Newbie pre heating question..and then some

J

Jean Francois

New Member
Hi all. Glad to be joining in !

In short, I am picking up a 2021 Kona Ev Preferred on Monday. It's about 5 months faster than I expected due to the death of my 1994 pickup (5.7L V8)....quite the change!

I have a few challenges coming up. Mainly, until the end of March, I live in Mt Tremblant, Quebec, but work in Natashquan, Qc, roughly a 1400km trip that I do back and forth once a month.

As you would expect, it's cold, snowy, windy, and has quite some mountains to go through. Not the ideal situation for the Kona yet...

In March, I am changing jobs and will do the commute Tremblant-Ottawa 3 days a week. Much better for the Kona range :)

But I do need to prepare for the 1500km with a long stretch of road with no quick recharge between Sept Iles and Natashquan (roughly 350km)

Also, electricians cannot install a quick recharge station before my return home in January. Therefore I will have to do with charging home on 110 (only have a 10amp breaker...)

My questions are:

1) Can I use the preheating function on a 110?
2) I plan on charging on a BRCC station before I get home. So I should have roughly 70% of range and then I'll top it off on my 110 once I get home. Still the circuit being on a 10amp breaker worries me. Any thoughts?
3) The last part of my trip is 370km WITHOUT fast charging stations in between. There are 3 level 2 chargers at km 170 and 220 (Although there is a fast charger station planned on being done by December 2020...which would make this trip a lot easier to plan). Any thoughts?
4) For you northerners like me....care to share your real autonomy in the coldest-harshest winter conditions. No need to sugar coat it, I'm already sold on EV, heck I just bought one. Just trying to get some real life stories in order to get some good planning done !

Cheers

JF

Thank you all :)
 
First, Congratulations! Winter driving brings it's own special set of problems with an EV.
1. I don't know as I have never tried it.
2. I am assuming that BRCC is a DC fast charging station probably 50kw. You probably can charge a bit higher than 70% efficiently. The Kona drops pretty rapidly at 74 and faster as it gets to 100%. When you DC fast charge, you not see the fastest charging speeds in winter. Be sure you have the car in winter mode to heat your battery. This will prevent damage in very cold temps and allow higher charging speeds. Most household circuits I am aware of are 15 or 20 amp. 10 amp is pretty small and you have to set the charger to a slower charge. Full charge with the 110vac charger is about 3 days. At a slower speed, you can do the math.
3. Depending on terrain, you might make 370 km in winter if you are lucky. Level 2 chargers are pretty slow. I assume you got the 64 kwh battery. I would stop the first trip and add a couple of hours of charging to get a feel for how much you use on the whole trip. You can use Abettertripplanner.com to get help on what your range should be. In setting it up, be sure to enter the temperature and beginning state of charge. It's a great tool. Takes in account elevation change, temp and model of car. Plan plan plan. You will get a feel for it.
4. We live in Oregon and drive over the mountain passes. Some snow and freezing temps. Lots of energy burned up with the heater and seat warmers. Wife loves the steering wheel heater. All takes energy. Since it is a resistance heater, it takes energy from your range. There is a good YouTube video on this topic. It is a winter overnight trip in Norway.
Hyundai Kona winter range and noise by Bjorn Nyland. I got a lot out of it. He even slept over night in the back. Good source of info.
 
You can set your supplied Hyundai 120V EVSE at 8 amps so its possible the 10 amp circuit might work, bit it will be very slow less than 1kw per hour. Honestly your going to need an 240V EVSE sooner than you have planned. Also if your going to be travelling in anything less than -5C with winter tires expect a real range with all the winter highway travel of 280-320 depending on your speed. I do a lot of Canadian highway travel in the winter and that is my typical max range with out need for recharge especially if any snow or rain on the ground. It gets worse if your temp is -20C or colder.
 
I don't know a lot about the 110 charger - I only used it once or twice after I got the car. As others have noted, it isn't fast. I have this vague recollection that you can control the charge rate by pressing a button (to try and keep it below the 10A), but I don't recall what the different power levels are. 10A is pretty low - I guess you have an older house? Any chance you can run an extension cord and plug into a 20A circuit somewhere?

Minimize the use of the heater if you can, using the seat heaters, steering wheel heater (if you have it). Last winter I was sort of "pulsing" the heat, meaning I would turn it on for a few minutes and then turn it off again. Partly to warm the cabin, and partly just to defog the windows. For me, I was making trips that were roughly 3 hours in length once in a while, so the chill really sets in if I don't do anything.

This ought to be a no-brainer for anyone in a cold climate, but having a blanket in the car in the case of an emergency is a must. These days you can get small electric blankets from Amazon that you can plug into the cigarette lighter socket. Our climate is nowhere near as cold as yours, but I got one anyways. My thought was that I could have it in my lap on cold winter journeys to further reduce the need to use the normal heater, but shortly after the blanket arrived, the temperatures warmed up and I never got around to trying it. There was one morning I was driving at oh-dark-thirty, and was planning on hitting a DCFC, not because I needed the range, but because I wanted an extra margin so I could run the heat. At 5:30AM the stupid charger was busy, so I had to keep driving in the cold.

