$, $$$, $$$$, and $$$$$. Our cost is the same all the time, but I configure it based on expected grid load so that we charge in the lowest load times of day. Usually we charge overnight starting at 3:00 am. Our basic windows are: 12:00 am to 3:00 am $$, 3:00 am to 9:00 am $, 9:00 am-2:00 pm $$$, 2:00-7:00 pm $$$$$, 7:00 pm-12:00 am $$$. If I get home and plug in at 4:00 pm and set a Go Time for 10:00 pm, the car will wait until 7:00 pm to start charging since that is a lower "cost" window. If no Go Time is set within the next 24 hours the car will decide that it must charge within the next 24 hours and it automatically selects the cheapest window to do so. If I plug in at 9:01 am with no Go Time set within the next 24 hours, the car will wait until 3:00 am the following morning before beginning to charge.

Normally we just let the car charge overnight. However, sometimes we want the car to charge sooner, so we just set a Go Time. Go Times are how you configure cabin preconditioning. The car will always try to be fully charged by the time you have set as a Go Time and it will precondition, if you tell it to. The options for preconditioning are 65 F, 72 F or 85 F. You can set up to two Go Times per day and each day of the week is independent of the other days. The Value Charge Profiles allow you to set your "cost" windows for weekdays & weekends.

We can certainly get used to a different system in the Kia, I just want to more thoroughly understand the whole charging configuration & preconditioning setup because we use these features a lot. We pretty much always want to wait until the last possible moment to charge for the health of the battery. The Focus has liquid cooling and still the battery gets up over 95 F fairly easily in the summer. Delaying charging until around 3:00 am allows the HVB to be as cool as possible when charging starts. Often times we'll then see the HVB temp drop during the day while driving the car. This way we try to maximize our HVB health & life.

mtndrew1 said:
Does grabbing the driver's door handle unlock all doors or just the driver's door? This is a configurable setting on the Fords.
The two front door handles have a button on the face of them and depressing that button unlocks or locks the car depending on its state. On my car when I walk up and push that button all four doors unlock but that may be a configurable option that I haven't explored. For the hatch, walking up to the car and squeezing the hatch release pad opens the door with no additional interaction. The car will remain locked when you close the hatch though, unless you've unlocked the other doors first.
Makes sense. The hatch operation is the same as the Focus & how our Fusion Energi works if you just go to the trunk. The buttons on the door handles are like my parents' 2005 Murano for operation, so that wouldn't be hard to grow used to.

mtndrew1 said:
Can you remote start the car to run the HVAC while the car is unplugged?
You cannot and I find this irritating. My Volt allowed me to remote start whether or not the car was plugged in and I miss this feature. Furthermore, there is no remote start option from the keyfob, so if you want to remote start the HVAC it's gotta be plugged in. Maybe they'll update this for 2016?
How do you remote start the HVAC when plugged in? A fairly common scenario for me is going grocery shopping on Saturday afternoons. Rather than let the groceries sit in the hot car while I make multiple stops, I will usually stop home and drop things off. If I plug in the car upon arriving home, can I easily tell the A/C to keep running while I go upstairs for 15 minutes to put away groceries? We park in an underground garage at our apartment which is usually around 80 F in the summer and quite humid because it is like the basement of your house for humidity coming through the cement block walls. So I like to keep the A/C running while going upstairs briefly because otherwise it quickly gets hot & humid inside the car.

