Aftermarket wheels on EV?

P

persianrider

Member
Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum.

I just placed an order for a Kona EV preferred for my wife. Expected delivery is 9-12 months here in Montreal.

That said, I'm starting to read up more and more on EVs and more specifically the Kona.

One thing I'm curious to know, any of you have aftermarket wheels on these cars ? I'm not looking to go bigger.

My idea was to get aftermarket wheels for the summer and put the stock tires on them and then use the stock wheels for my winters. Therefore knowingly losing some range in the summer and winter would remain status quo (no matter what you lose in the winter but at least the wheels will be the stock ones).

Yay? Nay? Any of you did this change and notice any losses in range in the summer/warmer months?

Also there seems to be a concensus that the stock headlights suck (halogen's in the reflectors). Should I go LED ? I've read on a few forums that some of you guys have done it.

Last question, it seems like the 2020 Kona EV (or at least what I gathered on some forums as well) has a charging speed capbility of 9.6KW versus the previous 7.2KW ? Is that true ? Should I invest in the faster charger at home knowing I'll most likely pickup an EV as my next car as well? Kind of future proofing my setup

Thank you!
 
You won't loose much range going to a less aero wheel, maybe in the 2% range, your tire choice may have a bigger effect of range but again not hugely so. Don't go smaller than the stock 17 inches as smaller rims may not clear the rear parking brake hardware. Also keep sensitive to your wheel offset for your new wheels. Stock Kona EV has a + 50mm offset I would not go any less than + 40-45mm. My winter wheels sit at +42 mm as a consequence the tire sits visibly proud of the wheel well and keeps my car dirty. You may also get adverse handling characteristic if the offset difference is too severe.

Stock halogens could be better, most people who have done the LED swab find an improvement. I really like my HID swap and would do it again.

Your 2020 Kona in Canada will only have a onboard charger that can support 32 amps at 240V or approximately 7.6 Kwh. The higher rating is for countries with residential 3 phase service.
 
apu said:
You won't loose much range going to a less aero wheel, maybe in the 2% range, your tire choice may have a bigger effect of range but again not hugely so. Don't go smaller than the stock 17 inches as smaller rims may not clear the rear parking brake hardware. Also keep sensitive to your wheel offset for your new wheels. Stock Kona EV has a + 50mm offset I would not go any less than + 40-45mm. My winter wheels sit at +42 mm as a consequence the tire sits visibly proud of the wheel well and keeps my car dirty. You may also get adverse handling characteristic if the offset difference is too severe.

Stock halogens could be better, most people who have done the LED swab find an improvement. I really like my HID swap and would do it again.

Your 2020 Kona in Canada will only have a onboard charger that can support 32 amps at 240V or approximately 7.6 Kwh. The higher rating is for countries with residential 3 phase service.
Click to expand...

Thank you!

I was debating LED/HIDs, couldn't find anyone saying they went HID on the Kona EV. Glad you replied!

for the HIDs did you get 35w or 55w ? 6000k? do we need canbus?

Since the headlights are projectors, going HID, have you had anyone complain about glare or the lights being too strong?

Ideally I would stay in the 5-5500k range since I don't want it to look too blue, but apparently 6k is closest to the LED DRL color
 
What model did you order and which country. Hyundai has different features in different geographic areas and different models. The Ultimate comes with LED headlight which I'm not sure you can swap for high powered Halogen lights. Huge current difference. The IIHS rated the Kona's LED a good rating in the headlight rating https://www.iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/hyundai/kona-4-door-suv/2019#headlights.
Larger tires may change the headlight aiming and may impact your control of the Lane Keeping Assistant (LKA) system. With stock tires, my Ultimate's LKA helps but doesn't work well on high degree of curves. Wider tires may affect this as well.
 
persianrider said:
Thank you!

I was debating LED/HIDs, couldn't find anyone saying they went HID on the Kona EV. Glad you replied!

for the HIDs did you get 35w or 55w ? 6000k? do we need canbus?