I can make another observation about driving in cold weather. If it is pitch dark out, it *really* gets cold. If you have good sunshine in late afternoon, it can noticeably warm up the cabin (open the sunshade if you have a sunroof).

Charging is a whole topic of its own. When the pack temperature is low, the charging rates are reduced, of course - that's the elephant in the room. To get the best out of DCFC, there are a couple of things I can suggest. First of all, if you can, avoid fast charging first thing in the morning when the pack is going to be the coldest (and charging will be slowest). Your car has a battery heater - that is used to raise the pack temperature and improve charging performance. There is a "winter mode" that you need to turn on to make use of this (we didn't get the battery heater in the 2019 US models). And I would note that the car is able to scavenge excess heat from the motor (no motor is 100% efficient - some energy is lost to heat., and use that to warm up the battery (your use case is somewhat similar to mine - I was finding that I would try and do the DCFC after having driven several hours, and I generally got much better charge rates).

I have seen discussion of little aftermarket devices that plug into the OBDII port that had a little display on it - these can display the battery pack temperature, and you can use this to get a little predictability to your trip.

You might need different tires - the stock tires don't handle all that well on slippery roads. You can search the threads here from last winter about what people ended up using.
 
If you haven't already, check out:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

If it is networked, it also makes sense to check out the status of the charger in Sept Iles before you set out. If that charger is down for some reason, it could leave you in a difficult spot. You can check the comments in plugshare as well - make sure that people aren't complaining that the charger is down or not working well.

Since you are new, I will bring this up as well - people typically don't charge above 80% on DCFC (even on warm summer days) - not unless they have to in order to get the needed range. The charge rate drops as the state of charge gets higher, and it gets more expensive if you are paying by the minute.

If nothing else, do a periodic check in plugshare to see if new DCFC ever come online anywhere along your route. It is probably worthwhile to also familiarize yourself with the location of any level 2 chargers along the way that you can use in the event that you are worried that you might not make it to your destination.
 
ericy said:
I don't know a lot about the 110 charger - I only used it once or twice after I got the car. As others have noted, it isn't fast. I have this vague recollection that you can control the charge rate by pressing a button (to try and keep it below the 10A), but I don't recall what the different power levels are. 10A is pretty low - I guess you have an older house? Any chance you can run an extension cord and plug into a 20A circuit somewhere?

Minimize the use of the heater if you can, using the seat heaters, steering wheel heater (if you have it). Last winter I was sort of "pulsing" the heat, meaning I would turn it on for a few minutes and then turn it off again. Partly to warm the cabin, and partly just to defog the windows. For me, I was making trips that were roughly 3 hours in length once in a while, so the chill really sets in if I don't do anything.

This ought to be a no-brainer for anyone in a cold climate, but having a blanket in the car in the case of an emergency is a must. These days you can get small electric blankets from Amazon that you can plug into the cigarette lighter socket. Our climate is nowhere near as cold as yours, but I got one anyways. My thought was that I could have it in my lap on cold winter journeys to further reduce the need to use the normal heater, but shortly after the blanket arrived, the temperatures warmed up and I never got around to trying it. There was one morning I was driving at oh-dark-thirty, and was planning on hitting a DCFC, not because I needed the range, but because I wanted an extra margin so I could run the heat. At 5:30AM the stupid charger was busy, so I had to keep driving in the cold.

I can make another observation about driving in cold weather. If it is pitch dark out, it *really* gets cold. If you have good sunshine in late afternoon, it can noticeably warm up the cabin (open the sunshade if you have a sunroof).

Charging is a whole topic of its own. When the pack temperature is low, the charging rates are reduced, of course - that's the elephant in the room. To get the best out of DCFC, there are a couple of things I can suggest. First of all, if you can, avoid fast charging first thing in the morning when the pack is going to be the coldest (and charging will be slowest). Your car has a battery heater - that is used to raise the pack temperature and improve charging performance. There is a "winter mode" that you need to turn on to make use of this (we didn't get the battery heater in the 2019 US models). And I would note that the car is able to scavenge excess heat from the motor (no motor is 100% efficient - some energy is lost to heat., and use that to warm up the battery (your use case is somewhat similar to mine - I was finding that I would try and do the DCFC after having driven several hours, and I generally got much better charge rates).

I have seen discussion of little aftermarket devices that plug into the OBDII port that had a little display on it - these can display the battery pack temperature, and you can use this to get a little predictability to your trip.

You might need different tires - the stock tires don't handle all that well on slippery roads. You can search the threads here from last winter about what people ended up using.
Click to expand...
The power settings on supplied EVSE are 8, 10 and 12 amps, you will need to keep it at no more than 8 amps on a 10 amp breakered circuit.

Problem with Canadian winters is there is not much choice to not turn on the heat as anything below - 10 to -15C you will need to run your resistance heater to keep your windows defrosted. At -10C you will pretty much pull a constant 1500-2000 watts , you could drop that a few hundred watts by using the the driver only hvac setting but in the big scheme of things this is relative peanuts as your traction motor will pull 15-24 Kw at winter highway speeds

Sent from my SM-G955W using Inside EVs mobile app
 
Thank you all.

