KIA SOUL EV

I had a 2015 Kia Soul EV (and have one again), in France, and I've hit a stone as well. In fact, when you look at the car it seems rather high on its wheels. But if you really look under the car, you see that the case, in which the battery is housed, is actually rather low. Since it looked as high as my former car, I didn't brake for the stone (that would have been dangerous at that spot) and just steered in a way it passed under the middle of the car. But since the car was lower then I thought, it hit. And opened up the battery case.

My Kia garage said the battery had to be exchanged, but that was so expensive that they declared the car a total loss. I had leased the car, but after a fight with the assurance I still got money (not only the lease company). And with help of that money and some more I BOUGHT a Soul EV of the same age. Now I really pay attention to that kind of stones. But I am as happy with the new car as I was with the old. However, I must confess here in France - even in southern France at the Côte d'Azur - temperature doesn't cause battery issues. Of course range gets lower in winter (from 200 km in summer to 160 km in harsh winter conditions), but heat has no effect. Now our heat is not what you call heat...
 
jim said:
About 10 people I know bought a KIA SOUL EV from California and use them where I live in Arizona. They were fantastic the 1st year or two but then I think the HEAT is winning out. Over half have reported a failure of the OBC On Board Charger. Over half have also had battery problems.
KIA uses air cooling and I think it's not up to the task like water cooling. The Chevy SPARK EV and Volt and BOLT use water cooling. So does Tesla and many others. They all seem to be able to handle the HEAT.
I'd love to try the new Hyundai IONIQ Electric but they also only sell them in California and very few other states. They have a lifetime battery warranty. I wonder how they would do in the desert HEAT. Many Southern states have similar problems and temperatures.
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I live in the San Gabriel Valley and I love my 2016 Kia Soul EV. I took mine to the Alhambra Kia after one yea 10,000 miles and they restored my range to 110 miles. My range had dipped to 93 miles when fully charged. I don't know why now I have 110 mile range. Thanks Alhambra Kia. They even got me an uber to take me to work and take me home.
 
a-kindred-soul said:
I had a 2015 Kia Soul EV (and have one again), in France, and I've hit a stone as well. In fact, when you look at the car it seems rather high on its wheels. But if you really look under the car, you see that the case, in which the battery is housed, is actually rather low. Since it looked as high as my former car, I didn't brake for the stone (that would have been dangerous at that spot) and just steered in a way it passed under the middle of the car. But since the car was lower then I thought, it hit. And opened up the battery case.

My Kia garage said the battery had to be exchanged, but that was so expensive that they declared the car a total loss. I had leased the car, but after a fight with the assurance I still got money (not only the lease company). And with help of that money and some more I BOUGHT a Soul EV of the same age. Now I really pay attention to that kind of stones. But I am as happy with the new car as I was with the old. However, I must confess here in France - even in southern France at the Côte d'Azur - temperature doesn't cause battery issues. Of course range gets lower in winter (from 200 km in summer to 160 km in harsh winter conditions), but heat has no effect. Now our heat is not what you call heat...
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Wow, I did not realize that could happen. That has not been the case for me. I live in L.A so the weather except for the summer is ideal for an EV. After one yea my range was reduced from 106 to 93. I took the car to the Kia in Alhamba and they did some updates and now my range when fully charged has gone up to 110 miles on 2016 Kia EV Soul.
 
Domenick said:
Just to keep it clear, a BMS is a battery management system. It is responsible for keeping the cells and/or modules in a balanced state. All electric vehicles from manufacturers have them.
A temperature management system (TMS), which is what you are discussing, does what you might expect: keeps the cells within an optimal operating temperature, most successfully with a fluid of some sort.
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Which EV's have the better BMS system to keep the batteries cooler. I think I heard the Bolt has one of the better system's to keep the batteries cooler.
 
jim said:
After 29 days we got our SOUL EV back. They replaced the battery pack and BMS. It is still the same design so the battery will fail again in the heat. Their air cooling just doesn't provide enough cooling in the HEAT. Of the 4 problems not have been fixed. The car is also covered with black soot probably from the car hauler to and from Palm Springs. It's even black on the passenger seat from soot.
I'm pursuing turned the car in 4 months early on the lease before it fails again.
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I have the same car and have had no issues living in Pasadena,CA. After the first year my range was reduced to 93 miles but I took it in and now battery range is up to 110. I do lose a lot of range in the summer when I use the AC. Sorry that you had these issues. Alhambra Kia did a great job to restore the range I had lost after my first 9000 miles. I have the car for 2 more years in my lease.
 
