Battery Warmer and Winter Mode

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Rickker

Rickker

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I have read a lot about this both on this Forum and elsewhere, but am still not clear just what the best practice would be in my case.
My case being: A 2019 Ultimate, Canadian model with battery warmer and Winter Mode. I live in an apartment building with underground parking, where the temperature never gets below about 5 Celsius, even if it is 20 below outside. While I have used DCFC chargers in the past, I am now only using AC Level 2 charging.
So here is the question: Since Winter Mode is designed to improve DCFC performance by having the battery warmer enabled, what would be the benefit if only using AC charging? Another stated benefit of Winter Mode is to improve cold weather battery performance. Does this mean more power, more neck-snapping acceleration with Winter Mode enabled during very cold conditions? Finally, since Winter Mode reduces range, why should I use it, if I don't use Level 3 fast chargers, and don't care if there is less power for driving around, but am more concerned about getting as much range as possible. I know the subject has been discussed before, but would appreciate some comments about my specific case. Thanks.
 
Rickker said:
... but would appreciate some comments about my specific case. Thanks.
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The easiest way to prove any positive effect is to leave it off. Certainly it won't affect your AC charging but on the road it might. You'll only find out by driving without it.
 
Rickker said:
I have read a lot about this both on this Forum and elsewhere, but am still not clear just what the best practice would be in my case.
My case being: A 2019 Ultimate, Canadian model with battery warmer and Winter Mode. I live in an apartment building with underground parking, where the temperature never gets below about 5 Celsius, even if it is 20 below outside. While I have used DCFC chargers in the past, I am now only using AC Level 2 charging.
So here is the question: Since Winter Mode is designed to improve DCFC performance by having the battery warmer enabled, what would be the benefit if only using AC charging? Another stated benefit of Winter Mode is to improve cold weather battery performance. Does this mean more power, more neck-snapping acceleration with Winter Mode enabled during very cold conditions? Finally, since Winter Mode reduces range, why should I use it, if I don't use Level 3 fast chargers, and don't care if there is less power for driving around, but am more concerned about getting as much range as possible. I know the subject has been discussed before, but would appreciate some comments about my specific case. Thanks.
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In your circumstances with "warm " overnight parking and very little need for DC charging you are correct in assuming you will get virtually no benefit from the onboard heater and winter mode engaged. I suspect even if you had winter mode turned on your battery temperature would never meet the minimum set point requirement to engage the battery heater anyways.
 
I experienced a way higher consumption with the battery temperature being around freezing already. DC fast charging affected as well:



Not sure at which temperatures the heater kicks in, though.
 
Related question: If you drive a good bit before you try to DC charge (say, at least an hour or so), will your battery be warm enough to start charging at a good rate?

I rarely DC charge, but when I do, it’s on road trips, so I’ve already been driving.
 
TRSmith said:
Related question: If you drive a good bit before you try to DC charge (say, at least an hour or so), will your battery be warm enough to start charging at a good rate?

I rarely DC charge, but when I do, it’s on road trips, so I’ve already been driving.
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Yes, I can say from experience that this helps a lot.
 
Well, yes ... However, like it shows in my video above, my battery temp started at 1°C (34°F) and was at 20°C (~70°F) after a 2 hour drive. So yes, it definitely helps. However, the car limited it's charge speed to 50kW until the battery temp was at about 25°C (~77°F). So if you drive "only" an hour, it will be warmed up even less and you might not be able to benefit from >50kW charge speeds.
 
Esprit1st said:
Well, yes ... However, like it shows in my video above, my battery temp started at 1°C (34°F) and was at 20°C (~70°F) after a 2 hour drive. So yes, it definitely helps. However, the car limited it's charge speed to 50kW until the battery temp was at about 25°C (~77°F). So if you drive "only" an hour, it will be warmed up even less and you might not be able to benefit from >50kW charge speeds.
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In my case, I was doing a 3 hour drive, and last winter I was only using a 50kW charger, so I could have probably moved up to a faster charger.

My worst mistake was to try and charge 1st thing in the morning in the winter.
 
Esprit1st said:
Well, yes ... However, like it shows in my video above, my battery temp started at 1°C (34°F) and was at 20°C (~70°F) after a 2 hour drive. So yes, it definitely helps. However, the car limited it's charge speed to 50kW until the battery temp was at about 25°C (~77°F). So if you drive "only" an hour, it will be warmed up even less and you might not be able to benefit from >50kW charge speeds.
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Thanks Esprit1st, I think you have unraveled the mystery. The Petro-Canada charger that was running at 70 kW back in August, when the ambient temperature was about 20 Celsius, was running at only 40 kW in November when the ambient was around 10 Celsius. I did not consider this to be "cold", but perhaps enough for the Kona to reduce the charging power. I had believed that there was a malfunction with the DCFC charger itself. The final proof will likely not happen until next summer. In the meantime, I will stick with Level 2 AC charging.
 
Rickker said:
Thanks Esprit1st, I think you have unraveled the mystery. The Petro-Canada charger that was running at 70 kW back in August, when the ambient temperature was about 20 Celsius, was running at only 40 kW in November when the ambient was around 10 Celsius. I did not consider this to be "cold", but perhaps enough for the Kona to reduce the charging power. I had believed that there was a malfunction with the DCFC charger itself. The final proof will likely not happen until next summer. In the meantime, I will stick with Level 2 AC charging.
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All the more reason for public chargers to bill by the kWh, not by the minute. Otherwise those cold, low-speech DC charges could get expensive.
 
