High-Pitched Motor Noise

[ericy]

I literally have NEVER heard the sound in any of the recordings posted. I hear all sorts of noises but nothing high pitched and annoying. I really think this is a "ears of the beholder" situation.

I have no doubt that some people have an issue - we just don't know what the underlying issue really is.

The only noise from mine sort of sounds sort of like a subway car as it pulls out of a station, but not very loud at all.

 

[Wildeyed]

I have no doubt that some people have an issue - we just don't know what the underlying issue really is.

The only noise from mine sort of sounds sort of like a subway car as it pulls out of a station, but not very loud at all.

I don't doubt it either. I just don't think they'll ever get any sort of groundswell of consensus because it's not only (probably) spotty but that even those WITH the noise may not hear it or be overly vexed if they do.

 

[BWHough]

Just got mine checked out by the service department. They had "one guy" who works on EVs and he claimed that he could indeed hear the noise, but that it was "expected behavior" and there's nothing they could do. I told them that I could only begin hearing the noise around three weeks into ownership and while that did make him pause, he ultimately decided that there was "nothing they could do." Very unsatisfactory - if this is expected behavior, then these cars are not ready for primetime. I pulled out of the dealer and as I was pulling out I swear a woman walking by turned their head to look specifically at my car as I drove by.

I asked to drive another EV on the lot so we could compare noises, they didn't have any. So I made an appointment at my next closest service center and am going to try again. If I continue to get the run around I'll have to go higher up - no way I can live with this sound on a $30,000+ vehicle.

 

[Domenick]

Just got mine checked out by the service department. They had "one guy" who works on EVs and he claimed that he could indeed hear the noise, but that it was "expected behavior" and there's nothing they could do. I told them that I could only begin hearing the noise around three weeks into ownership and while that did make him pause, he ultimately decided that there was "nothing they could do." Very unsatisfactory - if this is expected behavior, then these cars are not ready for primetime. I pulled out of the dealer and as I was pulling out I swear a woman walking by turned their head to look specifically at my car as I drove by.

I asked to drive another EV on the lot so we could compare noises, they didn't have any. So I made an appointment at my next closest service center and am going to try again. If I continue to get the run around I'll have to go higher up - no way I can live with this sound on a $30,000+ vehicle.

Thanks for checking in. Please let us know how it goes.

 

[electriceddy]

Just got mine checked out by the service department. They had "one guy" who works on EVs and he claimed that he could indeed hear the noise, but that it was "expected behavior" and there's nothing they could do. I told them that I could only begin hearing the noise around three weeks into ownership and while that did make him pause, he ultimately decided that there was "nothing they could do." Very unsatisfactory - if this is expected behavior, then these cars are not ready for primetime. I pulled out of the dealer and as I was pulling out I swear a woman walking by turned their head to look specifically at my car as I drove by.

I asked to drive another EV on the lot so we could compare noises, they didn't have any. So I made an appointment at my next closest service center and am going to try again. If I continue to get the run around I'll have to go higher up - no way I can live with this sound on a $30,000+ vehicle.

It must be a common component shared by Ioniq EV and Kona EV drive train . Does the Ioniq EV have the same motor and gear reduction unit as Kona?

 

[DelRider]

FWIW, I hear a slight high-pitched noise around 35 - 45 mph. The radio or conversation easily drowns it out. It is so speed dependent that I haven't yet convinced myself that it's not a whistle caused by air flow in that speed interval. I guess we'll see if it gets worse.

 

[BWHough]

Just heard back from the service center. They had two "master techs" test drive the car and both heard the noise and agreed that it was "aggressive" but were flummoxed as to the cause. They called the corporate tech line and were told that the noise is originating from the regenerative breaking system, and that though "many have complained" about it (their words, not mine!) they consider it normal behavior and there's nothing that can be done to resolve it.

Obviously, I'm incredibly unhappy with this. I love the car in all ways but this, but this sound is as grating to me as nails on a chalkboard - I'm not sure I could stand driving like this for 35 more months. I plan on doing whatever I can to escalate this, and if I can't get a satisfactory resolution then I'm going to have to work with them to figure out what can be done to get me out of this lease, which I don't want at all. Incredibly disappointed right now.

 

[KiwiME]

I wonder what they mean by "regenerative braking system"? The motor drive handles all power to and from the motor, not just on regen, and any noise should appear in both directions. The braking system balances disk brake use with a demand for regenerative slowing and should be silent. Can you record the noise on your phone and post it?

