#55 Road trip with Hyundai Kona part 2 

This video is why I follow you. You show everything, including the frustration. You are improving the EV industry faster than any other non-ev employee.

Excellent video. This is exactly the sort of thing that EV road trips need to reveal. Of course, it will hardly ever happen in many countries that don't experience Norwegian style winters [except Canada, where it will no doubt happen all winter, every winter 😁]

In Germany we say "In der Not frisst der Teufel Fliegen" which means "In need the devil eats flies" :-)

"look, the charge port should have some rubbers seals to prevent ice getting in" *takes the Ionity charge cable which is literally a cube of ice* "shiieeeet" LOL Anyhow, the fix for that might be the most simple...just put a bit of rubber gasket around the port, in order to isolate it as much as you can. I also agree that you picked the right time to extensively test the Kona for that kind of winter scenario.

Its a great pleasure as always to watch your videos!

Hello Bjorn , I love what you do to inform us keep going with your excellent work

Most excellent video, thanks Bjorn. Real LOL moment at the ICEd charger and also loved the gangnam style artificial lobster noodles. Highly entertaining 🙂

I like that you show the good, the bad and the ugly. Thanks for sharing.

You are the coolest guy Bjorn!

On the frozen charge port and the chargers. For the charge port on the car, as others already said, better rubber seals and springs and so on. Also putting in a heating element would be a good idea incase it is ever frozen or to prevent frezing altogether. For the chargers, maybe a big roof over the charger, or maybe even also some heating elements. Its good to learn about those problems now in order to fix them so when more people drive EVs this wont be a problem anymore.

Glad you covered the frozen over EVSE as well as those that use shelters. We've seen similar issues here in New England as the cold snap just came over and I have to assume it was 10x worse in the midwest where they had the "real" Polar Vortex! I've recently looked at ice-encrusted L2 ChargePoint locations and lots where the EV spots have had snow plowed into them, but at least I could still go home to charge... on a road trip like yours, access is the difference between driving on and getting stranded. Glad you made it home and thanks for documenting!

Thanks for this test. Go on testing cars in Björns way. It‘s always great fun to watch your videos.

Brilliant video thanks for sharing

Yes, the charge port door on the Kona looks real flimsy. They should have a proper spring and better rubber seal to keep out the snow.

I really like the look of the Kona, and many aspects of it. Given our long harsh winters (where I am in Canada), been researching the electric cars for the climate. Still not 100%, however your videos are so informative and helpful. Perhaps the charging/poor seal issues, will be tweaked in the coming models of the Kona.

Love your videos Bjorn. I wish America would adopt Evs the way Norway has. Keep up the good work.

Thanks Bjorn really helping us Canadien with real weather situation, keep it up, We are waiting here for the Nero EV

That was a pretty annoying experience you had. I'm glad you found the reason for it. Hopefully Hyundai will have sorted out the issue by April when I get my Kona, although as I'm in the south of England I don't expect it to be a concern for me very often (having said that, we've had snow here in the last few days, and it was -5 C last night, which is really unusual!)

Great stuff! This is what I call a real Car-TEST! I am trying to convince some German -AUTO-Experts to watch your Real Expertise in real driving Conditions...but...Guess what!! No German want´s to understand englisch, "Except you publish TOP positive ísch´e-Tron" Tests. BTW, Helga would have perfectly gone thru that Audi Voice-Command Test :-)

So, if I see that, I'll stay with my hybrid for a while: D Great work you do with the videos.

I was touched by the electric car virus! And so I got to watch a lot of reviews about it. Thank you Mr. Bjorn for these videos, which show us the reality. Good job! Good luck in the future ! You made me have 2 cars in the spotlight for a future purchase!

Seriously, can you imagine going to this charger with very little range and the thing doesn’t work?! Wow! I would seriously go nuts... winter conditions and your only option doesn’t work. That sucks and Ionity should get it fixed ASAP. Edit: scratch that. Get Hyundai to fix the charge port, this is kind of bad. I was planning to check out the Kona as a purchase, but this is kind of leading me to think not until it’s fixed. Thank you for this test!

Again awesome Video!

Its really nice to see you sleeping in different cars, really shows the good camping qualities of EVs. if you use a inflateable mattress i guess you need to bring an extra blanket as a insulation from the bottom. Did you ever think about using a sleeping bag instead of regular blankets?

