[Kiwi]

...Why do you say, particularly, that I should ask for the new model? What major advantage does it have? Iam 81 & 7 months old; people are dropping dead dailly all around me. Waiting yet another year might not be a green decision!

Fair enough. The reason is that the upcoming replacement appears to fully correct a few issues in the motor and gear reducer. Certainly there have been far fewer reports in the last year of these problems causing a noise and requiring repairs but the mostly-benign 'dirty oil' issue remains. There's lots of info on this if you search for it although you'll see that few owners care about it.

I doubt you'd have to wait as much as a year but of course you could always ask your dealer to keep you informed. It will have the same drivetrain as the latest Kia Niro EV which has been out for several months already.

The SpeakEV.com forum has a majority of UK owners and you could join that group to keep more apprised of the local market.

Kiwi, when you say the 12 V battery discharge can be caused by leaving a door ajar; is that really because leaving a door ajar means that the car can't go to sleep properly, causing its system to use curent from the 12 volt battery? Same effect from pinging the car with bluetooth? A single LED, or incandescent bulb should not flatten the 12 V battery quickly, should it?

Correct on the first 2 reasons. It's nothing to do with bulbs. The battery is fairly "small" but you can see that I've had no problem. My ICE car has much the same size battery but I can leave a door open all day.

 

[spineytoo]

Fair enough. The reason is that the upcoming replacement appears to fully correct a few issues in the motor and gear reducer. Certainly there have been far fewer reports in the last year of these problems causing a noise and requiring repairs but the mostly-benign 'dirty oil' issue remains. There's lots of info on this if you search for it although you'll see that few owners care about it.

I doubt you'd have to wait as much as a year but of course you could always ask your dealer to keep you informed. It will have the same drivetrain as the latest Kia Niro EV which has been out for several months already.

The SpeakEV.com forum has a majority of UK owners and you could join that group to keep more apprised of the local market.

Correct on the first 2 reasons. It's nothing to do with bulbs. The battery is fairly "small" but you can see that I've had no problem. My ICE car has much the same size battery but I can leave a door open all day.

Thank you Kiwi. I already know, thanks to you and others, how to mitigate the 12 volt problem. I hope I don't suffer too much from the gear reducer. I heard yesterday that my car has arrived in port and is awaiting a transporter, so perhaps I may have the car next week.

 

[spineytoo]

I believe that Hyundai require the 12 volt battery to be disconnected before attaching a mains battery charger, but I have read of people ignoring that, without reported consequences. It must be the case that if the 12 Volt battery gets very low, the Kona system shuts down and that means the intermittent charging pulse from the traction battery ceases. (otherwise the 12 volt battery would not get low?! Too much chicken and egg here!)
But If I should attach my mains battery charger without disconnecting the Kona's 12 volt battery, I assume that once 12 volts appears, the car sytem will wake up again. That presumably means that the intermittent charging regime will operate. That would mean my charger AND the Kona's 12 volt charger would both be active. Would that be a problem? Is that why Hyundai recommend disconnecting the 12 volt battery before charging?
It would be so much more convenient if there was no need for the disconnection. Quickly connecting a charger if a low 12 volts was suspected, or finding a refusal to start, would take seconds in te home garage.

 

[Kiwi]

As long as an external charger doesn't provide more than about 18 volts I can't see there being a problem with leaving the 12V battery connected for the duration. Even if the Kona's automatic charging happen to kick-in I doubt it would care. That would provide its usual 14.7 V and if the 12V battery was held at much the same level by an external charger then little or no current would flow, much as what already happens when the 12V battery is fully charged.

Hyundai are just protecting their interests in case someone attaches some sort of specialty charger that slams in a short-term high voltage or applies an extreme momentary load. I've charged mine a few times with just a power supply set to 13.8 or 14.7 V but now just use the Kona's Utility Mode which does the same thing at the push of a button.

You can learn everything you need to know by installing a BM2.

 

[spineytoo]

Thank you Kiwi. Perhaps I should spend the £40 and buy a BM2. But I want to have the car first!
I have tried to copy your posts so that I can keep a document with all this useful data. But the select, copy and paste does not work into Libre Office.
With the 4-hourly 20 minute charge regime it seems strange that the battery ever goes flat. But, you say, if the car's system is live that regime stops. As you have said the system wakes up with a door open, a ping from a Blue Link phone, or one from the wall charger.
When driving, what charge regime from the traction battery operates?
What is the normal average drain on the 12 volt battery when the vehicle is parked?
You said
"I occasionally see the car adding an intermediate charge (at 2 hours) when it thinks the battery is low but it's often hours later, well past catching a problem that might cause a failure to start."
I did not understand this. In park, how could the charging regime NOT keep up with the normal discharge current?(Unless, I suppose, the battery is so old and tired that it does not process the charge.)