 

[BWHough]

I wonder what they mean by "regenerative braking system"? The motor drive handles all power to and from the motor, not just on regen, and any noise should appear in both directions. The braking system balances disk brake use with a demand for regenerative slowing and should be silent. Can you record the noise on your phone and post it?

Not sure, just quoting what the tech told me over the phone. I keep trying to record the noise on my phone with varying degrees of success, but I can say right away that the sound posted on like Page 5 or 6 is exactly 100% it, here -

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MgL9mjiBM--6_1DiSl2xPg_Ci5hAERqt/view

 

[BWHough]

So I spoke to the rep from my service center about this issue again this morning. His explanation, apparently straight from Hyundai's "corporate line," is that the system is caused by the way the car is designed to capture regen. He claims that even when accelerating on Regen 0, there is friction caused by the system that captures the regen while driving, creating a high frequency noise that "some younger ears and dogs" are able to hear. He claimed that he was told that the issue affects both the Ioniq and the Kona line, and that while there is no fix at this time, that Hyundai has engineers assigned to look into this issue and are hopeful that they can develop a fix down the line.

I have no idea if they spewed a bunch of BS to him which he's then spewing back to me, but that's what he was told and is passing along to me. I think I'm going to try to install some sound dampening wherever I can in the car and hopefully reduce this noise.

 

[Chris-Ca]

I only notice the 'hiss' noise when i'm driving slow enough on side streets to notice it bounce back to me if my car is close to a wall or parked cars. I don't notice it on wider roads or on the highway.

 

[KiwiME]

... but I can say right away that the sound posted on like Page 5 or 6 is exactly 100% it, here ...

Ok, a heap of noise right around 9.3 kHz. I'm puzzled as to why some examples seem to exhibit this noise and others don't. My hearing is not great but my eagerness to detect faults is, and I'm sure I would be equally annoyed if I heard such a noise from my own car. Given the consistent manufacturing standard we expect from these cars I wonder what items could vary significantly from one example to the next?
I've mentioned this before but I wonder if air pockets in the motor/drive electronics cooling loops could result in the increased noise? I think there is a technical procedure for purging air from the system.

I have no idea if they spewed a bunch of BS to him which he's then spewing back to me, but that's what he was told and is passing along to me.

Sounds like what happens when engineers explain things to technicians who explain them to salesmen who explain that to customers. I doubt they are intentionally BS-ing you, it's just the nature of the inhabitants of the information chain.

 

[BWHough]

Just picked up my car, noisy high pitch sound and all. For complete-ness sake, here are the notes I was provided from the service provider, for what its worth. I think I'm going to try to all a corporate help line.

 

[hobbit]

Most inverters sing a bit within certain operational ranges. In the early
days of Prius popularity I could tell without looking when one was
coming to a stop next to me -- and the whine recurred just as it took
off again, until the engine came on, Then, Toyota's third-gen inverters
started to come out, possibly starting with the Highlander and definitely
appearing in the hybrid Camry, which are quite a bit louder. The
third-gen Prius is equally loud because it's roughly the same
electronics. We hear it mostly due to the physical flexing of the
magnetic parts -- motor windings, boost coils, and possibly internal
wiring buses. When you're sending that much current through
something and the resultant field interacts with nearby things,
it's *going* to move.

Now switch those currents on and off at 5Khz or 10 khz and there's
your noisemaker. If the physical mounting design of the parts
accounts for these forces, you're fine over its lifetime. A Prius
actually switches modulation rate based on speeds and loads, and
varies the drive to its boost converter along with, so there's a lot
going on in there.

I hear a bit of [non-VESS!] whining at very low speeds too. I expect
it. Slight variations in how inverter parts and such get mounted and
perhaps potted, may make one Kona louder than another, and some
owners are certainly more attuned to such things.

Still, the "senior techs" at *any* maker of EVs should understand
these things. Or maybe the senior ones can't hear it anymore, and
it's up to the younger ones to appreciate the effect...

_H*

 

[BWHough]

Most inverters sing a bit within certain operational ranges. In the early
days of Prius popularity I could tell without looking when one was
coming to a stop next to me -- and the whine recurred just as it took
off again, until the engine came on, Then, Toyota's third-gen inverters
started to come out, possibly starting with the Highlander and definitely
appearing in the hybrid Camry, which are quite a bit louder. The
third-gen Prius is equally loud because it's roughly the same
electronics. We hear it mostly due to the physical flexing of the
magnetic parts -- motor windings, boost coils, and possibly internal
wiring buses. When you're sending that much current through
something and the resultant field interacts with nearby things,
it's *going* to move.