Got the car yesterday. Works like a charm. I only drove 300km but am impressed with the car's handling and running. My 10 amp charging station works. I had to run a few errands, and simply used a fast charger twice for about 20 minutes to replenish on route. Got home last night with 46% battery and it's up to 70%.

I have an electrician planned to install my 240 outlet in late January, when I return from work. Until then it will require a bit of planning.

In Quebec we're lucky to have Le Circuit Electrique, an app with all the chargers and route planning. It seems to work well. My work is unfortunately the worse region of the province for electric charging. It's actually teh worse region in Quebec for ANY kind of service....We often joke that in order to get a job in Cote Nord, you need only to be able to say "We don't have such a thing/offer this service here...)

Nevertheless, thanks for all your reply. I just need to get my head out of my a?? and learn how to turn winter driving mode and lower the amp setting on the car.

As far as winter tires, I managed to get Dunlop Winter Maxx and Dunlop summer tire upgrades as part of my package. Definitely nice.

Cheers all!
 
Jean Francois said:
Thank you all.

Got the car yesterday. Works like a charm. I only drove 300km but am impressed with the car's handling and running. My 10 amp charging station works. I had to run a few errands, and simply used a fast charger twice for about 20 minutes to replenish on route. Got home last night with 46% battery and it's up to 70%.

I have an electrician planned to install my 240 outlet in late January, when I return from work. Until then it will require a bit of planning.

In Quebec we're lucky to have Le Circuit Electrique, an app with all the chargers and route planning. It seems to work well. My work is unfortunately the worse region of the province for electric charging. It's actually teh worse region in Quebec for ANY kind of service....We often joke that in order to get a job in Cote Nord, you need only to be able to say "We don't have such a thing/offer this service here...)

Nevertheless, thanks for all your reply. I just need to get my head out of my a?? and learn how to turn winter driving mode and lower the amp setting on the car.

As far as winter tires, I managed to get Dunlop Winter Maxx and Dunlop summer tire upgrades as part of my package. Definitely nice.

Cheers all!
Click to expand...
Congratulations, enjoy the new car. FYI its customary to post a picture of your new ride :)
 
Jean Francois said:
and lower the amp setting on the car.
Click to expand...

The amp setting is on the granny charger, and not the car. If it works on the default setting without tripping a breaker, I might leave it alone.

We don't have "Winter mode" down here, but my understanding is that it is in one of the menus on the touchscreen. Maybe on the "EV" menu?
 
ericy said:
The amp setting is on the granny charger, and not the car. If it works on the default setting without tripping a breaker, I might leave it alone.
Click to expand...
You can also adjust the current from the car. The adjustment is found under the charge management settings on the infotainment screen. It has three settings of minimum medium and maximum. This can be done for either Level 1 charging or Level 2 charging there is no adjustment in the car for DC fast charging. Information on adjusting the current from the car can be found on page H11 of the US manual.
 
This is our first winter with our Kona. I've ready what's been posted so far about winter driving, but I didn't see (or I missed) whether there are any long-term benefits to preconditioning. One a daily basis, we don't need the full range (driving max of 50 miles/day), we are parking in a non-heated garage each night, and we don't need the cabin to be warm before we get in. From what I have read, if we chose not to precondition we will use the battery for the cabin heat and suffer a loss of range for that trip. This is not a problem for us. Remembering to tell the car to pre-heat each morning 10 min before we plan to leave (never at the same time each day) is more inconvenient than just running it down to 20% charge and plugging it in for it's standard charge to 80% as needed, even if "as needed" goes from every three-four days to every two days. But if preconditioning preserves long-term range, we will figure something out, as we want to preserve as much of the 250 mile range as we can for the occasional long trip (and in that case we would pre-condition while plugged in to the level-2 charger at home).
 
KonAlyce said:
This is our first winter with our Kona. I've ready what's been posted so far about winter driving, but I didn't see (or I missed) whether there are any long-term benefits to preconditioning. One a daily basis, we don't need the full range (driving max of 50 miles/day), we are parking in a non-heated garage each night, and we don't need the cabin to be warm before we get in. From what I have read, if we chose not to precondition we will use the battery for the cabin heat and suffer a loss of range for that trip. This is not a problem for us. Remembering to tell the car to pre-heat each morning 10 min before we plan to leave (never at the same time each day) is more inconvenient than just running it down to 20% charge and plugging it in for it's standard charge to 80% as needed, even if "as needed" goes from every three-four days to every two days. But if preconditioning preserves long-term range, we will figure something out, as we want to preserve as much of the 250 mile range as we can for the occasional long trip (and in that case we would pre-condition while plugged in to the level-2 charger at home).
Click to expand...
There is no battery"pre-conditioning" in the Kona that a driver can initiate. All you can do remotely is warm the cabin and maybe defrost the windows. If you don't want to then don't. You are neither helping nor harming your vehicle.
 
Not sure if it is feasible for you, but you can bring along your granny charger and charge your car at work. That should give you a nice 7-8 hour charge on your trip back home.
 
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