mtndrew1 said:
Do the front sensors work all the time, such as when pulling into a parking spot? Do the front sensors work when in reverse, such as backing out of a parking spot?
I don't know the answer to the second of those questions but I'm inclined to believe that in Reverse, only the rear sensors are active. In my office garage the Volt used to BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP at me when I put the car in reverse because the front of the car was by the wall and I don't believe the Kia does. After backing out in the Kia, the front sensors are engaged until I've hit some speed threshold and then they're off and remain off all the way around until I do the Reverse/Drive dance again. You can tell the status of the parking sensors by whether or not the console button is illuminated. Once the light shuts off, the sensor suite is off in its entirety.
Hmmmm....I'm trying to follow. If you drive along and pull into a parking space are they automatically active? Does pressing the button trigger the car to search for a parking spot? I like that in the Fusion the front sensors are always on. We park our two cars between two pillars in the underground garage at home and it's nice in the Fusion to have the front sensors when pulling in and backing out to help me get as close to the pillars as possible (to maximize space between our cars for opening the doors) while not hitting the pillars. We usually back the Focus in since it doesn't have front sensors. Since the Soul has its charge port on the front (instead of the left side like in the Fords) we would have to pull it in, making the front sensors all the more valuable.

mtndrew1 said:
Do owners find that annoying? I would have to go back to my first car, a 1998 Chevy Lumina to have a car with only the driver's window being one-touch. Every
I would prefer auto up/down all the way around of course, but I've acclimated just fine. This seems to be one of those little luxury items that's beginning to vanish from cars unless you spend big bucks. My last several cars have gently cascaded from all auto up/down windows to auto up/down fronts/auto-down rears, to all auto-down/driver only auto-up to now just auto up/down on the driver window and nothing on the rest. I've discovered with Kia that they're extremely clever about where they cut costs; DC charging, a giant battery, and a heat pump are standard equipment but little stuff like the only having an auto driver window allow that to happen at this price point.
I agree, the 2012 Focus Electric included an auto dimming rear view mirror & rain sensing wipers. Those features were eliminated for the 2013 model year to save costs. Both features are missed.

mtndrew1 said:
I'm very curious to see what kind of improvement we would get in winter range with the heat pump.
I live in frigid Los Angeles so I'm not the best barometer here, but I can give you a little taste of its effectiveness. On ~40 degree days running the heat in the Volt in eco mode the resistance heater would pull ~3.5 kW continuous and provide pretty marginal output. On the same type of day in the Soul, it runs at ~1.2 kW for a few minutes and then drops down to 500W or less for the remainder of the day, frequently cycling down to 0W after the cabin has warmed. Between that and being able to heat everyone's buns and the driver's hands, HVAC demand is way down in the Kia. The same goes for the cooled seats, where I can dramatically reduce my need for A/C. As an aside I've read that once the ambient temp drops down to ~10-15 degrees there is no efficiency improvement with the heat pump as compared to a resistance heater. It's really just a boon for chilly to cold days, not arctic.
Makes sense. The Focus heater often pulls 5+ kW according to the display in the winter. It doesn't usually pull less the 5 kW, mostly just cycling between off & 5+ kW. On some winter days where it was -10 F to -20 F ambient air temp we drove about 25 miles and used 3/4 of our range.
 
What type of cell connection is used by UVO EV Services? The MyFord Mobile app for the Fords and CarWings for the Leaf both use AT&T's 2G network which is supposed to stop functioning 12/31/16. Does Kia use the same network?
 
The manual for the car can be downloaded here https://carmanuals2.com/kia/soul-2015-ev-owner-s-manual-36666 and will give you all the nitty-gritty details in regards to charge timer and climate timer profiles (there are two of each).

I paid special attention last night to how my parking sensors behaved and the front sensors are, indeed, active in reverse.

As for driving along and then pulling into a space, the sensors will be off by default. All of the sensors switch off over a certain speed and then remain off until either the car is put in reverse or the driver manually enables the sensors with the console switch.
 
hybridbear said:
What type of cell connection is used by UVO EV Services? The MyFord Mobile app for the Fords and CarWings for the Leaf both use AT&T's 2G network which is supposed to stop functioning 12/31/16. Does Kia use the same network?

It is definitely a 3G connection and I'm 80% certain that the connection is from Verizon. The app is dramatically more responsive than my Volt's OnStar app was but, to be fair, that car used 1xRTT for its connection.