Felix Cordeiro-Benson said:
Which EV's have the better BMS system to keep the batteries cooler. I think I heard the Bolt has one of the better system's to keep the batteries cooler.
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The BMS (battery management system) just regulates and balances the voltages of the cells within the battery. I think you're referring to what people tend to call the TMS, the temperature monitoring system), which would keep the temperature of the cells within an ideal range.

Generally what we look for right now to judge the effectiveness of a pack's temperature control is liquid cooling. Most newer EVs have this, except for the Nissan LEAF 40 kWh (the bigger 60 kWh battery that's coming for the Nissan LEAF should be liquid cooled).

Older designs, such as your Kia Soul, may not be liquid cooled.
 
I purchased a 2015 Kia Soul in January 2016 and the range has reduced to 70 miles and is now causing a lot of problems because it seems to discharge faster than usual as well, even driving it slow and not using the heater. I live in Northern California and it is a cool region so the heat should not be a problem. I purchased the most expensive warranty and now the dealer that is near my home is telling me that the reason I am getting 70 miles is because the way I am driving the vehicle which is not true. How should I go about getting the battery replaced? DO I need a lawyer to make them do this?

Thank you for any help provided.
 
What might be an interesting thing to do with a Kia Soul EV is check the distance your car drives in reality. What my distance-guesser indicates changes a lot. The lowest I have seen at the coldest of winter (nights of -11 Celcius) was 129 km and the highest was 184 km (in summer). However on that day in summer when it indicated 184 km I drove 203 km and had 12 km left. And in the coldest of winter my real range (what I actually drove) was 141 km with 15 km left.

This means the guessometer is conservative, which is good I think. So when the guessometer first indicates 110 miles and later 93 miles (as somebody above describes) it probably has little to do with the real distance you can drive. The fact that your dealer changed the guessometer back from 93 to 110 miles indicates the same. What he did was just erase the "history" of the guessometer. He didn't do anything to the battery.

I would propose to everybody, who has a Soul EV, to erase the history of the guessometer after each season has ended. That way it does better guesses for the next season.
 
Patty said:
I purchased a 2015 Kia Soul in January 2016 and the range has reduced to 70 miles and is now causing a lot of problems because it seems to discharge faster than usual as well, even driving it slow and not using the heater. I live in Northern California and it is a cool region so the heat should not be a problem. I purchased the most expensive warranty and now the dealer that is near my home is telling me that the reason I am getting 70 miles is because the way I am driving the vehicle which is not true. How should I go about getting the battery replaced? DO I need a lawyer to make them do this?

Thank you for any help provided.
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You might try getting help in the KIA Soul EV forum.

http://www.mykiasoulev.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=4c36d053cd9e6de46b4961e9121533e6
 
After I got my 2015 SOUL EV back I turned it in a month early. I also opened a national traffic complaint on the unsafe design. Our controller had over heated and the car shut down twice in traffic on my wife. The batteries fail and the On Board Chargers fails. It's a poor und=safe design in any HOT climate. They also gave me 6 months of lease payments back trying to make up for the trouble.
So complain, open BBB Lemon law case and beat them up and they should give you a refund.
PS I now have a 2015 Chevy SPARK EV with liquid cooling and it goes 100 miles on a charge even after being 3 year old.
 