 

[spineytoo]

Kiwi.
Way up in this thread, you said;_
"If you want to leave the doors open simply place the car from Run to Utility mode using the dash menus and you can leave them open all day. It cannot be driven in or from that mode without having the key present and starting from "off". "
Should that have read not Run but "In unlocked park mode"? Another member recommended always switching on the system (ie Run) immediately after opening the door, so that the traction battery is running the auxilliary stuff. The people running the battery flat while loading are probably not in "Run". ?

 

[Kiwi]

When driving, what charge regime from the traction battery operates?

What is the normal average drain on the 12 volt battery when the vehicle is parked?

You said
"I occasionally see the car adding an intermediate charge (at 2 hours) when it thinks the battery is low but it's often hours later, well past catching a problem that might cause a failure to start."
I did not understand this. In park, how could the charging regime NOT keep up with the normal discharge current?(Unless, I suppose, the battery is so old and tired that it does not process the charge.)

Way up in this thread, you said;_
"If you want to leave the doors open simply place the car from Run to Utility mode using the dash menus and you can leave them open all day. It cannot be driven in or from that mode without having the key present and starting from "off". "
Should that have read not Run but "In unlocked park mode"? Another member recommended always switching on the system (ie Run) immediately after opening the door, so that the traction battery is running the auxilliary stuff.

The people running the battery flat while loading are probably not in "Run". ?

1. It's much like an ICE. It's a mix of 14.7 V and 13.1 V. The more accessories are running the more it's at 14.7. See image.

2. 24 mA in my case.

3. It's a bit more complicated. There is a small microcontroller-based sensor on the battery terminal (IBS) that logs current flow and voltage 24/7. During that time the 12V battery is in an essentially unloaded state. The car has to wake up to read that data and determine what to do, which it does every 4:20 hours. From my observations sometimes it decides not to immediately proceed with a 20 minute charge, or skip the next one. Other times adds a second charge only 2 hours later. Either way, until it checks the IBS it has no way to understand the state of the 12V battery.

4. You can't enter Utility Mode directly, it has to be from Run Mode. The procedure is correct.

5. The car can sit in Run Mode for extended periods and it primarily differs from Utility Mode in that the car can be driven off without checking the key presence again. Utility Mode is in the menus and not as easy to engage as it should be, yet it is the most sensible mode to use when having doors open for more than a few minutes. You can only leave Utility Mode by turning the car off completely.

EDIT: oops, here's the image.

 

[spineytoo]

Thank you Kiwi.
So I think that means that while driving, the 12 volt battery is permently on charge at a variable voltage. (Just like a IC alternator situation.)
The Kona battery is 60 Ampere Hours capacity. So fully charged it would take around 3 1/2 months to discharge at 24mA current. What we don't know is what the discharge current is when the car is woken up. Since so many owners are getting flat batteries, it is this higher current which must be responsible. I suppose that the regular charge after 4 hours 20 minutes starts when the car goes back to sleep - and thus would NEVER occur if the car keeps on being woken (but not set to Run or set to Utility).
It does seem to me that owners with the flat battery syndrome must either have prevented the car going to sleep when they leave it - or are having it frequently woken at less than 4.33 hour intervals.
But it is still difficult to understand how the battery could posibly go flat while you go in for a coffee at a Service Station.

 

[Kiwi]

I have no idea how other owners manage to drain their batteries but I've seen it happen once when the hatch cover was left open for an hour at an EV meet-up, easily fixed with a jump pack. Amusingly, it only took a few minutes for a Tesla owner to come over and explain to everyone why Tesla is better.

Once you get your Kona you can analyse all the various current drains and report back. Only one owner has done that before but that didn't shed any light on the issue.

 

[spineytoo]

FWIW: My wife has driven a 2021 Kona EV (the middle grade one, no leather seats) since Aug 2020.

I told her back on day one of ownership, that (unlike my TM3) the Kona will run only on its 12 volt battery when one enters the car and “farts around” with this that and the other thing UNTIL the car is turned on and one gets the green symbol that shows its ready to drive.

Since day one, she has been very good at ensuring the very first thing she does after entering the car is to actually start it (engage the traction battery for all 12 volt services) and then “fart around” with adjusting this, that and the other thing.

I’m the designated car detailer/basic mechanical service person; anytime I work with this car, I always start it first and then proceed to do what needs doing.

