Cold weather expectations for my Kona

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jgood
  • Start date Start date
  • Replies Replies 20
  • Views Views 5K
Jgood

Jgood

Active Member
As a new Kona owner I understand that I must expect losses in driving range with the onset of cold weather. I live in Massachusetts and unfortunately Hyundai doesn't consider it to be a cold enough climate to justify the addition of the heat pump cabin heater or battery heater. If they spent any time here in the last two winters they might reconsider that decision. I've seen -15° during both of the past two years. I'm hoping that those of you who have experienced a winter with the Kona could give me some feedback on what you've seen in terms of conditions and losses observed. I have a 160 mile round trip commute that I do twice a week. It's through some of the coldest, snowiest regions of the state and I'm trying to be prepared for plans B and C if needed. I'll also be driving at night on the return trip so full lighting load is a given. And of course there's the normal windshield wipers for slush, and cabin heat since it'll be below freezing temps. Currently the Kona makes the round trip with about 120 miles to spare. But it's also still in the 70's! Any thoughts or feedback will be greatly appreciated.
 
Jgood said:
As a new Kona owner I understand that I must expect losses in driving range with the onset of cold weather. I live in Massachusetts and unfortunately Hyundai doesn't consider it to be a cold enough climate to justify the addition of the heat pump cabin heater or battery heater. If they spent any time here in the last two winters they might reconsider that decision. I've seen -15° during both of the past two years. I'm hoping that those of you who have experienced a winter with the Kona could give me some feedback on what you've seen in terms of conditions and losses observed. I have a 160 mile round trip commute that I do twice a week. It's through some of the coldest, snowiest regions of the state and I'm trying to be prepared for plans B and C if needed. I'll also be driving at night on the return trip so full lighting load is a given. And of course there's the normal windshield wipers for slush, and cabin heat since it'll be below freezing temps. Currently the Kona makes the round trip with about 120 miles to spare. But it's also still in the 70's! Any thoughts or feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
To start, see what this says: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/
I wouldn't worry much about electrical load. It shouldn't be more than a KW, (so a 3 hour drive, that is 3KWh, or about 5% battery).
Using the seat heaters is much lower power than the resistive air heater, but again, it is probably only 3KW max (so 9KWh -- 15% battery -- for a 3 hour trip), and in general I'd see it drop down once the cabin heated up (but I haven't tried at -15degF yet).
Can you park the car in a garage at either end? Once you are moving, I'd bet you don't get too much range loss from the cold on the liquid cooled pack. All that energy you are expending to move the car goes into the liquid.
 
In Ontario my winter range with heating and seats and everything going was about 380km or 236 miles. Of course I have the heat pump. But my car is also parked and charged outside. Your milage may vary. Literally!
 
Don't you have any fast chargers along the way? There are a few US owners in the FB group "Hyundai Kona Electric (EV)", one owner, Eric, lives in MA and has had his car all through last winter, parked and charged outside, would suggest asking on that group. He's had no complaints and may be able to advise on range.
Those severe cold snaps are going to be a fixture for some years to come in the US NE as the Arctic ice deteriorates and the jetstreams become more wavey.
Ironically I have both the HP and the battery heater even though our climate here in NZ is very mild. The battery heater assists DC charging anytime under 15°C but is not needed if you DC charge after driving for some hours.
 
I've owned three ev's, the Mitsubishi i-Miev, the Kia Soul, and now the Kona. My experience has been that you can lose up to 40% of range during really cold periods. My Miev went from 70 miles of range down to about 40. The Soul wasn't quite as bad, I went from about 90 miles of range to about 70. I only bought my Kona in March so I can't say yet how it will do. But I can't imagine that it would lose more than 40% and I'm expecting it will be closer to 30%. I'm currently getting 300 miles of range with limited highway driving, so I'm hoping for close to 250 for the same type of driving. Obviously, whatever you can do to reduce heating the cabin will help range. With the Miev, I used to wear a heated vest. Between that and the seat-heater I was pretty comfortable except during the coldest times. I don't think you'll have any problems at all with your 160 mile round trip commute. You'll just be charging every night after making that trip, which you probably do anyway.
 