Patty said:
I purchased a 2015 Kia Soul in January 2016 and the range has reduced to 70 miles and is now causing a lot of problems because it seems to discharge faster than usual as well, even driving it slow and not using the heater. I live in Northern California and it is a cool region so the heat should not be a problem. I purchased the most expensive warranty and now the dealer that is near my home is telling me that the reason I am getting 70 miles is because the way I am driving the vehicle which is not true. How should I go about getting the battery replaced? DO I need a lawyer to make them do this?

Thank you for any help provided.
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If your range has dramatically decreased while your driving pattern has remained the same, there could be a problem. If you are driving at higher speeds than you did before, then you would, of course, see less range.

The battery in the Soul EV has a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty so it should be covered if there is a problem with it. There's always the fine print, though, and in the case of the Kia, there's a LOT of fine print..

Here's the PDF of the warranty, all 496 pages.

Now, it's just a matter of determining if your battery qualifies for replacement under this program.
 
a-kindred-soul said:
I had a 2015 Kia Soul EV (and have one again), in France, and I've hit a stone as well. In fact, when you look at the car it seems rather high on its wheels. But if you really look under the car, you see that the case, in which the battery is housed, is actually rather low. Since it looked as high as my former car, I didn't brake for the stone (that would have been dangerous at that spot) and just steered in a way it passed under the middle of the car. But since the car was lower then I thought, it hit. And opened up the battery case.

My Kia garage said the battery had to be exchanged, but that was so expensive that they declared the car a total loss. I had leased the car, but after a fight with the assurance I still got money (not only the lease company). And with help of that money and some more I BOUGHT a Soul EV of the same age. Now I really pay attention to that kind of stones. But I am as happy with the new car as I was with the old. However, I must confess here in France - even in southern France at the Côte d'Azur - temperature doesn't cause battery issues. Of course range gets lower in winter (from 200 km in summer to 160 km in harsh winter conditions), but heat has no effect. Now our heat is not what you call heat...
Click to expand...

Kia will replace battery pack if the SOH gets to 70%. this has to be checked by dealer, its not reported on car's display
 
dubluv said:
Kia will replace battery pack if the SOH gets to 70%. this has to be checked by dealer, its not reported on car's display
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You are very correct. But you will notice the range dropped, the charging may take a few extra hours and other problems. I compalined and got a 50% refund on my lease costs for the final year. It's a terrible EV in the HEAT.
 
i'm not without sympathy for your situation, but clearly, this is the reason Kia has opted not to sell their ev's in hot climates for the present. The Kona electric has liquid cooling for battery pack, which should excite all who currently have non liquid cooled ev's. i believe this same pack will be used in the Niro and Ioniq electrics
 
They sold the KIA SOUL EV in any state that had ZEV crefits. Georgia is one of them with lots of fsilures. We will see how the Kona,holds up. I will never own one when I can have a USA made TESLA.
 
Jim, you obviously have already condemned Kia over your soul EV's battery failure. I see what happened as a warning for all EV manufacturers, to make a reliable battery pack that will not fail for any reason, not the least of which is heat. as i stated above, the Kona will have liquid cooling, just like Tesla and the Bolt. Kia/Hyundai have learned from the past, and by using the newer 811 NCM pack, with its ability to charge at 100kW, they didn't forget to include Liquid cooled battery management
 
New to this group so I’ll do my best. We purchased a 2017 KIA Soul EV in June of 2017. We also purchased the extended warranty at half the amount they normally charge or so they say! Our plan was/is to keep the car. This is our fourth KIA vehicle but our first all electric! I’m currently sitting in the waiting room in the KIA service area. We live in North San Diego county and I don’t always drive my car every day. Mileage to date is 22144 for 2 1/2 years. We consistently explain to service department our issue with battery range and I see in a comment above we need to erase our battery memory so we get more range? Or not? We’ve also had a right rear axle issue that we’ve asked to be addressed each time we bring our car in. When I drive over a speed bump or transition from road to driveway I hear a rattle or creak from that tire/axle. Not sure why it happens and if at some point it will get worse but a wee bit irritated the service folks don’t fix it. This time I told them I’d go on a drive with the mechanic if necessary. Anyone else have this issue? Love the car but should have read this forum before purchasing the car!
 
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