Official Kia Soul EV thread

[lorenfb]

While at the SoCal Nissan dealer near the 405 & 110 to have my Leaf's first annual inspection and service,
I was able to raise the topic of "wrapped' Kias I've seen driving in the South Bay, with a Nissan staff member.
He indicated that a number of those Kias damaged the QC at his location at least three times. That resulted
in the QC being 'down' each time for over a day. Each time the Kia test driver was asked not to use the Nissan
QC, as Leaf owners rely on that QC for charging during their commute along the 405 freeway. Obviously,
as has been posted before, Kia has a charging problem!

Additionally, I was to able to gain access to a new 2015 Leaf on the dealer's lot and to use my LeafSpy to
gather data (interesting when compared Kia) on its battery, which I'll link to here:
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18485

 

[pkulak]

I would have a tough time living with those aero wheels.

Yeah, those wheels are pretty gross. You have a car with the aerodynamics of a shoebox and you then decide to earn some aero points with the wheels? They can't make that much of a difference.

 

[lorenfb]

We have no idea what kind of production ramp-up is required by SK Innovation.

They very cleverly at NOT making the same mistakes Nissan made.

You don't blast out 50,000 cars and find a major problem, like a battery that fails.

First, you trickle a few all around the world to make sure the dealers are up to speed, infrastructure is in place, spare parts, training, compatibility with everybody's charging stuff (already a problem for Kia), and a whole host of other things.

Then, when you're sure everything is "go", then you attack the dominant #1 EV maker in the world. Not before.

Well played.

Given how car markets change and evolve now days especially the BEV market, an OEM can't really
spend years to evaluate a product and test its market acceptance. If the OEM fails to establish a significant
'foot-hold' in a short period of time, that OEM may never be able to reach a profitable market volume.
This is what being said of the ICE OEMs as they 'watch' Tesla and test the market with their marginal
BEV entrants and compliance vehicles, i.e. the volume BEV market will pass the ICE OEMs and Tesla
will truly be "the auto market disrupter".

Furthermore, it doesn't take years to; "make sure the dealers are up to speed, infrastructure is in place, spare parts, training". It not as if the Kia BEV is a 'ground-up' design and built without any commonality of
parts, facilities, and a Soul ICE staff.

Hey, Nissan hasn't done that badly with their "problem" (please - like a major Toyota/GM recall) given
their present sales volume and product acceptance!

 

[Stoaty]

Furthermore, it doesn't take years to; "make sure the dealers are up to speed, infrastructure is in place, spare parts, training". It not as if the Kia BEV is a 'ground-up' design and built without any commonality of parts, facilities, and a Soul ICE staff.

Yes, but it will take longer than weeks or a few months.

 

[cwerdna]

While at the SoCal Nissan dealer near the 405 & 110 to have my Leaf's first annual inspection and service,
I was able to raise the topic of "wrapped' Kias I've seen driving in the South Bay, with a Nissan staff member.
He indicated that a number of those Kias damaged the QC at his location at least three times. That resulted
in the QC being 'down' each time for over a day. Each time the Kia test driver was asked not to use the Nissan
QC, as Leaf owners rely on that QC for charging during their commute along the 405 freeway. Obviously,
as has been posted before, Kia has a charging problem!

Were they http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, ABB or some other brand? Was is physical damage to the connector or something internal, similar/the same as the alleged ABB & Soul EV compatibility pborlem?

 

[TomT]

I tend to take anything that lorenfb writes with a large barrel of salt...

Were they http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, ABB or some other brand? Was is physical damage to the connector or something internal, similar/the same as the alleged ABB & Soul EV compatibility pborlem?

 

[lorenfb]

While at the SoCal Nissan dealer near the 405 & 110 to have my Leaf's first annual inspection and service,
I was able to raise the topic of "wrapped' Kias I've seen driving in the South Bay, with a Nissan staff member.
He indicated that a number of those Kias damaged the QC at his location at least three times. That resulted
in the QC being 'down' each time for over a day. Each time the Kia test driver was asked not to use the Nissan
QC, as Leaf owners rely on that QC for charging during their commute along the 405 freeway. Obviously,
as has been posted before, Kia has a charging problem!

Were they http://nissanqc.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, ABB or some other brand? Was is physical damage to the connector or something internal, similar/the same as the alleged ABB & Soul EV compatibility pborlem?

Whatever the cause, the fact that the Kia Soul can damage a QC that Leaf owners depend upon for
their daily critical commute is very problematic. Furthermore, it reflects very poorly on a company
with a known problematic issue to not correct it or avoid situations where they will continue to get
"bad press", e.g. competitor forums.

