Winter driving

I live in Eastern Ontario. I literally noticed no difference in driving the EV vs. any of the half dozen other cars I've owned over 35 years of driving. I have always fitted my cars with winter tires from November to April. On my last 3 cars, including the Kona, I've outfitted them with Michelin x-Ice tires with great success and no noticeable loss off range.

 

I live in Winterpeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba). Expect 30% less driving range due to extreme cold weather. It will be less reduction for you in southern Ontario. Make sure you have good winter tires if you get lots of snow that sticks for days and possibly becomes packed or turns to ice. Otherwise it’s like any other car with the exception that there is minimal winterization required. In Winnipeg I try to keep the car trickle charging for the sake of the batteries. Enjoy your car.

 

Background: AWD Subaru with center and rear differential and then a RWD Subaru with rear differential.

The Kona EV is pretty hilarious in the snow. I have a set of Michelin X-Ice Snow tires for the winter and this car is decidedly overpowered to the front wheels. Easy enough to control but you have to be so gentle on the throttle until you start moving. I actually found it easier to drive with traction control turned off since it cuts power to the front wheels when it detects slip. With traction control turned off, you can maintain the appropriate amount of throttle and let the tires grip and correct.

The car is pretty balanced though and is easy to control it you just take your time and drive for the conditions.

 

I'm with you on the traction control being detrimental sometimes. I'm on my second Leaf, a 2018. Sometimes when heavy snow has created drifts the traction control cuts power so much you bog down to a stop. With the Leaf one has to drill down through menus to turn the traction control off. There should be a dedicated "kill" switch readily accessible so it could be turned off and on quickly as needed for the ultimate in control.

 

My old Prius was that way. Had to go into some kind of maintenance menu (pressing multiple buttons or something like that) to shut off TCS. With the Kona, there is a button on the left under the dash, and can do it pretty quick and easy. Had to use it a couple times, as we have a bit of hill on our street, and any snow or ice can be tricky. My other car is a Subaru, and yeah, you can't stop that thing in snow. Goes through anything, don't even have to turn off TCS.

 

The Kona has been fine for us in snow and ice here in Downeast Maine. We're going into our third winter, live a half-mile back on a private gravel road, and have a steep driveway and a steep hill on the gravel road. It's been just as good as any 2WD car. We put studless snow tires (like Mich IceX) on all our cars for winter, and the Kona does just fine. I find the traction control works just fine.

Range is lower. We count on about 200 miles in winter, whereas in summertime we can go 250 on the highway without anxiety.

 

I sometimes have to drive a very steep (25%) snowy and icy private hill, that is “rated” by the locals only for 4x4s (even them struggle). With my old Prius, I decided to try diamond-shaped chains on the front wheels as a way to avoid changing of car just to drive that hill 10 times a year. That worked pretty nicely, though I sometimes had to disable traction control to make it up. Got chains for the Kona, will need to try them soon enough if the weather forecasts are right. I am curious to see how traction control will behave and if I’ll have to disable it.

 

Another Winterpegger here, with good winter tires Kona was awesome in the 3 winters I owned it. Good cabin heat but in -20C or colder on the highway the glass liked to frost up more than normal, seemed to have a hard time getting rid of the excess humidity unless you had it on front defrost most of the time. As noted winter battery capacity will drop 30-40% depending how cold. Oh, most importantly winter DC charging sucks, regardless if you have winter mode expect to spend 2-3x more time than summer at the DC charger.

 

This will be my third winter in south-central British Columbia (between Salmon Arm and Vernon) driving a 2019 Kona Electric Ultimate model. Based on what I have gleaned from YouTube and Kona Electric forums, I turn on "Winter Mode" only when ambient temperatures are at or below -12 C (10 F).

For the winter I have Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3 studless winter tires (215/55R17) https://www.kaltire.com/en/tires/hakkapeliitta-r3/10001010440035.html mounted on 16" Hyundai Ioniq EV wheels. I tried studded winter tires but they were too loud on pavement since the Kona isn't very well insulated against road and wind noise -- which I don't mind, as it's good to have a feel for what's going on outside while driving.
With the center of mass being well behind the front wheels on this FWD EV, there's a tendency to spinning front wheels in slippery, climbing conditions.
Likewise, for obvious reasons, ease back on the level of regenerative braking when going down a slippery hill.

On a somewhat related issue, have you or other Kona Electric drivers noticed cold air leakage entering the cabin via the steering column? When it's freezing outside and I'm driving at highway speeds, I have lots of cold air leaking in around the various controls on the steering column (around the horn pad, wiper/washer control arm, light control/turn signal arm, and elsewhere along the steering column).
It's like there's an important gasket missing, to block external air flow from entering the cabin via the steering column. . . I have noticed this in previous winters, but have not dealt with it yet.
I'm in the process of finally addressing this issue with my Hyundai dealership. I'll post an update when I get this cold air leakage problem resolved.

 

Does anybody knows if the Traction control on the Kona EV only cuts the power to the front wheels, or does it also attempt to brake the wheel that is slipping in order to allow the one that still has grip to have torque? From my first experience with traction control conditions (icy/snowy road) today on my 2023 Kona EV, I felt it was only cutting power.

 

Yeah, you guys got a lot of snow over there on the island...

 

So, do you guys call this "ocean effect" snow, with the east wind blowing across the strait?

Yeah, I had to shut off TCS a couple times in the snow before, too, to keep the Kona from stopping. Would burn through the snow with spinning, but kept on going as the rubber found the pavement. I remember I even smelled burning rubber. Also just with the Nexens.

Should be a lot better with the AWD Solterra.

 

Coming up the Island Highway last night around midnight, minus 2 Celsius, road wet and salted but looking potentially icy at times. In a couple curvy parts I had quite a nervous time because the Lane Keep Assist gentle nudges felt exactly like the beginning of losing traction sideways. Actually was quite scary at times. Next time I’ll turn it off but I couldn’t find it quickly in the menu items in the dark while trying to stay on the road.
Anybody else notice this?

 

I disabled the active lane keep assist on my second drive with the Kona. I was on a country road, with only one white line on each side even if it was a two way road (no median line). The active LKA was always trying to steer me in the middle of the road, halfway into the incoming traffic path! Scary thing... But before I realized it was the LKA trying to get me in the "right path", I wondered if the feeling on the steering was coming from the uneven road pavement, except that it was steering the car in the opposite direction as bare physics would have taken me, which was very odd. I can see that it is the same feeling as when you are losing grip on one wheel. That feature might be useful in perfect conditions, but lead to counter-intuitive feelings in several edge conditions, which can be dangerous.

 

Thanks for sharing! I was really surprised to come to that conclusion, as my old 2010 Prius' traction control was applying the brakes to the spinning wheel. It was pretty awesome in the snow as it allowed the car to still have traction AND torque. This is the first thing that un-impresses me with the Kona. It felt like a no brainer that a car with an extra 13 years of technology would have this. No wonder why there is this TC disable switch then. In some conditions, the car would become a useless hunk of steel and lithium if it would not have that switch.

 

Why only below -12C? Can you explain this or provide a link that explains it?