Kona EV range at cold temperatures (100% SOC range 228 km at -22°C)

Range side, is it safe for models without the battery heater to charge while below freezing? Isn't that bad for lithium in general?

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Generally speaking yes, but the on board BMS will limit delivered charge as appropriate. The battery can get very cold even with battery heater in situ. I have recorded pack temps as low as -21C that did not meet the various variable such as temp and lower SOC that would engage the battery heater automatically. Even at that low temperature the pack can still take a limited charge. The LG/Hyundai engineers have put enough thought into this that you don't have to worry about it.

 

Kona's battery formulation is cobalt based, so it can take normal "trickle" charge from home outlet also at very low temperatures.
Fast charging is of course subject to cold gating and active battery warmp by built in heater.

 

Right you guys are. Come to think of it, even a level two charger is probably considered a trickle charge being something like 0.1C of pack capacity. Without having seen apu's findings, I wonder how much low temperature charging the pack can withstand, 0.25C maybe?

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Interior BC, here. I echo your collective sentiments regarding driving in winter. The recent ‘atmospheric River’ that was bee-lining from South Pacific to west coast of Ak has pushed us into a 70’s-era deep freeze (while allegedly leaving Anchorage at 10°C+). I pre-heat car at max temp (27°C) solely to expedite that process but agree running it that high sure sucks the range from the battery. I’m gonna cross reference dashboard air temps with a digital thermometer bc I don’t think ramping down to 20°C on the display is *anywhere* near that in reality. Too bad there wasn’t a dehumidifier that could be incorporated into the works. #CanadianWinters

One minor beef I have w/design is the accumulation of snow/ice around the wheel wells and the constant monitoring required to keep that build-up as minimal as possible to reduce the teeth-jarring that occurred of there’s contact w/ road surfaces. This wouldn’t likely be an issue w/ a heated garage.


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I just ignore the accumulation as I haven't appreciated a car that doesn't do this to some extent. The real teeth jarring occurs when those McPherson shocks stiffen up to pretty much to zero compression/extension travel at -30C or so.

 

The a/c runs as part of the Defrost cycle to act as a dehumidifier is my understanding.

 

My son just took his M3 in for some service that needed to be done. Cost him $2000 to get some sensors fixed, suspension control arms replaced (3rd time, first two were under warranty) and his charge door replaced. His trunk latch doesn't work properly either (only by phone), but they wanted another $1100 just to replace that. He can live with that. And his glass roof is cracked, but he is going to live with that, too.

Anyway, he asked them about the heater not working in cold weather. Their solution again was to replace it, (another $2000), so he is living with that, too. And there is a backlog for these parts, so could be a long wait anyway to get it fixed. Luckily, here in Vancouver, it rarely gets that cold.

Incidentally, just today, I found this. So seems this issue is well known.
https://insideevs.com/news/562350/tesla-heat-failure-no-heat-pump/

So @navguy12, you might want to really get your car checked out before your warranty expires. Out of warranty repairs are very expensive with Tesla.

 

I've now had two winters of driving with the Kona, and I park outside without access to any sort of plug. Recently I was parked inside a friend's garage for the night to use their plug while visiting, the air temp was -10C or so outside, and on the trip home all three DCFC were immediately charging at full power for the SOC. I was intrigued. Normally I've found it peaking at 44kW when at a DCFC in winter. On another recent road trip it was plugged in to an L2 charger overnight, again about -10C, but did not have a departure time set. The DCFCs I used that day peaked at 44kW. So now I'm curious to try charging in the cold but remembering to set the departure time while it's on an L2 overnight to see if I get good charging speeds.

If the current temperature trends hold I am due for a road trip of about 500km each way in -30C air temp soon. Will try to take detailed charging notes and find an L2 charger to top up on for a few hours prior to the trip to see if that allows me to get full power from the DCFC.

 

Cheers and thanks for the info.

Unless a code is thrown or I experience an issue, I won’t waste my time having the car checked out for a heating issue if I get all the heat I need.

In almost 50 years of car ownership, I have never had any manufacturer replace a piece of functioning hardware in the hopes of avoiding an issue after the warranty ran out.

Of course YMMV.

OT sidebar (range in cold temperatures): On 21 Jan, I drove the following single leg trip from Guelph ON to Trenton ON (set speed was 130 kph, outside temp was -14c, headwind of 2 meters/second, interior heat set at 19c):

In the summer, that 243 km leg will take between 50% and 55% of my SOC depending on the wind factor.

This particular trip, whose total elapsed time was 2+12, took 79% (the 401 was bare and dry).

 

I can't say I've read and digested all of this thread but I'm going to add a few more data points. In December I was able to drive our 2022 Kona Electric Preferred in temperatures ranging from -30 to -36. The roads were mostly clear. Wind was negligible. My partner took some pictures of the dash display.
The error message you see is just that the sensor array for the cruise and lane assist is iced up (along with a good part of the windscreen). This shot was about 100km into our trip so the battery pack may still have been warming up. The car had been charged to 100% on level 1. I was maintaining a speed of 100km/h for more or less the whole time.

Sorry for the blurry shot. In this one the battery has been level 3 fast charged to 85% which definitely warmed the pack. We did hit the mid 40s kwh rate on the charge but I don't think we got up to the 70s.

It really is a different experience below about -25C. At that point the resistance heater is essential, if just to keep the ice from obscuring forward and side view mirror vision. It's not fog, it's a thin layer of ice that forms from the moisture in the car. At city speeds it's possible to keep this at bay but at freeway speeds it's a battle of attrition. We found that a higher cabin temperature of 23C and low fan speed of 2 set to the windscreen only kept things drivable and we were warm right down to our ankles. Our feet were freezing though so we would shoot a bit of warm air down every once in a while. It had to be switched back to the windscreen as that would start icing up immediately. We bought a heated blanket for our little backseat passenger and he was happy the entire time. We are considering battery heated socks for driving days like this. Fortunately these temperatures are usually a week or 2 here during the winter. We are also considering renting an ICE vehicle for trips in the future when we know the temperatures will be like this. At least until the charging infrastructure is good enough to make the range reduction an annoyance and not a danger.

The air is denser and the heater has to work full time. I think that's pretty much where the range goes.

 

A short trip through my unplowed snow filled neighborhood street

 

you need to pump up the fan or use auto to keep it cozy inside - you do lose more range though…
And yeah, I actually find myself switching between ‘Front’ and ‘Auto’ setting often when it’s cold out - my last trip out to the cottage was -37C outside…

 

A 1km drive with a lot of wheel spinning, backing up and slow pushing through drifts, taking traction control off helped

 

agreed…the worst I’ve ever seen on my Kona was 42kwh - outside temp was -41C, cabin set to 22C, heated seats and heated steering wheel on, 120km/h….that change quickly once I got down to 105km/h, consumption went down to 31kwh…

 

I have something slightly weird going on. After my battery replacement my GOM ranges seemed spot on with those I've seen over 3 years with the old battery. However, I got my tires swapped out last week and immediately I saw a distinct drop in projected range. 80% at -10° used to be about 330km. Now at +15° it's 325km. It used to be in the high 300s. I'm wondering what happened?