 

[pkulak]

If a QC can be damaged at all just by being plugged in, that's a really bad design. That would be like a new browser that shuts down Facebook if someone uses it to check their feed. Sure, it's probably not the greatest browser, but what the hell is wrong with Facebook that it can just get shut down by a non-maliciius user?

 

[lorenfb]

If a QC can be damaged at all just by being plugged in, that's a really bad design. That would be like a new browser that shuts down Facebook if someone uses it to check their feed. Sure, it's probably not the greatest browser, but what the hell is wrong with Facebook that it can just get shut down by a non-maliciius user?

Poor analogy!

A worst case engineering design for failures of a product does not design for EVERY possible cause
of a failure, but only the most probable/likely and known when initially designed, given cost constraints.

 

[Valdemar]

Based on the info so far burning QC chargers seems like a fairly repeatable problem. How could it escape Kia engineers, especially with their commitment to ABB chargers? Is this an indication of an overall inadequate testing and validation performed prior to the release of the vehicle?

 

[minispeed]

Wow I love how everyone has jumped to the conclusion that the KIA Soul EV is the problem. There is also a chance that the brand of charger that is going down (as I understand it it is only 1 brand) is doing something that is not in line with the spec of Chamedo.

So lets say the Chamedo spec says that the car and do X and the charger will do Y back, it's very possible that the Leaf and mitsubishis (the only other chamedo cars I think) never did X and so the fault with the charger was never detected.

It would be a little early to jump on Kia engineers when we do not know what the cause of the problem is and the solution, but hey this is the internet, jumping to conclusions and attacking people is it's number 2 purpose.

That being said, Kia definetly has a moral responsibility to communicate with the people who have purchased the vehicles and inform them of what will happen if they use that type of charger.

 

[KJD]

The ABB quick chargers have a horrible reputation for failure. There are 7 or 8 of them here in Utah and I think that as of today every one of them are down.

Not a Kia EV within 500 miles of here.

 

[evnow]

Quote: "Confirmation of compliance status." Nothing in what I read indicated compliance vehicle to me... "5,000 vehicles by the end of the year" is not far off from what Nissan sold in the same time frame...

Really - Nissan sold 5k in 15 months ?

I know you desperately want believe it is a compliance vehicle but saying so doesn't make it so...

I actually desperately want to believe all OEMs are serious about EVs and make only non-compliance cars. But the reality is far from that.

You have self confessed to being very angry with Nissan. This is making your statements obviously prejudiced.

 

[evnow]

Kia isn't required to sell the car in Canada... they are. They are not required to sell in South Africa, or Europe, or a whole bunch of places other than the CARB-ZEV states.

They also didn't to make it go 100 miles down the freeway. They could have done like VW and made a 2011 LEAF clone and sold it only in California and other CARB-ZEV states.

Or GM, and actually make the battery smaller for 2015 in their Spark EV compliance vehicle when they figured out it went "too far".

I hate to let everybody down, but Kia is going for it.

We can say the same thing about several other cars. Rav 4 or MB didn't have to make EVs with larger range. Ford didn't have to "sell" FFE in all states.

It is quite clear that Kia is producing Soul EV in small quantities and selling in only CA (in the US). So atleast in the US it looks like a compliance car.

 

[Devin]

Wow I love how everyone has jumped to the conclusion that the KIA Soul EV is the problem. There is also a chance that the brand of charger that is going down (as I understand it it is only 1 brand) is doing something that is not in line with the spec of Chamedo.

Indeed. The 2011-2012 LEAF EVSE was not completely J1772 compliant and wouldn't work with Tesla-based cars (RAV4 EV, Model S, B-Class ED). In the early days, they didn't work with the Chevy Volt either (I tried) until the Volt received a software update that allowed it to use the Nissan EVSE. http://gm-volt.com/forum/showthread.php?9492-Is-anyone-using-an-EVSE-110v-to-240v-conversion&p=98972#post98972" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[JeremyW]

The charger provides the 12V for the contactors to connect the battery to the CHAdeMO inlet. Here's a wiring diagram from CHAdeMO:

With respect to the Soul EV killing CHAdeMO chargers, the spec does have provisions for the 12V supply to the vehicle. The capacity is stated as 120W (peak) and a 7A continuous rating. It also explicitly states: The supply circuit to the vehicle shall be equipped with a protection measures [sic] for the power supply and wiring against external short circuits.

