Newbie here, wife getting her 2021 Kona (preferred) six months earlier than expected.

I'll know for next time...we went for a drive today

 

First "long distance" drive while on a (dry surfaced) freeway...and at -12C with gusty winds...

Today was a round trip to Kingston and back via Hwy 401 (a limited access freeway with a posted limit of 100 kph).

Eastbound was into a strong headwind coming from the 11 o-clock position.

It was strong enough to have all flags, that were seen enroute, blowing straight out.

Therefor, we had a tailwind home.

I found the steering to require too many inputs to the point of being tiring.

After 10 minutes, I enabled the full cruise control options available to me (lane keeping), which really made the drive much more enjoyable.

So, at -12C and maintaining 100 kph, the car will give us 300 km range (from a 100% SOC).

 

I'm sure the wind skewed the results.

I view the trip as a first data point so my wife will become comfortable with her car.

Her only frame of reference for long distance EV driving has been my TM3.

Yesterday she signed up for the ivycharge network as they have an operational fast charger between home and her family's place east of Ottawa.

 

Thanks, I'm sure post COVID she will be doing many long range day trips.

From my TM3 fast charge perspective I am totally clueless as to what exists outside the supercharger network.

 

I would like to pre-heat the car while it is still plugged into the wall connector/EVSE at home so as to have shore power actually being used to heat the interior prior to departure.

Is there a trick to this?

I have tried to turn the car on to run the HVAC while the car is plugged in and it will not let me do so.

Thanks.

 

My wife doesn't have (or want) the Blue Link so I guess she is SOL. Thanks
.

 

Agreed. She uses the car sporadically and I was looking for a single event type of option.

In the TM3, as soon as one opens a door, the car is "on" and if the HVAC is on while the car is plugged in, the car draws on shore power as a matter of course.

I was hoping for the same sort of behavior in the Kona but evidently that is not the case.

 

Cheers.

She really likes it.

She won't admit it, but she doesn't miss the 6.5 km (each way) trip to the nearest gas station anymore.

She asked for help with "away from home charging", so we are going on an experimental drive next Monday (2.3 hours outbound, stop at an "Ivy Charger" (owned by OPG/HON) for 30 minutes, 2.3 hours home) so she gets confident in doing short notice single day round trips to the eastern end of Ottawa and back.

As for the garage setup: it was a running joke 21 years ago when we were designing our home (on a crude CAD program)...the plan always started with a nice 25 x 35 garage and went from there...and as long as I could detail a car in the middle of winter, all would be well.

TuxMats: I've had them three years in the TM3. I was an avid WeatherTech fan before I found the TuxMats. We are both happy with them. I like that they clean up real easily and the 3D construction is deep enough that snow dropping off your footwear/control pedals does not find its way under the mats at the firewall or the center console area.

Snowtires: I got her the Michelin X-Ice on plain black steel wheels (with TPMS). So far, no complaints.

Edit: grammer

 

Today, we did a "round robin" for the sole purpose of having my wife learn how to use a DC fast charger.

Prior to departure, we topped up to 100%.

Upon arrival at the "Ivy Charge" level 3 EVSE in Carleton Place, ON, we had 48% remaining (52% used outbound):



We only "needed" about 5%, but we ended up staying plugged in until we hit 70% (as we had a Mc-lunch):



This amount cost $CAD 8.79 (all in), for a rate of $CAD 0.47 per kWh.

When we got home, we had 20% remaining (50% used for the return trip):



The conditions were no wind, -1C, mostly bare and dry roads and a speed of 90 kph.

So, "102%" of capacity got us 383.7 km:



A few observations/questions:

1. The foot well area of the front passenger seat has cool air intruding at/around the shroud that houses the HVAC fan. I am contemplating fashioning and installing an ad hoc insulator to block this cool air. The HVAC was producing the correct heat and one could feel the heat being discharged from the appropriate heater vents just below the glove box, but the area next to the fire wall was definitely cold. Is this common with these cars?

2. When we got home, the battery was showing 20% but changed to 19% about 15 minutes later (I suspect the pack was starting to cool). I plugged the car in and the small battery icon at the charge port did show a single yellow bar, thus I initiated a charge just to get the SOC number above 21%. I planned to stop the charge at 21%, pull the plug and then have my wife re-plug it in and have the normal 1900 start time take its course. I could not make the charge stop. I tried everything. So I ended up pulling the plug out of the charge port and hope I didn't do any long term damage. I know that if "Lock mode (button indicator off)" is used, one can "unlock" the connector by having the driver unlock all the doors and then within 15 seconds pull the connector...but how does one turn the power OFF? Or is unlocking the connector via the driver unlocking all the doors accomplishing that?

Thanks.

 

We're just leaving the lock mode indicator off...I just tested it nd it let me have a controlled shutdown and decouple.