Thank you all for your feedback. This is quite helpful. I'd been estimating between 20-30% loss during average weather and that seems to be an accurate starting point based upon your experiences. Average weather temps are likely to be around 20° so I won't be dealing with extremes all the time. Most of my concern was regarding the cabin heating and lights at night but it seems like that's less of a problem than I anticipated. My route does NOT have any chargers on it. It's a rural part of the state completely removed from the interstate highways where all the DC chargers are sited so I'm very dependent on round-trip power available. I can get a level 2 charge once I get to my destination but only if I'm willing to park at the town-hall charger and walk a couple miles to my studio. That will give me some additional range but I'll only have a couple of hours to "top-off" the battery (and increase my exercise-walk time by an hour!). Overall it seem do-able. Now all I have to do is follow up on that Nexen tire thread to see if I need to replace the OEM tires for something a bit more robust!
 
Hi,

I had my kona last winter here in montreal. So during really cold weather, around -30 celsius, the minimum range I had was about 330km.
I never really used pre heating when the car was connected and had the temperature aroung 20 degrees celsius.

Hope this infomration helps you
 
I'm in northern Vermont so that helps me a lot, thanks.
Of course, you have the heat pump, but I don't think it makes much difference at those temps.
Just one question - what kind of range do you get during the summer?
 
subnivean said:
Of course, you have the heat pump, but I don't think it makes much difference at those temps.
Just one question - what kind of range do you get during the summer?
Click to expand...

Exactly. The heat pump does nothing when the temperature drops below -15 Celsius.

I'll only have my own kona next week but other people I know from Montreal that already have one say they have a range of 300km in the winter and of 500km in the summer. So 400km on average.
 
Francois said:
Exactly. The heat pump does nothing when the temperature drops below -15 Celsius.

I'll only have my own kona next week but other people I know from Montreal that already have one say they have a range of 300km in the winter and of 500km in the summer. So 400km on average.
Click to expand...
Yup, that's a safe generalization from my experience. In reality it skews toward the higher end.
 
Same here in summer I'm always close to 500.
From what I read on the UK forum regarding the heat pump is that is will work down to -25.
 
Whether it is for a house or a car, heat pumps are only useful down to minus 15 Celsius. It does not have anything to do with the quality of the pump. There is simply no heat to be extracted out of the cold air when the temperature drops lower than that.
 
Very informative post. I live in MA too and am curious about what winter performance will look like since I bought my Kona in June. I have noticed about a 30-mile drop off the GoM if I turn the main heat on.

With my 100-mile daily commute, I’m looking to change up my routine by setting max AC charge to 90% and charging every night so I get the benefit of the temp schedule while connected to the EVSE.

Since this is my first EV, I look at the colder season as a test of my faith in the tech. Lol.
 
Let me relay some advice I have been given for winter . :)

Your use of ac/heater will impact how fast the battery drains of course, but that's up to you to monitor while driving.

What is good for you to know is that the cold itself reduces what you can have as expected range before you even step in car. So having your battery warm before you leave home will help.

If your model has a battery heater and you can schedule it, set it to two hours before you leave home.

Rather than charging when you get home at night, schedule the charging so that it ends at around the time you expect to leave the house in the morning. Even if you don't have a battery heater, even the act of charging the battery itself will warm it up a little before you leave.

Hope this helps
Francois
 
Francois said:
Let me relay some advice I have been given for winter . :)

Your use of ac/heater will impact how fast the battery drains of course, but that's up to you to monitor while driving.

What is good for you to know is that the cold itself reduces what you can have as expected range before you even step in car. So having your battery warm before you leave home will help.

If your model has a battery heater and you can schedule it, set it to two hours before you leave home.

Rather than charging when you get home at night, schedule the charging so that it ends at around the time you expect to leave the house in the morning. Even if you don't have a battery heater, even the act of charging the battery itself will warm it up a little before you leave.

Hope this helps
Francois
Click to expand...
Good point on the second paragraph as the internal resistance increases with temperature decrease reducing capacity
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/discharging_at_high_and_low_temperatures
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top