TRSmith said:
All the more reason for public chargers to bill by the kWh, not by the minute. Otherwise those cold, low-speech DC charges could get expensive.
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I agree completely! However, in Ontario it is against the law for resellers to sell electricity by the kWh, hence the practice of charging at an hourly rate. Hopefully this will change in the future. Don't know if this also applies to other Canadian provinces, or to some states in the USA.
 
Rickker said:
I agree completely! However, in Ontario it is against the law for resellers to sell electricity by the kWh, hence the practice of charging at an hourly rate. Hopefully this will change in the future. Don't know if this also applies to other Canadian provinces, or to some states in the USA.
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Yes, in BC you can only charge per kWh if you are a "utility", like BC Hydro. I think there are a lot of expensive hoops to jump through to get that designation, so instead anyone other than a utility can only charge you for "parking", so of course they set the "parking" rate based on the max you could be getting, and whenever you're below that rate you're paying a lot more per kWh. I think that is more the exception rather than the rule (a law established for other reasons long before DCFCs were imagined). Perhaps if we start a huge petition we might eventually get that changed!
Speaking of that, another good petition would be to force the providers to let us buy electricity with $ instead of needing an app. Why should we be forced to join a club when all we want is to buy electrons? How many apps will we need to do a cross country road trip (not to mention how much $ will we collectively have in stale accts we may never use again)? Pardon my rant.
 
I issued a complaint to the Federal Minister responsible for Measurement Canada back in October 2020 regarding time-based vs KW-based pricing. I received a response from the President of Measurement Canada. Diane Allan states "Measurement Canada is responsible for the enforcement and administration of the Electricity and Gas Inspection Act and its regulations." It's too long to post here but to summarize:

The Federal Act & regulations ensure the accuracy in the purchase and sale of electricity. Currently, time-based measurements are allowing the industry to keep pace with the rise of EV adoption, allowing "time to develop and refine technologies necessary for the accurate and reliable measurement of kilowatt hour consumption at EV charging stations." As a result, Measurement Canada is taking steps to allow EV charging stations to charge based on the number of kilowatts consumed per hour."

"Over approximately the next 14 months, we expect to allow EV charging stations that meet established technical standards to charge based on KWh consumed."

Essentially, Measurement Canada needs to work with the industry players to ensure the charge stations are accurate and equitable to both consumers and the providers. They are currently working to establish those regulations and want this done within the 14 month timeperiod.

Ironic that, the day I received her email, I read of a new battery technology, already being used in Production, that can charge their batteries in 5 minutes. If this new battery tech is mass adopted for EVs, the companies providing DCFC stations will jump off of time-based pricing so fast ... even the Roadrunner won't be able to keep ahead of them. See the link.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-...-charge-li-ion-battery-samples-301210213.html
 
OK, that's fine, but to charge a 100 kWh battery in 5 minutes, you need a 1200kW charger. There are no such chargers yet and we will probably wait a long time before they appear and become popular enough to be an alternative to "slow" charging with 150 or 250 kW. I also suppose that due to the current parameters, it will be necessary to develop a new type of connector, use much more efficient insulation and safer procedures for charging the vehicle, because if the problem is sudden disconnection of the contacts at 400V when charging with 75 kW, then do the same in 5 - a minute charger would probably end up in a spectacular explosion ;-) And if so, it can be assumed that the rules for charging fees for using such a charger will be different than currently used. We will probably pay for the amount of energy consumed, because time will no longer matter. However, due to the fact that a new connector will be needed in the charger and in the vehicle, the 5-minute charging will appear at the earliest with any of the next generation of electric cars, which means that it will not take several months, but a couple of years. And it will probably go to trucks and buses first.
 
There is another problem. As you know, the charging efficiency is far from 100% and it can be assumed that in unfavorable conditions even 10 or 15% of the energy supplied from the charger does not go to the battery, but "into the air" - that is, it dissipates in the form of heat or is used to cool the battery. While with the current charging, let's assume 7kWh of energy must be dissipated in an hour, so with a 5-minute charge it will only have 5 minutes! What cooling capacity will the car's cooling systems have to be able to transfer this energy in such a short time? It can be assumed that it is 12 times greater than today.
 
Esprit1st said:
Well, yes ... However, like it shows in my video above, my battery temp started at 1°C (34°F) and was at 20°C (~70°F) after a 2 hour drive. So yes, it definitely helps. However, the car limited it's charge speed to 50kW until the battery temp was at about 25°C (~77°F). So if you drive "only" an hour, it will be warmed up even less and you might not be able to benefit from >50kW charge speeds.
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Kona is very ambient temperature sensitive. I recently drove 3 hours at highway speeds. The ambient temperature was -10C and when I arrived with 15%SOC at the 150Kw DC charger Torque pro indicated a pack temperature of 12C. I charged to 55% at which point the pack temperature increased to 24C unfortunately the charge speed never got past 44kwh despite the battery heater being active. Seems like this new BMS update is quicker at shutting down the battery heater. It took 39 minutes to get 27.7 kw delivered, 2k of that went to cabin heat and charger loss. Overall the relatively slow charge gained me ~ 120km range and cost $13. At nearly 11 cents per km for energy cost it would have been cheaper to drive my wife's ICE CRV for the same trip.
 
My battery heater has always switched off at 15°C, despite that, if I recall other posts, charge speed won't be optimal anytime under 25°C.
 
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