27,000 miles 86-mile range; my Soul EV commute is over

[2016Electric]

I not only enjoy driving my Soul, I love the difference it is making.

Isn't there a Kia or Nissan dealer on the way home? Stop for a 5 min Chademo charge, grab something to drink, and you are off.

I cried a little inside when I read this. You'd think Kia in Canada would have at least ONE chademo... but no. Not a single one. And when I called them out on it.. called corporate and asked when they planned to roll SOMETHING out.. their solution was to terminate the call. Unreal.

Want to see sad QC infrastructure? Have a look on plugshare at Toronto. Keep in mind.. this area (Toronto and immediately surrounding area) is home to over 6 million people!

 

[iletric]

Isn't there a Kia or Nissan dealer on the way home?

Nope. No such luck. I did my due diligence.

Plus...I leave work at 10 pm. Want to shoot straight home and watch the news: The Donald, the shootings and the homeless...

 

[2016Electric]

Isn't there a Kia or Nissan dealer on the way home?

Nope. No such luck. I did my due diligence.

Plus...I leave work at 10 pm. Want to shoot straight home and watch the news: The Donald, the shootings and the homeless...

LOL.. well.. that seems to have ended the thread for a while.

Steering things back onto course... unfortunately, we still don't know what the actual, usable capacity loss is (if any)

 

[AndY1]

Isn't there a Kia or Nissan dealer on the way home?

Nope. No such luck. I did my due diligence.

Plus...I leave work at 10 pm. Want to shoot straight home and watch the news: The Donald, the shootings and the homeless...

Any chance of plugging-in at work? Even 120V@12Amps would help.

 

[2016Electric]

Well, given this topic and the fact that over the last two days we had a temperature jump similar to what the op experienced (but not as hot.. it's been relatively cold and was 24c yesterday)...

So charging to full lately my car is showing a GOM range of 130-135 km to empty. Yet the power usage is now down to around 16.5 kw/100 km without the need for heating (it was as high as 20-21 kw during the coldest months). My car only has around 7500km on it.. unless my battery is toast the GOM can't be right.

Two days ago, I let the car L2 charge to 89% (had to stop as we had to leave). Drove the car approx 77km and was down to 42% (used 47% of battery). Simple math shows 1.638km per percent... which projects a range of around 165 km.
That number checks out too with the value shown on the running average kw/100 km. At around 16.5 kw/100 km and 27 kw usable in the battery when fully charged, (27/16.5)=1.6363x100=163 km projected range.

Clearly something else is going on with the GOM.. there's no way the range shown of 135km max is accurate. I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking the GOM uses a much longer period of values for estimating range.. perhaps a weighted average of the last 1000 km or more of trip data. This would explain the pessimistic values shown, given the cold weather and extensive heater use a month or two ago.

 

[mtndrew1]

Clearly something else is going on with the GOM.. there's no way the range shown of 135km max is accurate. I'm guessing here, but I'm thinking the GOM uses a much longer period of values for estimating range.. perhaps a weighted average of the last 1000 km or more of trip data. This would explain the pessimistic values shown, given the cold weather and extensive heater use a month or two ago.

This matches the experience with my car, and it's got nearly 25,000 miles on it. Even in chilly weather with the heat running I can almost always get 1 mile per 1% SOC or better, sometimes substantially so. Even so, the GOM remains cautious.

I wish that instead of the dopey power flow page in the little OLED screen there was a "since last unplug" page with miles traveled, starting SOC, current SOC, and average mi/kWh. Given how unrealistically negative the GOM is, such information in one place would make it a lot easier to extrapolate range.

 

[iletric]

One thing I have decided long time ago (11' Leaf) is NOT to make big science of the SOC and spend time studying the ins and outs of the battery performance.

I follow the Soul's GOM, it is so much superior to the Leaf's that it gives me quite realistic account of miles remaining. I know the route well, and I knew at at least 5 geographical points, on the return commute in particular, where I'm supposed to be GOM-wise to make it home. And I know I need at least 91 miles to make it home with 5 miles remaining. At the same time, watching the usage progress, I'd adjust the speed (or heat) to the GOM and the journey points. Simple math does it. No science required.

Bottom line: 86 miles won't cut it.

 

[AndY1]

Any chance of plugging-in at work? Even 120V@12Amps would help.

 

[iletric]

In 2 years. I've been on it with my employer since 2011.

Hoping to be happily retired before it happens. And I am not holding my breath. I suggested 5 stations, 10 parking spots. They say 2 stations/2 spots - in 2 years. Too risky to rely on 2 chargers among 200 employees. Both stations will be occupied by the Volts.

So, it's a no win no matter how you cut it. That's why we need 200-mile EVs.

 

[wrickcook]

I cried a little inside when I read this. You'd think Kia in Canada would have at least ONE chademo... but no. Not a single one. And when I called them out on it.. called corporate and asked when they planned to roll SOMETHING out.. their solution was to terminate the call. Unreal.

Want to see sad QC infrastructure? Have a look on plugshare at Toronto. Keep in mind.. this area (Toronto and immediately surrounding area) is home to over 6 million people!

I am not sure if this will help or not. If I know my Canadian geography (which I don't)... Toronto is in Ontario.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/w...g-stations-at-more-than-250-locations-in-2017

 

[JejuSoul]

There's a driver on the facebook page from Georgia who has driven 37,000 miles. His GOM has just gone back to 92 miles.

