2016 Soul EV Issue

[Oilers1981]

Hello everyone,

I apologize in advance as I am fairly new owner of a 2016 Kia Soul EV and new to this forum.

I bought an used 2016 Kia Soul EV in October of 2019. At that time I was getting about 140km range per charge. Come April of 2020 my range dropped down to 110km. I brought it in to Kia under warranty and they did an update on the car and at its peak in August I was up to 164km. As of now, my range displayed is 97km. I live in Langley BC Canada and the coldest temperature we get here is usually around 5 degree Celsius.

I took it back into warranty and they kept telling me my battery SOH is within the limit. Is there a reason for a huge drop on my range? Should I get a 2nd opinion from another dealership. I barely can get a return trip to my work these days without low battery warnings.

I am sure there are forums possibly on this issue but I don't have time to search. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you everyone.

 

[IanL]

The range displayed on the GOM (GuessOMeter) is an estimate based on the battery charge, the computed battery State of Health (SOH) and the prevailing outside temperature, to make allowance for heating, etc. My car currently allows 16km for that, and our temperature is similar to yours.

When the update was performed on your car, the data for GOM was reset, and the car needs to do several <20% to 100% charging cycles to generate a realistic GOM.

The GOM will also be affected by your measured energy consumption, which would have been lower in October, and higher in April due to the Winter. If you keep a record of the displayed miles/kWh (or km in your case) you will see the value drop down gradually as the Winter progresses, even if your daily usage is over the same route. As an indication, mine has dropped from 5.2m/kWh to 3.9.

Having said that, the ranges you quote suggest that your SOH has dropped since you got the car, and is now probably not much above the 70% mark, at which the warranty kicks in.