In other words, even if the Soul is doing a crowbar short across these signal lines, it should not kill the charger.

 

[TonyWilliams]

We can say the same thing about several other cars. Rav 4 or MB didn't have to make EVs with larger range. Ford didn't have to "sell" FFE in all states.

It is quite clear that Kia is producing Soul EV in small quantities and selling in only CA (in the US). So atleast in the US it looks like a compliance car.

The 2012-2014 RAV4 EV (stopped production August 28, 2014) and Mercedes B-Class ED are very specifically and openly sold in only CARB-ZEV states in the USA.

Toyota is openly against EV's, and will not sell EV's in the USA in the foreseeable future. Instead, they spend a fair amount of effort slamming EV's, while touting their "awesome" H2 car that will be leased in California only for CARB-ZEV compliance.

Mercedes is likely following the same exact path, however their compliance did not begin until 2015, there is a three year delay offset to the Toyota course.

Why did they make them go "too far"? For the RAV4 EV, I think they simply let Tesla lead them into a superior car (greater than required). For Mercedes, I think it was good old fashioned competition with BMW and their i3.

These companies are not robots, and human fallacies enter into the decisions. GM "fixed" their mistake of putting too big of a battery in the 2014 Spark EV. The 2015 Spark EV has a 10-20% smaller battery.

Had Toyota kept the RAV4 EV for 2015-2017 (CARB regulations work in three year cycles), I suspect they might have updated it to the newer 2013 and newer body style and used a smaller, cheaper battery. They still may do something like that if the H2 thing doesn't work out by 2025.

The Kia is a completely different approach than any of the larger auto makers referenced above. Yes, today, it a small launch, but I'm convinced that Kia is ready to play ball with Nissan in 2015 and beyond.

 

[Devin]

We can say the same thing about several other cars. Rav 4 or MB didn't have to make EVs with larger range. Ford didn't have to "sell" FFE in all states.

RAV4 and B-Class ED were subcontracted to Tesla. Toyota and MB wanted to make the problem go away, and didn't really care about the details. For another laugh, the B-Class doesn't have charge timers and you have to pay extra to unlock the "Extended Charge" mode. In the RAV, a lot of the car was cobbled together from other Toyotas. The wing mirrors came from the Avalon, the gear shift from the Prius, and the center console from the JDM RHD RAV4 (the handbrake is on the passenger side). The dashboard has a hokey plastic cutout to convert from the shapes of analog dials in the ICE RAV4 to accommodate the digital displays of the EV. It's not necessarily bad to dip into the corporate parts bin, but these examples were done as a quick fix and none of them provide optimal solutions.

The reason Ford sells the FFE in all states is likely political. The FFE is one of the few American-made EVs, and consequently can be found in many government fleets in the U.S. and Canada.

That said, I think this is a pretty silly argument. We can simplify it by having three categories instead of two. Compliance, Maybe Committed, and Committed. Compliance cars don't have factory quick charging. Maybe Committed cars have factory quick charging, but haven't been rolled out extensively. Committed cars have factory quick charging and wide roll out. By this logic, the RAV4, B-Class ED, FFE, and 500e land in Compliance. The Soul EV and BMW i3 can land in Maybe Committed. The Model S and LEAF land in Committed. Or, to think of this another way: Compliance = Hell, Maybe Committed = Purgatory, Committed = Heaven.

 

[TonyWilliams]

That said, I think this is a pretty silly argument. We can simplify it by having three categories instead of two. Compliance, Maybe Committed, and Committed. Compliance cars don't have factory quick charging. Maybe Committed cars have factory quick charging, but haven't been rolled out extensively. Committed cars have factory quick charging and wide roll out. By this logic, the RAV4, B-Class ED, FFE, and 500e land in Compliance. The Soul EV and BMW i3 can land in Maybe Committed. The Model S and LEAF land in Committed. Or, to think of this another way: Compliance = Hell, Maybe Committed = Purgatory, Committed = Heaven.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=322834#p322834" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[adric22]

Committed cars have factory quick charging and wide roll out. By this logic, the RAV4, B-Class ED, FFE, and 500e land in Compliance. The Soul EV and BMW i3 can land in Maybe Committed. The Model S and LEAF land in Committed. Or, to think of this another way: Compliance = Hell, Maybe Committed = Purgatory, Committed = Heaven.

I don't see how you could rank BMW anything but completely committed. The i3 has fast charging, it's a completely dedicated platform (not a conversion of a gas car), and it is available in all 50 states. And the sales are definitely reflective of something more than a compliance car.