 

[tractioninc]

My daily commute is about 38 miles (61 km); about 1/3 is on surface streets and 2/3 is on motorways. When I drive impatiently on the streets and travel at high-speed on the highway, my indicated economy can fall as low as 3.2 mi/kWh (5.1 km/kWh). When I take it easily and drive more slowly on the highway or follow behind big trucks, my indicated economy can be as high as 5.1 mi/kWh (8.2 km/kWh). In other words, my driving style alone has nearly a *40%* impact on my car's available range -- much more than running the air conditioning, or the heat, or even winter driving temperatures.

 

[iletric]

It still doesn't change the fact that 86 mile starting range is...
a/ disappointing as far as the battery chemistry - reminds me of my 11' Leaf, and...
b/ is too close for comfort as regards to my 84-mile commute.

I am waiting for warmer day/night temps to confirm this loss. It should be forthcoming. My hunch is, it's our local car now. TG we can make SF and back. That's a 60-miler.

Btw my average was always 3.7 to 4.1 m/kwh based on driving, heat etc.

 

[mtndrew1]

The thing is that since you haven't been monitoring your SOC at the end of your commute, you don't know that there has been any degradation at all (of course there's likely been some). If you initially came home from your commute with 10% and now with 27,000 miles on the odometer come home with 9%, your commuting comfort might not have changed at all despite the dash readout implying a dramatic reduction. It seems you have great confidence in the GOM and have made no effort to track actual SOC consumption (or if you have, I've read no mention of it here).

My car consumes the exact same SOC% to do my consistent commute at 24,000 miles as it has since day 1, implying very little degradation.

My GOM, however, has gone from 110+ miles predicted on a full charge to ~90 miles on a full charge. The actual capability of the car hasn't changed much at all for me, despite what the GOM says. It still takes me the same SOC % to drive the same distances as when the car was new. Very recently I drove 94.4 miles at highway speeds with 11% remaining, yet when I unplugged the car before setting off it told me I only had 90 miles in the tank on a full charge.

Without SOC numbers it seems there is no way to know whether or not your car has degraded at all. The GOM, in my opinion, is an extremely poor metric for determining degradation on any EV.

 

[kiastormtrooper]

I've been monitoring the other gauges to see if my Kia is experiencing the same problems -- I only have 17000 miles on it so far -- and none of them seem to agree with each other. My energy consumption has been stable at 4.3 mi/kwh throughout the past fall and winter, but the GOM has downgraded my range from 101 to 87 when the temperature dropped from 80F to 60F. The UVO app's GOM went from 111 to 97 during the same period. I've reset my trip meter after a full charge in the morning and noticed that I get better than 1 mi/1% SOC, which has been consistent since I got the car last summer. I haven't tried to completely deplete the battery to test accuracy, but I'm convinced that the GOM is using some metric that is hyper-conservative, like predicting mileage based on pure highway speeds, or something illogical.

 

[iletric]

I do like the polemic. I wish I had the answers as to what is going on, if anything, with the battery and its capability, SOC, etc. I have no other scientific inclination than to trust GOM, because it has been a pretty good predictor of miles remaining so far. Certainly 100% improvement from 11' Leaf, and on par with Spark, which by the way is holding its own against the Soul. At 38,000 miles its range budged only about 4 miles (on cold nights!) from its stated 83 miles new. Congrats to GM for picking the right chemistry here.

I don't know, never tried, to bring the Soul battery down to below 0 miles, like I did with my Leaf, that would be helpful in determining how many freeway miles lurks beneath 0 before turtle.

Ultimately, it's just not worth the headache. It's just wait time for Bolt/Leaf for me.

 

[JejuSoul]

Am interested to hear more about your Spark EV. It is a Korean car, and is technically available for sale here, but they don't make much effort to sell it. Chevrolet did not even turn up at the local EV Expo, so I didn't get to test drive it. In the last year I have only seen 1 in the wild. Supposedly they have sold 151 locally and exported 2418. There is a fan site here http://sparkev.blogspot.com This guy really loves his Spark EV. How would you compare the Spark and Soul EVs?

 

[tractioninc]

my average was always 3.7 to 4.1 m/kwh based on driving, heat etc.

Averaging 4.1 is an 11% improvement over 3.7, equating to maybe 8 miles over your commute. Averaging 4.5 mi/kWh might extend your range by 15 miles or more. Based on my own experience over the past two weeks, boosting your average consumption and keeping it there could be easier than you think.

 

[iletric]

Averaging 4.5 mi/kWh might extend your range by 15 miles or more.

Not gonna happen. Not on my crazy Ca freeway commute across 3 of them. Going 62 mph already means I'm pushing my luck. I'm constantly watching what's coming from behind, where it's going, and if it's going to take my rear corner with it.

The varied m/kwh depends on heat of course and also on my speed. If I ended up near home with some extra juice I'd speed up to 65 mph and lower my m/kwh number.

 

[iletric]

Am interested to hear more about your Spark EV.

I do not recommend the car. We've had it for almost 3 years now. It's okay for local driving, but you're taking your life in your hands going 65 on the freeway in this thing. And if it's windy and rainy, it's even more of a challenge. Definitely 2 hands on the wheel at all times driving. The flat sides act like sails. There are also little things like compass and time to finish charge that will not render any more. Well, it's going back in August so I don't care.

I have a feeling Spark's time is up. Bolt will be taking its place.