Since the headlights are projectors, going HID, have you had anyone complain about glare or the lights being too strong?

Ideally I would stay in the 5-5500k range since I don't want it to look too blue, but apparently 6k is closest to the LED DRL color
Click to expand...

I went with 55W 5000k HIDs , nice BMW white and bright. Honestly a huge improvement over the stock low beam yellow halogens and subjectively brighter than any LEDs I have seen. High beams are still stock halogen, there wasn't a suitable HID bulb adapter available for the high beams. At least that is what my installer claimed. I think the situation is the same for the LED high beam conversion, I could be wrong or that may have changed.
I did lower the beam pattern a little and have not annoyed anyone in the past 6 months.

This a video of the low beam HIDs on my Kona


My Kona with winter boots on:
JPmYNQN.jpg
 
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persianrider said:
... Should I invest in the faster charger at home knowing I'll most likely pickup an EV as my next car as well? Kind of future proofing my setup. ...
Click to expand...
I think the trend regarding that subject will be set by Rivian, Bollinger, the Cybertruck and Ford. The Rivian is 11 kW and I'm assuming that's single phase given the North American-centric target market. So if you can go higher within your budget, it can't hurt.

For passenger cars I would be surprised if single phase 230-240 VAC charging ever exceeds 32-35 amps, simply due to the size and cost of the on-board hardware required, and that it would push the bounds of worldwide domestic electricity feeds outside of N-A. The king of the hill in that regard was the (now out of production) Renault Zoe Q90 which used electromagnetic trickery to attain an amazing 43 kW from a 63 amp 3-ph supply.
 
apu said:
I went with 55W 5000k HIDs , nice BMW white and bright. Honestly a huge improvement over the stock low beam yellow halogens and subjectively brighter than any LEDs I have seen. High beams are still stock halogen, there wasn't a suitable HID bulb adapter available for the high beams. At least that is what my installer claimed. I think the situation is the same for the LED high beam conversion, I could be wrong or that may have changed.
I did lower the beam pattern a little and have not annoyed anyone in the past 6 months.

This a video of the low beam HIDs on my Kona


My Kona with winter boots on:
JPmYNQN.jpg
Click to expand...

nice wheels!!
 
Yeah, I think the more chunky thicker spoke wheels like this suit the car better than the more commonly-chosen thin spoke types.
 
We did what you're saying - though we put the winter tires on new alloy wheels, because it saved money to just order the snows pre-mounted and balanced on the new rims. The range difference isn't really noticeable. When I swapped in the spring, I didn't see the energy efficiency change. Could be a couple percent though - I wouldn't notice that.

I did the LED conversion and I'm glad I did. $50, I think, and it looks much better, and is brighter.

The Kona charges at 7.2kw max on Level 2 charging equipment. For your EVSE, I'd check out how big of a circuit you can add to your current electrical service. If you can add a 50A circuit, get a 40A EVSE. If you can add a 70A breaker, then you could go up to a 50A EVSE, for future-proofing. Perhaps a good idea if you know you'll be in your home for a while, but it will certainly cost more for the electrical work, so you need to decide how much that's worth it to you. Personally, I don't think being able to charge a car faster than 7.2 kw at home is much of an advantage, since 7.2 will fill even a long-range car overnight. What's the difference if it's done at 2 am instead of 4 am?
 
Hi guys,

thank you very much for all the replies. Really helpful!

I have 70 or 80 amps that are not being used right now on my box. That's with pool and all the other nonsense already hooked up. That's why I was thinking might as well future proof the charging for the car. But you also make a good point that who cares if the car is charging overnight, what's the difference really. Plus I doubt cars will have 100KW batteries anytime soon (minus the ModelS/X for now), and even then if you start charging at 8pm, it'll be charged by the next morning anyways.

The HID 5500k is damn sweet apu, I'll probably order a set of HID and LED from Amazon and see which one I like better.

I agree the thicker spoked wheels look really good.

I was pushing the wife to take red with black roof, but she was dead set on black lol
 
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