A fresh charge status request on my phone to the UVO app requires 30 seconds or less for a response. Initiating a charge or HVAC seems to happen somewhat faster, maybe 20 seconds.
 
mtndrew1 said:
hybridbear said:
What type of cell connection is used by UVO EV Services? The MyFord Mobile app for the Fords and CarWings for the Leaf both use AT&T's 2G network which is supposed to stop functioning 12/31/16. Does Kia use the same network?

It is definitely a 3G connection and I'm 80% certain that the connection is from Verizon. The app is dramatically more responsive than my Volt's OnStar app was but, to be fair, that car used 1xRTT for its connection.

A fresh charge status request on my phone to the UVO app requires 30 seconds or less for a response. Initiating a charge or HVAC seems to happen somewhat faster, maybe 20 seconds.
I was able to find online that the connection is from Verizon, but I could not find data about the connection type. This would definitely be a positive in favor of the Soul versus the Focus Electric or Leaf, since they both use the AT&T 2G connection which may no longer function come 1/1/17.
mtndrew1 said:
The manual for the car can be downloaded here https://carmanuals2.com/kia/soul-2015-ev-owner-s-manual-36666 and will give you all the nitty-gritty details in regards to charge timer and climate timer profiles (there are two of each).

I paid special attention last night to how my parking sensors behaved and the front sensors are, indeed, active in reverse.

As for driving along and then pulling into a space, the sensors will be off by default. All of the sensors switch off over a certain speed and then remain off until either the car is put in reverse or the driver manually enables the sensors with the console switch.
I downloaded the manuals and will look through them. Thanks for the link. I had searched for that too but hadn't come across this site. Thanks for the info about the parking sensors. Does pressing the switch just enable the sensors or does it make the car start searching for a space to parallel park itself?
 
I've been reading through the Owner's Manual and this has raised a few more questions:
  • What does the pedestrian warning system sound like? Can you turn it off? Is it similar to the buzzing emitted by the Prius at low speeds? One of the features we love about the electric Fords compared to the Prius that preceded them is that they make no noise & thus we can glide along silently.
  • How do the door locks work if you don't set the doors to unlock automatically when you park? In the Fords the doors don't unlock automatically, but pulling on either front door handle will unlock & open the door. The rear seat passengers must pull on their handle twice, once to unlock & the second time to open. We love this design because it is very intuitive. How does the Kia work? The OM didn't explain this in as much detail as I would have liked.
  • Do the mirrors fold automatically every time you lock the car? The OM seems to indicate that this is how they work.
  • How does the Flex Steer system work? What setting do people prefer?
  • Will the audio display on the center dash screen show song name & artist name? What does it show when you’re connected to a USB device?
  • Is it true that the Trip Meters don't keep track of rate of energy consumption or kWh used? This seems like a major oversight...
  • What is the battery % shown on the trip info screen when you turn off the car? Is it the % used during that drive? Or the % remaining?
  • How are trips grouped on the Driving History screen on the center screen? Does it record every single trip each day? Are trips shorter than a certain # of miles omitted? How many trips are shown on that screen? Is this data available online in the EV UVO Services web portal?

Thank you!!!
 
Features that sound great:
  • Variety of lock/unlock configurations, way more versatile.
  • Configurable turn signal blink for lane changes: 3, 5 or 7 times. The Fords just blink 3 times. This isn't enough blinks for me for changing lanes. 5 or 7 would be ideal.
 
Does the heat only turn on when you push the Heat button? This is one area where Ford's engineering is really poor. The Focus Electric & Fusion Energi will both turn on the electric heater in the summer time if the cabin gets too cool from running the A/C. For example, today it was around 80 F outside with a mix of clouds & sun. While driving we were using the A/C. When the sun would be blocked by a cloud for an extended period of time the interior temp would cool off enough that the car would turn on the electric heating element in order to blend warm air from the heater core with the cool air from the A/C. This is a terrible use of energy in an EV with limited onboard energy. The power demand for climate will spike to 5+ kW on the dash when this happens. I try to keep an eye on this when driving and using A/C so that I can manually turn the temp down a degree or two when this happens. My wife doesn't pay as much attention and sometimes she's had summer trips with double the normal electricity consumption because she was running both the heat & the A/C. I really hope that Kia has a better system!