The above techniques minimize the time the 12 volt battery has to carry the load on its own; hopefully that translates to a 48 month or greater service life for the 12 volt battery.
YMMV

Hi Navguy, My Kona 64kWh was finally delivered last week. I have been following your advice and turning the car on before doing anything else. That has given me a charging problem. I have an OHME wall charger capabable of around 7kW. Twice now I have had the car "on" and plugged in the charger and set up the % aiming point. Returning to the car I have tried to turn it "off", but it gives me a message "Unplug the charger to drive" (or somesuch). When I try to unplug the charger I find it locked in. I could find no way to do anything! (Dark in the garage and unable to find the physical release - pushed an orange button to no effect - I must find this release.) So I switched off the mains electricity breaker for the OHME charger. Then I could remove the charging plug and turn the car on and off.

 

[spineytoo]

Hi Navguy, My Kona 64kWh was finally delivered last week. I have been following your advice and turning the car on before doing anything else. That has given me a charging problem. I have an OHME wall charger capabable of around 7kW. Twice now I have had the car "on" and plugged in the charger and set up the % aiming point. Returning to the car I have tried to turn it "off", but it gives me a message "Unplug the charger to drive" (or somesuch). When I try to unplug the charger I find it locked in. I could find no way to do anything! (Dark in the garage and unable to find the physical release - pushed an orange button to no effect - I must find this release.) So I switched off the mains electricity breaker for the OHME charger. Then I could remove the charging plug and turn the car on and off.

OK, I looked on line, rather than spending hours looking at the manual. Just use the key and press open - even if the car is open - and the plug will be released. Failing that PULL the orenge tit rather than pushing it!

 

[Kiwi]

You can use any means to unlock the car but if the car was already unlocked the door outer button won't work on the first attempt.

 

[spineytoo]

I have no idea how other owners manage to drain their batteries but I've seen it happen once when the hatch cover was left open for an hour at an EV meet-up, easily fixed with a jump pack. Amusingly, it only took a few minutes for a Tesla owner to come over and explain to everyone why Tesla is better.

Once you get your Kona you can analyse all the various current drains and report back. Only one owner has done that before but that didn't shed any light on the issue.

Hello Kiwi,
I took delivery of the Kona EV Ultimate on 26th Jan. We love it.
It occured to me that without manifold vacuum, there has to be another way of providing foot-brake assistance. I did not get much useful info from Google but idd find a mention of pump noise. Now the need for braking is something that the OS must take notice of, so I suppose one of the earliest things for the system to do is ensure there is brake assistance pressure. I wonder how many amps the pump takes.

 

[Kiwi]

It's a very high-tech system but won't take any more electrical power than a conventional ABS system, which is integral, promotional video below. Note that the single unit optimally selects friction and regen braking via foot pedal. You won't get that in a Tesla or a few other EVs like the Mini-E. MOBIS is one of Hyundai/Kia's technology suppliers.

Congratulations and glad you like the Kona!

 

[spineytoo]

It's a very high-tech system but won't take any more electrical power than a conventional ABS system, which is integral, promotional video below. Note that the single unit optimally selects friction and regen braking via foot pedal. You won't get that in a Tesla or a few other EVs like the Mini-E. MOBIS is one of Hyundai/Kia's technology suppliers.

Congratulations and glad you like the Kona!

Thank you Kiwi. Very interesting and very clever. Understandably it did not tell us in detail how it works. I guess there must be a pressure vessel, since it is not possible to compress hydraulic oil; unless the hydraulic pump has an instantaeous response and runs continuously while brakes are applied. Just guessing!

 

[Kiwi]

... unless the hydraulic pump has an instantaneous response and runs continuously while brakes are applied. Just guessing!

That's what it does, just like in any car when ABS is activated.

 

[spineytoo]

That's what it does, just like in any car when ABS is activated.

I was not aware that any of my old ICE cars had an ELECTRIC motor pump attached to the master cylinder - but it is also true that I never had to interfere with their working. Ignorance can be bliss!

 

[Kiwi]

ABS units on most, if not all ICE cars are separate from the MC as you're aware. But as the video infers (it's not terribly obvious to be fair) is that the ABS is combined in this unit.

 

[spineytoo]

There is nothing different here than any other Kona EV. You can get away with 20 minutes if your 12V battery is in top condition. Using a different 12V battery is not going to help.

For whatever reason the car wakes up to a level where it expects you to get in and drive. A similar thing can happen if you plug in your home charger when it is not powered-up. The car keeps trying and may drain the battery in desperation.

If you want to leave the doors open simply place the car from Run to Utility mode using the dash menus and you can leave them open all day. It cannot be driven in or from that mode without having the key present and starting from "off".

Hello KiwiME, I believe you once mentioned adjusting the boot light switch to make sure it registered a closed boot reliably. Please can you say where it is located?

 

[Kiwi]

It wasn't the boot light switch but the rubber stops under the boot cover. Two of them are have threads in the rubber for adjustability. Just turn them in all the way.