Now switch those currents on and off at 5Khz or 10 khz and there's
your noisemaker. If the physical mounting design of the parts
accounts for these forces, you're fine over its lifetime. A Prius
actually switches modulation rate based on speeds and loads, and
varies the drive to its boost converter along with, so there's a lot
going on in there.

I hear a bit of [non-VESS!] whining at very low speeds too. I expect
it. Slight variations in how inverter parts and such get mounted and
perhaps potted, may make one Kona louder than another, and some
owners are certainly more attuned to such things.

Still, the "senior techs" at *any* maker of EVs should understand
these things. Or maybe the senior ones can't hear it anymore, and
it's up to the younger ones to appreciate the effect...

_H*

Right, but there should be some sort of design in place to mitigate this as much as possible. Before this I drove a 2009 Toyota Prius for five years - never heard anything even remotely like this. You don’t often hear Tesla owners complaining of this either. The problem definitely seems to be that both the Kona and the Ioniq do this more than should be expected, with little done to mitigate the issue.

 

[MGrognon]

Glad to see there are some updates on this, and yet sad to see that this continues to be considered "functions as expected" according to Hyundai and no fix in sight... I guess we won't see any improvements until later itterations of the Kona most likely, based on the above few last posts I highly doubt they're going to try to "fix" this in the near future...

I am still annoyed every time I get in the car by this (for me it's made listening to Podcasts or spoken radio in the Kona, which I usually enjoy, unberable especially if no ventilation / fan is not on at full blast, not exagerating here) especially given its "hissing" nature (compared to say the "notes" some other EVs like the Leaf do). I still plan to change to a Model 3 SR+ as although to some this may seem exagerated, it truly ruins my driving experience with the Kona. I've sat in a few Model 3s and listen as they drive by ; I still can't hear any sound of any sort coming out of them (even regardless of the whole VESS / no VESS situation). To my ear, they are as silent as an EV can get.

The goal is not to praise Tesla / bash Hyundai here ; I just (very naively) hope someone from Hyundai reads this somehow and this gets acknowledged / they consider this when designing next gen motor/reduction gear/whatever or try to fix (or attenuate somehow) this on current models. This is a ~50 k$ (Canadian) car and I don't think it's fair to just dismiss it as "works as intended" or "that's the just the way it sounds".

 

[PETRU POPOVICI]

Hello. I had a similar issue with my Kona at 4k miles. I made a clunk type noise when I accelerated and when I decelerated. I also had a bad humming at around 20 plus mph. The Clunking noise got worse over a matter of weeks. I took it to the Dealer and they heard it too. Come to find out the complete final gear drive had to be replaced. They had it for 5 weeks as the parts were "back ordered" I just got it back about 2 weeks ago and now it seems to be running fine. Just put about 800 miles on it.

 

[Rainero]

Same Problem with my Kona. After about 7000 km that gear noise appeared. Last week I presented the sound of my dealer. He couldn't deny it. For next week I have an appointment for a detailed noise analysis. But I have already told him (thanks to the many information here in the forum) that it will be the reduction gear. Problem is that the local dealer has not much experience with electric cars. He told me that the staff had received high-voltage training, but they hadn't worked on electric cars yet. I don't hope that ends in an infinite story.

 

[PETRU POPOVICI]

We were lucky the dealership by us was the only one in the state that hade worked on Konas. That was also my fear that I would have to drive to California to get itt fixed. Now that Colorado is getting Kona Evs I hope this is not a problem going forward. I hope they fix it for you. It's been about 1k miles since they fixed it. Knock on wood nothing so far.

 

[Rainero]

Yesterday the vehicle was in the workshop at my local Hyundai dealer and they carried out the planned noise analysis for over three hours with the result that the noise probably came from the electric motor. I can't really believe that, because in my opinion an electric motor cannot make such noises at all.
In my opinion there are clearly mechanical noises that sound like gears as if they are not correctly aligned. But that's my opinion. The dealer definitely wants to change the electric motor. Okay, he should do it if he want. We'll see what happens.
In any case, he tryed to order the engine as a spare part for the exchange and then realizes that the engine cannot be ordered anywhere in Europe. He says either there are so many problems in other Konas that all the spare parts are exhausted or the part has been blocked by Hyundai because there is a basic defect and a solution is to be found first. In any case, I will be informed as soon as my dealer learns something new. Until then I drive around with the rattling noise and hope that I don't stop with a breakdown ...