I really like what the system says regarding trying to turn off the A/C when the car is using the A/C system for defogging the windows. I like the fact that the car will blink the light to let you know that you cannot turn off the A/C in this instance.

Does the Reserved Climate Control button remember how it was set when you turn the car off & on? We would use this feature daily and it would be a real pain to have to be remembering to press that button all the time if it defaults to off, instead of defaulting to its last setting.
 
Does anyone know if the Soul EV offers Over the Air software updates? Or does an owner have to keep bringing the car into the dealer to get updates and fix small software bugs? Thanks.
 
hybridbear said:
Does the heat only turn on when you push the Heat button? This is one area where Ford's engineering is really poor. The Focus Electric & Fusion Energi will both turn on the electric heater in the summer time if the cabin gets too cool from running the A/C. For example, today it was around 80 F outside with a mix of clouds & sun. While driving we were using the A/C. When the sun would be blocked by a cloud for an extended period of time the interior temp would cool off enough that the car would turn on the electric heating element in order to blend warm air from the heater core with the cool air from the A/C. This is a terrible use of energy in an EV with limited onboard energy. The power demand for climate will spike to 5+ kW on the dash when this happens. I try to keep an eye on this when driving and using A/C so that I can manually turn the temp down a degree or two when this happens. My wife doesn't pay as much attention and sometimes she's had summer trips with double the normal electricity consumption because she was running both the heat & the A/C. I really hope that Kia has a better system!

I really like what the system says regarding trying to turn off the A/C when the car is using the A/C system for defogging the windows. I like the fact that the car will blink the light to let you know that you cannot turn off the A/C in this instance.

Does the Reserved Climate Control button remember how it was set when you turn the car off & on? We would use this feature daily and it would be a real pain to have to be remembering to press that button all the time if it defaults to off, instead of defaulting to its last setting.

The individual heat and A/C functions can be manipulated by the buttons on the climate panel, but when you push "auto" it does its own thing until overridden. When in auto though, the lights on the respective buttons light up to tell you what it's doing.

So if you had the HVAC on Auto 75 degrees and the "heat" button lit up when you know you didn't want the heater running, you can just override it by pressing "heat" and the light will switch off. All other auto functions will remain active until they're respectively overridden, ie if the system thinks the A/C compressor should run that button may light up at some point, but the heat would never come back on again unless you engage auto mode or manually select the heater button.

The system gives you very granular control over what you want to happen except for two functions, dehumidifying if the windshield sensor detects glass fogging and overriding recirculated air when defogging is needed. If the system is on in any capacity it retains ultimate control over those two functions. I only wish there were a third "fan only" function like my Volt had (however it was as dopey as your Ford's setup by running heat and A/C behind your back). If you want true fan only in the Soul you have to keep an eye on the panel and kick off the heat or A/C if the car decides you need it. They won't come back on once disengaged.

I don't use reserved climate control so I can't speak to its behavior, but the car keeps all other functions persistent between power cycles so I'd expect that to be the same. Eco mode, HVAC settings, driver-only ventilation settings, etc., are all persistent.
 
ericonline said:
Does anyone know if the Soul EV offers Over the Air software updates? Or does an owner have to keep bringing the car into the dealer to get updates and fix small software bugs? Thanks.

While the infotainment system has a WiFi radio and will connect to your home network, it only appears to use this for XM data and traffic. If you dig into the system menus to the "software update" page it instructs you to insert an SD card for update data.

From what I can gather the dealer has SD cards with the latest system version and can update in the event of a map change or system upgrade. I think that our infotainment is the same unit in the '15 Hyundai Sonata and should theoretically support CarPlay and Android Auto, so maybe they'll make a user-upgradeable SD card available for distribution at some point.
 
mtndrew1 said:
The individual heat and A/C functions can be manipulated by the buttons on the climate panel, but when you push "auto" it does its own thing until overridden. When in auto though, the lights on the respective buttons light up to tell you what it's doing.

