Here are some thoughts and experience after our first 'long' trip with our Kona.
We are experienced EV owners, my wife owned Mitsubishi iMiEV for six years we and loved it. We 'down traded' the Mits and my Prius for the Kona. It is quite a change from the 100 km range of the Mits. Range anxiety only kicks in when you are far from home.
We made our first "far from our home charger" trip this week, over 500km. This gave me the opportunity to test the world of L3 chargers.
This is what I learned:
1. It is an absolutely crazy requirement from the charge networks to make you a "member" - or you will pay a surcharge. The flo network charges $15 for plastic 'membership' (debit) card which needs to be loaded with funds. This is outright crazy! Imagine buying gas at Esso/Exxon/Shell only by their own credit cards? It is so 1960.
There supposed to be an "interworking" agreement between flo and ChargePoint, so each would accept the other membership card. I have a ChargePoint card from the iMiEV days and tried it at a flo charger yesterday, it did not work.
2. The chargers often do not work. In our case both the GreenLots and the IVY networks failed. The operators of both were very nice, professional and polite but "I am sorry" will not get you too far with an empty battery. They tried every procedure in their books, even rebooting the stations did not work.
- Worst of all Greenlots hit my Visa instantly with a $60 'credit hold' and $27.08 (I think both are in US$) even though I did not get a single kWh of juice. After I complained the operator promised instant correction. Three days later the $60 was gone. The $27.08 also disappeared yesterday. It was sorted out but who needs this hassle?
3. Petro Canada's L3 DC chargers came to the rescue. They work and you can use any credit card just like buying stinky gas or diesel. One issue I found that the HV cables were quite short. The heavy duty CCS cables are hanging on the left side (facing the charger). The Kona's charge access door is also left from the center of the car. So it was a tight fit but it worked. Perhaps I could have moved the car 5 to 10 cm - a "couple of inches" - closer to the forbidding yellow cement bollards, but I did not wan to take the chance with a new car.
Petro Canada also encourages you to "down load the app" but it is not needed unless you want a recipt sent to your email. Note that for now there is no way to collect Petro Points by buying electric power.
The Petro Can charger had a 175kWh output - lot's of juice. (Rem. Kona's max DC charge rate is 75kWh.) "Sparky" started taking 73kWh but quickly dropped and stayed around 54-55kWh till the SOC reached 80%. The weather was absolutely ideal for the trip 18 - 22C.
4. We should lobby our governments to force all charge networks to read and accept credit/debit cards by law. This "membership" nonsense has to stop. Also, charge networks should be forced by law to charge by kWh sold, not by connected time.
Newbies take note: never let your HV battery's SOC go too low to reach an other L3 station. Being on a long trip charging at L2 for hours is not really convenient, unless it is planned into your trip - i.e. overnight stay.
Last but not least, I must say that both 'Lady Lead-foot' and I found the Kona fun to drive and the seats very comfy, even on a long drive. Nice job Hyundai. As for efficiency; at 14,500km on the ODO the computer tells me the average power consumption is at 14.2 kWh/100km. Canadian Government says 16.8 kWh/100km for the Kona E - so I am not complaining. But "winter is coming".
My only beefs with the car are the lack of proper trip meters and a cargo net-packet behind the rear door to keep (light) stuff from moving back and forth. Most cars have A and B trips, individually resettable at your leisure. Hyundai's auto reset of the trip meter after 4 hours idle is nuts.
Cheers