It's nice to hear that Hyundai is working on a fix for the snow getting into the charge port. Bjørn is no dummy. I believe that he purposely did not brush or blow away the excess snow from around the charge port or the fast charger's connector before plugging in, to simulate real world conditions where people may not be so conscientious. Personally, I would have cleaned everything perfectly and then plugged in.

"Hyundai needs to fix this shit" - Bjorn at 26:58. love the videos

Very useful test of the charging port which is obviously underdeveloped. As does the Ionity customer support seem to be... 😜

I've watched your videos for a couple of years now and I know one thing. I have to visit Norway!

If a charge port rubber gasket is the only problem you had, the Kona Electric is amazing. Hyundai is quick to respond to issues once brought to their attention. Adding a gasket can be done by the dealer once the part is fabricated. Thanks for the extended test.

Great video, additional preparation of the insulation of the cover of charging port is needed in Viking country over the winter, especially during snow storms. Too shame for Ionity for building up chargers without cover or any similar set up. Thanks for let us know once more how bed front charging spot in the EVs really is. In Slavic language: "Vrag nikada ne spava!" - Devil never sleeps! is kind a of some relation to Germanic devil sayings...

Thx for the test. Really bad Kona with snow...

Yikes! I get my Kona this spring. I love live in Ottawa Canada. Third coldest capital city in the world. Almost 100cms of snow in January. WD40, Compressed air, my winter scraper and brush, weather stripping foam sealant. Yikes! Hope they come up with a proper fix quickly.

I'm picking up my new Kona E on Friday here in Québec, i'll check with the Hyundai to see if the've resolved the charge port problem, thanks to you.

I know from sleeping in a hammock in adverse weather, you need an under-blanket. Otherwise, you never get to sleep. In the UK the saying is broadly similar, “When needs must, the devil drives.”

That’s why the german carmakers do intensive wintertests for exampel in arjeplog sweden in order to ensure basic charging functionalities.

Hi Bjorn, I agree this is a problem with an easy fix, in a few years there will be may Kona/ENiro with only one eye! The ingress of snow is only one problem, I watched the first Ionity charge attempt carefully and it looks like the compacted snow/ice was inserted into the socket surround by you! There was too much ice/snow on the Ionity plug which should have been knocked off and that also should be more protected. Why aren't electric chargers and their parking covered like the pumps for ICE cars? Good Vid Steve

@teslabjorn, my car had the same problem, did not charge and I had to hypermile( gom was 86 km but home was 106 km away). The reason was the locking mechanism was frozen( inside bonnet) and I had to warm the back of the charging port( the release wire and the box with the red connectors) to enable charging

There is a quick fix if you expect to drive in snowy conditions, just simply tape the lid on the chargeport , seal it tight. It's not perfect , and you need to bring tape with you, it will however fix the problem. Also its a good habit to use a brush, the type you have in your car in wintertime for the windows , just give the charging plug a few taps and make sure it's clean.

Front mounted charging ports are rubbish, I prefer the "fuel lid"-placement of other cars. You don't get snow into the port, and you can back into the stalls.

I like how you calling electricity "juice" 😂🤣

Good music 👍

I think the issue is mainly the plug. Once I tried to charge my ioniq with a snow covered chargepoint plug, and the charging wouldn't start. The chargepoint charger display said that the high voltage test was a fail, I looked in the plug and there was snow right at the bottom in the plug, likely pushed in when mating it to the car. When I blew out all the snow from the plug and car the charging worked. I think once you have snow in either end, you'll have issues.

Hello Bjorn, I may have a suggestion that might work for your port door problem with the snow. In hardware store you will probably find sponge rolls about 1/2 inch ,maybe 1.5mm wide and different thickness, with one sticki side. It may work if it is install in a way that the push open/close switch of the door is not affected has the sponge will be pressed. I also would like to know if you have experience side wind problems with the e-Niro , the same way you have with the Kona EV ? Thank's for your videos, they are always good and funny.

It’s not only the car that freezes up but the charge station as well

I know it an old video, but I think Hyundai has a real issue with the older Kona's that is undercommunicated. My 2019 Kona bugged out on Ionity-stations quite often. I could not trust leaving the car charging by itself. I complained to my local dealer but they didn't take it seriously. Coldgating was also annoying, so I wanted to make a misleading marketing claim based on Hyundais 10-80% "43 minutes" claim. I guess if you mostly AC charge at home then no worries, but you often discover most of these issues if you DC-charge regularly. I got a bit scared that some of these issues are still not fixed, when I saw your video about 2024 Kona that bugged out on one of the sessions. Charge point placement in front is stupid, overall.

