Arizona SOUL EV Heat testing

[jstack6]

No problems in the heat. The air conditioner HEAT PUMP is very efficient. No loss of capacity after 1 full year and through a HOT summer.

[JejuSoul]

-
Three years later - It seems all the Soul EVs in Phoenix have now had battery failures.
10 private owners and 4 cars at the Intertek AVTA facility.

There are many posts by Jim Stack on Facebook about this.
see - Has anyone had traction battery problems with their SOUL EV ?
and - https://www.facebook.com/groups/SoulEV/ ... 941051246/
and - KIA SOUL EV forum on InsideEVs.com

Yes I located every soul EV owner in my area. All 14 owners and lease drivers had their battery fail and need replacing. That took from 1 to 2 months. Most failed in 1 to 2,years. Mine took until the 3rd year since I always charge Off Peak at night when it's cooler. I also charge,at 3 kw with an adjustable juice box to keep charging heat down.
All I want is to have,all automakers see that liquid cooling is good for long battery life.
I wish there was a,site with all the data and cars.
INTERTEK does testing and share info. They have 4 of the local Soul EVs and confirmed all 4 of theirs had failed.
...
I also talked to another person who has a small test fleet of 4 2015 SOUL EV. All 4 also had their batteries fail. They got replaced but no other improvement for cooling. They were turned in and are for sale in the area but will fail again and again.
...
We have seen many traction battery fails in the Phoenix area. We thinks it's from heat.
Mine takes 2 hours to charge the last 10% . Then when we drive even 1 mile it will drop 10 to 20 miles in range.
This same type of problem has happened to all 10 soul ev owners in my area after 2 to 3 years of use.
...
watch out for HEAT related battery pack and BMS failures. It's not good in the heat. ... In Phoenix we even had the controller shut down right in traffic and you can't move an inch.
...
took a month to get the battery replaced. Some have taken 2 months. They don't have any electric courtesy cars. Some have also had the OBC on board c harger fail. That also took months to get replaced. It's a great evening when new and if it doesn't fail. But they can't take the HEAT.

The AVTA stopped posting data after the last US election so we don't have any battery data to show what happened, but we can assume the problem is extreme heat.

Note Kia does not sell EVs in Arizona. A proper liquid cooling system for the battery seems essential in this environment.

Here's a couple of charts comparing the degradation on my car with the 4 cars at the AVTA Intertek facilty in Phoenix Arizona.

[ignitedAZ]

I live in East Mesa and bought a 2015 Kia Soul EV about 3 months ago and have gone from 87 miles on a full charge, down to 70 in the hot heat of the summer. I have a service appt with Mark Kia in a couple weeks to hopefully up the range somehow.. fingers crossed.

Anyone else service their car with Mark Kia? Should I be going somewhere else?

Thanks!

[JejuSoul]

-
Good luck with your new car. This thread suggests the battery will need replacing within a few years.
As long as your commute is possible with a 70% degraded battery, then you will be fine for the years that the warranty lasts.
Kia will replace the battery with a new one each time you get down to 70%
Did they tell you this when you bought the car?
They obviously know this fact because they have done the battery replacements.

I just checked markkia.com.
They don't sell new Soul Evs, but do have 3 used.
Two were imported from California and have not had a battery replacement.
Seems fairly evil to bring these cars into Arizona knowing that they will fail here.
The Arizona car has had a battery replacement. Done by Mark Kia.



Note - the dealer can hide the actual state of a used battery by resetting the BMS.
It will show a false reading of 100% SOH for a few months until the BMS properly calibrates again.
The only way to check is to drive the car from 100% down to zero and see what the full range is.

[mpea]

I live in East Mesa and bought a 2015 Kia Soul EV about 3 months ago and have gone from 87 miles on a full charge, down to 70 in the hot heat of the summer. I have a service appt with Mark Kia in a couple weeks to hopefully up the range somehow.. fingers crossed.

Anyone else service their car with Mark Kia? Should I be going somewhere else?

Thanks!

Hello There, I am having the same issue with my recently purchased EV was Mark Kia the only dealer you could have it checked at?

[ignitedAZ]

Mark Kia was the only dealer I could find that would work on the Soul EV's and they did they trick. There were 3 updates that needed to be done and I left the place with the guess-o-meter showing a 103 mile range

[JejuSoul]

-

Record-breaking heat across Arizona shattered temperature records Sunday ... Temperatures in Phoenix, Flagstaff, Tucson and Yuma broke daily records Sunday afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Phoenix reached 118 degrees (F)

From : Arizona temp records toppled by deadly heat wave

Temperatures of 48C are extremely bad for Lithium Ion batteries unless they have good liquid cooling. This means more Soul EVs in Phoenix will soon require new batteries. There are some new comments on the American Facebook forum about this. It seems the length of time for 30% usable battery capacity to be lost has gone down from 2 years to less than a year.

My 2016 (21k miles) is getting a new battery. Got a rental for the time being ... degradation with car only showing a range of 40miles... I drive it hard with highway speed in legal excess of 80mph ... I got 15k miles on mine till it gave. Came from San Diego.

From : https://www.facebook.com/groups/SoulEV/ ... 353121003/

[Iguesssoulmanistaken]

Hi all,

My first post on here - I am actually up here in Canada, and worried about the COLD! lol. My question is about thermal management, so I thought I'd ask. I hear there is an upgrade you can buy - maybe for just the cold, but anyone heard about this?

Jim

[mbrown827]

Mark Kia was the only dealer I could find that would work on the Soul EV's and they did they trick. There were 3 updates that needed to be done and I left the place with the guess-o-meter showing a 103 mile range

Mark Kia is the only dealership that services EV's in AZ. Next closest is Palm Springs. I bought my 2015 Soul EV 7/5/2018 with 48,XXX miles on it. It was certified preowned. At first the battery charged to 81 miles, then dropped to 70 within a week then 60 a week after. Took it to Mark Kia, getting the main battery replaced under warranty. Gave me a brand new Optima for a loaner. Repair should take 30-45 days.

[ignitedAZ]

After taking it in to Mark Kia, the battery has gone to crap. I can barely get 35 miles on a charge at the most if I drive on city streets. I took it back in to Mark Kia and they said the battery was "fine" and that it was working to "Kia standards".

I then called the Kia Corporate Consumer line, and they escalated it an escalation rep and have been waiting around.. The first time they said that Mark Kia was not authorized to work on Kia Soul EVs, and now last Friday they are saying that they are. So now the escalation rep is checking with the tech that worked on my car and they will have me take it to Mark Kia again. I just want a friggin car that works at this point