So if you had the HVAC on Auto 75 degrees and the "heat" button lit up when you know you didn't want the heater running, you can just override it by pressing "heat" and the light will switch off. All other auto functions will remain active until they're respectively overridden, ie if the system thinks the A/C compressor should run that button may light up at some point, but the heat would never come back on again unless you engage auto mode or manually select the heater button.

The system gives you very granular control over what you want to happen except for two functions, dehumidifying if the windshield sensor detects glass fogging and overriding recirculated air when defogging is needed. If the system is on in any capacity it retains ultimate control over those two functions. I only wish there were a third "fan only" function like my Volt had (however it was as dopey as your Ford's setup by running heat and A/C behind your back). If you want true fan only in the Soul you have to keep an eye on the panel and kick off the heat or A/C if the car decides you need it. They won't come back on once disengaged.
This sounds like a more intelligent system than in the Fords & your Volt. We usually just have to keep bumping the temperature down in our cars but then it is too cold in the car and that doesn't work either. Having heat & A/C buttons that light up when on is a very smart design. I really like that.
mtndrew1 said:
I don't use reserved climate control so I can't speak to its behavior, but the car keeps all other functions persistent between power cycles so I'd expect that to be the same. Eco mode, HVAC settings, driver-only ventilation settings, etc., are all persistent.
Is the delayed charge setting also persistent when power cycling the car? I would recommend you check out the climate control settings to precondition the car. Getting into a cool car in the summer and a warm car in the winter is one of the best features of EVs. Even when it's only 75 or so here we still precondition our cars to 65 F. It's so nice to get in and feel the cool air!
 
I just don't have any interest in preconditioning, to be honest, so it ends up simply being a waste of electricity for my situation.

My garage never deviates from a range of 68-85 degrees and the car is always comfortable when I get in. Once in a very great while I'll initiate a preconditioning event from my phone if I know I'm really going to be pushing range and want to do the first heat/cool with shore power or have a guest or something; people unfamiliar with EVs get a kick out of preconditioning.

Otherwise it's of no use to me.
 
mtndrew1 said:
I just don't have any interest in preconditioning, to be honest, so it ends up simply being a waste of electricity for my situation.

My garage never deviates from a range of 68-85 degrees and the car is always comfortable when I get in. Once in a very great while I'll initiate a preconditioning event from my phone if I know I'm really going to be pushing range and want to do the first heat/cool with shore power or have a guest or something; people unfamiliar with EVs get a kick out of preconditioning.

Otherwise it's of no use to me.
Good point. Since we pay a flat rate for electricity for our EVs to our landlord we don't have any additional cost for preconditioning. Someone who actually pays the electric bill by the kWh for the car would have a different perspective. You could take advantage of it if you were charging at a free public EVSE where you aren't paying for the electricity by the kWh. I sometimes forget that our situation is very unique with regard to electricity costs. We estimate how much electricity we use for preconditioning etc and figure that it is about equal to the amount of electricity we get monthly from charging away from home so that it is just a wash & the kWh shown as used by the car is a good approximation of how much electricity we actually used, plus 20% for charging loss.
 
Separate Heat button is a necessity in EVs. Leaf did not have it, so when you ran just the fan, if the temp outside was lower than the lowest possible setting, i.e. 62F for Kia (or 60 in Leaf), for example 59F, the fan would trigger the heater, and you lose miles. The only way to control it was to give up on the fan and turn it off.

The Heat button allows you to run fan only in any condition no matter what the temp outside is. Kia learned from Nissan mistake.
 
ericonline said:
Does anyone know if the Soul EV offers Over the Air software updates?
I have had my Soul EV for 2 months.
A new speed camera was erected at the end of my street last week.
Today my navigation gave me a warning about this camera for the first time.
I was surprised, I don't know how, or when the update happened.
I live in South Korea. Here the Soul EV has an Internet connection. Naver search is part of the navigation. It uses 3G.
 
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