Quick suggestion. Maybe you should create a short video of 6:06 to 7:30 showing some of the issues with the frozen charge port, cord, and charger. A lot of people out here in America are confused about some of the cold weather impacts to EVs, so it would be helpful.

it`s so funny...you re simply the best !... :-)

This is another excellent report and highlights the dreadful state of charging station design and in particular two issues that I hate - payment per charge session and mobile phone access. How can it be acceptable to take money for nothing. No matter what the cause is, user, phone, car, cable or charger, taking payment for nothing supplied should be illegal. What is wrong with establishing payment per KWH as standard. Secondly, having to fiddle about with a mobile phone in cold, snow or rain, or try to get back into the car before the connection times out is unacceptable. Equally, requiring the use of mobile phones to initiate charging is unacceptable here in the UK where mobile phone reception is far from universal.

Inflatable mattresses do get so cold. Looking at a mattress topper if I go camping in my Tesla. Oh yeah good shit. Helga will be sad you won't be calling back. #KonaGate

Note to self, install weather stripping around charge port on the door. $2 fix to a potentially very annoying issue.

All they have to do is recall the charging door flap. Replace it with a sealed winter ready design with proper sealed off gaskets. I live in Minnesota so it would be my concern as well. Love the car so it has to survive In winters.

Thanks for the nice videos you make.. just suggestion while driving once while it be cool to show how many kw the heater draw its pertty cool when see how efficient are the heat pump I drive bolt ev and the heat draw 4 to 5 kw sometimes more losin 40to 50%of range

Maybe you could try stretching a small piece of cling film over the ports before putting the port caps back on. This might stop the snow from entering the socket. A rough and ready workaround.

I live in Alaska and the freezing of the charge port door would be a big issue here. We constantly have temperature swings where during the day temps hover around freezing and you get a lot of freezing rain/slush on the road that ends up covering the front of your car in a solid sheet of icy crap.

It would be quite easy to put a little resistance inside the charge port to keep it at let's say +5°C so no more problem. For current owners maybe a windproof seal as found in many DIY stores would be enough ?

That slapped the Kona in Portuguese. 😂😂😂

I'm looking forward to the improved door with seal retrofit recal from Hyundai.

I think that you are lucky in Norway where the price for a Tesla model 3 is almost the same as for the other ev:s. In Sweden it costs 650 000 SEK which is about 44% more than in Norway!

maybe try to dry the connector with some wd-40 (like old distributor cap and spark plug wires in ice car of the past) to be sure that there is no stray current. Everything beeing humid and salty may cause stray current and this causing problems and stop charging.

Bjørn, you have to get @visitnorway to pay you for the advertisement of Norway you do. Fantastic job :)

You can ask the Ionity manager to let the customer service know about the winter problem, so they could tell you (and other people who call) to try to clean the charging port when you called them. Seems like they are not aware of these real-world issues yet as it is very new and do not have the experience?

Seems like you need Fastned in Norway as well! In the Netherlands and Germany I never experienced problems with them

A very simple fix to stop the snow getting into the plug port is use a rubber dummy charger plug like other EV manufacturers.

I had the same problem with snow in charging port on my New Leaf. It sucks!

If snow does that how about the fine desert sand that gets everywhere.

Hyundai nailed it putting Kona EV in the streets before any other but Tesla and Nissan. Only with 30-60k cars on the road you can start learning about real world problems that occur. Now, it is worthless if they don't act fast enough to solve those problems. I know there are errors with other charge networks and I didn't hear of a solution. In a couple of monthes they should have a software update to solve connection with charges and a solution to the snow problem. Will they?

You could use compressed air from tire pump stations.

I somehow only interested mostly with the portable kettle and the noodle !!! Could you actually run the kettle from car ? Amazing !!.

There is a product in the US called WD40 - wd stands for water displacer. Snow and ice just falls off my charging port, or maybe an alcohol de-icer spray would work too.

"Slap the wifey" lol

Are there street lights on all roadways in Norway? I love the video through snow country and it reminds me so much of driving through Maine in the wintertime.

I guess the trouble is in the Type 2 or Mennekes plug. The pin for one of the 2 pilot signals is a little bit too short by intention.

One more thing, could you make a video about all the problems that occured while testing the cars in winter and how you would fix them or what could be done to resolve them?

I had this problem with my Ioniq electric! The car made some clicking noises before charging and then nothing happened. There was a problem that should have been fixed before delivery of the car. They fixed it for free and it took only 1 hour.

The way I see it, one of the best way to prevent this from happening is to have the car manufacturers install an electric heater on the charging ports of their cars to prevent ice from forming inside during the winter. It should be connected to a sensor or thermostat and will automatically turn ON once the temperature on the charging port reaches freezing point, and turn OFF when it reaches 30 to 40 degrees to avoid overheating.

I've had the same charging issue with BKK's charging stations and their type 2 connectors. It never works with my B-class. Charges for 10 seconds and disconnects. That's why I always bring my own cable.

It doesn‘t seem like such a bad idea after all to have additional protective plugs covering the charging pins like many other cars have. However, I had a similar issue wirh my i3 when there was corrosion on the pins, which could be solved by spraying WD40 on them. Maybe washing the charge port with washer fluid could also help...

South Korea has winters, but it's very rare to get that type of Norwegian extreme winters shown here.

Herbert!

Those chargers seem so exposed to the elements. Petrol stations have nice roof structures over the pumps at least.

this is my ideal car rn. except it's insanely expensive because of our vehicle tax structures in Singapore ):

Thank jou for good Video, its realy good. I think Niro is better ask Kona.

Problem with the charger location. I've always said the chargers should be under the hood/bonnet. Have a cable guide on the gasket that surrounds the hood and plug in under the hood and close lock the hood. No one unplugs you, no one steals your cord, charger doesn't freeze shut. Add a heater to the hood release so it doesn't freeze shut etc...

Chargeport Ioniq also gets frozen and only can be opend from the inside .. mayor pain.

Hey Björn, if you should read this. What is the name of the last track with the hiphop beat? I couldn‘t find it in your playlist. Thanks.

Did you find there was enough length in the Kona to sleep OK? Maybe you can use the regular and inflatable mattress together to keep it insulated and comfy from underneath?

Paying for every single charge, even if not successful is like driving on a parking lot which is full, so you need to exit again and then needing to pay for exiting again (which luckily normally isn't the case, because parking lot payment systems where designed by smarter people than that EV charging station payment system -.-)

The End is near!! Asian eating noodles without sticks!

Ionity Customer support is the worst. The Service Rep should have charged back Bjorn immediately. On top of that she should have created an account for him and add credits for at least 1 extra charge. He had charging problems on 2 Ionity stations in one day. Even in the case it would have been a problem with Kona.

I had the excact same ionity charging problem with a Kona in Denmark. I also wasted 240 kroners. There must be something wrong with Konas and Ionity.

Hei Bjørn, vil bare sige jeg nyder dine videoer :-) Ha det på badet - er det ikje såen I siger i Norge? Eller er det kun på Vestlandet?

IONIQ and Kona do sometimes collaps charging... i don’t know if it is a problem with the protocol or not... that is really annoying...

Can you try and speed up some of the dash cam fotage like a timelapse?

What temperature setting did you have through the night?

a drive on charging point would be ideal.bit like wireless mobile charging

First time charging at Ionity also costs me 3 times 8 euro's without even getting a Wh.

Hello Bjørn. I have experienced the same issue with some fast chargers on my own Kona. If I set the DC charge power to "reduced" in the car, it usually latches on and starts charging. I have yet to inquire Hyundai about this, would love to hear your thoughts as this should not be necessary

Do you need to put AC on in order to take the advantage of heat pump?

Snow in the charge port ! why isn't it at the back in the same place as the fuel filler on a ice car and the same place as the charge port on the ioniq then there wouldn't be that problem. A rubber gasket would be a good idea too. Also having the charge port at the front means you have to reverse out possibly into traffic which isn't ideal. Surely it is a lot better to reverse into a parking space / charging station so that you can drive straight out . Is it just cost saving ?

On Ionity’s website, the recurring banner is: A European reality Hassle free Spontaneous A relaxing experience The new normal Crap with Kona & Niro in bad weather and none of the above. Ok. That last one isn’t there but by your demonstration, it should be. Though to be fare to Ionity,. It’s Hyundai & Kia’s ill designed charge ports and lack of full winter testing. It shouldn’t be, that when someone buys a new vehicle. They have to modify it to use in bad weather. Come on Hyundai & Kia, do some winter testing before releasing the vehicles. Do Hyundai and Kia do a winter driving pack, aka, a roll of duct tape? I wonder if it says in the owners’ manual, under winter driving: When driving in bad weather. It is essential that the driver uses duct tape to seal the charge port in the closed position.