My 1st Kia EV6 12 volt problem 

Hi Brian, I have a Subaru Solterra I found early on that if I sit in the car with the radio on and within 10 minutes I get a warning about the battery going flat. Subaru recommend that you keep the car powered up if you want to do things in the car such as playing the radio or adjusting the various setting etc., I have a 12 volt plug in device which shows 14.6 volts when the car is powered up and around 12 volts when not, but like yourself I have a battery booster just in case.

On my 2022 Sportage PHEV if I have the infotainment screen on with say the radio on in accessory mode after about 5mins I get a 12v battery discharge warning on the screen, which the dealer said was normal. And with Kia Connect app version 2.1.8 there was a 12v warning in Status (others) which showed up as a warning in orange and sometimes in red almost permanently after parking overnight and only temporarily cleared if I did a bit if a run. The dealer said disable the app until there's an update to the app which wasn't very helpful. Then when the app updated to version 2.1.9 the 12v warning was removed. At no time did I encounter a flat 12v battery.

I wonder if the USB A (where you had MA1 plugged in) does switch off completely….after all this is where we plug our USB stick in for updates, and these can be done with the vehicle switched off.

Not being able to put it into drive happened 4 or 5 times over a 1 year period on our ev6 but never got that message. Just connected the booster and could go into drive without any problems.

The other day - after 30k km - I could not put the car in drive mode....the 12V battery indicator was on...the OBC showed 12,4V....so I boosted the battery, and then I could put in drive mode. Next morning...no problems, but after work same problem...booster on...would still not go into drive mode...off with the 0-battery wire for 30 sec..on again and yet another boost, and then I could activate drive mode.....I have today been driving up the motorway with the OBC on, and was changing the driving light between auto and full light, but could not detect a clear pattern on when the 12V battery was charged. However in auto mode occasionally the batteri voltage went down to 12,4V, and with full light it went to 13,6-14,1V.....

My Android Auto BT adapter communicates with my smartphone even after turning off my car; so there has to be power passing to the adapter even if the car is "off" after a few minutes at least. There has to be a timer that shuts everything off and maybe yours got stuck in the ON position.

Watch the car scanner 12 volt voltage after you turn the car off. The voltage will drop down to the actual battery voltage. I was watching mine and it does dip down to 12 volts and even lower which was a concern. It hasn't bothered since. I don't know what the voltage would be to trigger a warning.

For a month or so ago it happened to my Ioniq 5, the 12 V battery was completely drown, like only 3 V on it. Tried with a similar jump starter, didn't work. Took it off from the car and charge it over night. Then went to service with the car. They said it is the third party apps that drown the 12 V because they checking on it multiples time and as it happeneds that day my Bluelink app did replay to me with the message " can't connect to the car, daily limit reached" I mean there's a limit of how many times i can connect to my car through Bluelink? My fault I've charged the 12 V and didn't sent the car to service as it was. Waiting for it to happen again 😢

"If you have been, thanks for watching." Have you been hanging around with Robert Llewellyn?😂

Gotta be a software issue. The fact that they have not fixed this since this has been an issue since the car first went on sale is very troubling. Frustrating. In the US this needs to be reported to NTSB to force KIA's hand. Thankfully it has not happened to me. I have the kit to jump start but health issues will make that difficult if it occurs. Thanks for the update.

Thanks for the vid (just found). Have you had this happen since?

Hope its not the MA1 as i purchased one and have been using it since Thursday last. I had the AA wireless but has a setting that kills the device after bluetooth from the phone disconnects from the car. So if i get the 12v problem in the next week or so ill keep you posted.

This sounds more like a false positive: it thinks there's an issue but there isn't. Maybe it just saw the voltage falling faster than it was expecting because the boot was open? I wonder if disconnecting and reconnecting the 12v battery would be enough to clear it? The boot light is LED.

I was hoping you'd analyze the 12V battery graph you see in the BM2 app to try and cross-reference times and activities. BTW, I'm not sure about that "less than 20%" topic. I also heard 30% before.

One of the main reason I sold my EV6 was down to the software experience causing hardware problems. The last week I had my car I was stuck in Tesco carpark in zombie mode at 2:45pm needing to collect the kids from school up the road, stranded, had to Google my way out of it, in the end had to lock and car and walk away and come back after 10mins!. The list if pretty long of issues for the EV6 but all software related for me anyway. Never been hit with the 12v issues yet but Kia who I sold my car to said the 12v battery was very low and likely needed to be replaced or charged, was it not holding charge? who knows. Kia also make us pay for battery pre heating... sorry that's just not on. Also on top of this, the recent changes Kia done to my car ruined the charge curve on DC, its all over the place up and down in speeds, so much for charging in 18mins from 10-80%, It gets to 70% drops to 2kw for at least 5 mins, picks up and drops again. Just Google EV6 charge curve to see what I mean. Hope Kia Fis the issues though, it's a fine car if all of the problems can be fixed!. Don't get me started on spare parts.... Good luck if your need them... 6-12 months wait for major body parts, longer for battery parts I have been told. Kia please fix all of these silly issues! they are letting you down massively!

12v alternators in ICE cars can typically output from 40 to 100 amps and this sort of current is needed to recharge the low voltage battery after a start and run the load of the 12v accessories whilst on the road. With no alternator, EVs have to rely on one of two other power sources: 240v connected mains or traction battery. The problem arises when the vehicle is not plugged in and not in drive mode or it is drive mode and the 12v current output from the traction battery inverter is insufficient to power the vehicle electrics and properly maintain the 12v battery. An EV therefore cannot be left uncharging and out of drive mode for the length of time you would expect to leave an ICE car. A default intermittent charging mode will cut in during this period but this turns out to be an unsatisfactory way of maintaining the 12v battery's health. The 12v battery ultimately needs to be replaced with one preferably with a low internal resistance (e.g. less than 5 milliohms).

You will have to disable the cars online mode I'm afraid. I was told that the Kia connect app drains the battery even when the car is off. Mine has been turned off now for over two months with no fix for it at the moment. I'm going to be contacting Kia next week to give them a kick up the backside as my patience has run out!

Did you happen to look on the app for your Bluetooth 12v battery monitor should give some info

Maybe the USB A port does not switch off when car is connected to a charger but not charging - please check if MA1 lights remain on. Then you could check how many amps the Motorola MA1 draws - in Accessory mode compare Aux Battery Current in Car Scanner when MA1 is plugged/unplugged.

This and Zombie mode are big concerns that Kia has failed to address. I’ve not heard either occurring on other EV manufacturers = suggests Kia have been too quick to get new range out without thoroughly testing the basics! Thoughts? BTW I have a Niro EV4 since Aug22 and had 6 zombies for 6 different scenarios. Not (yet) had 12v issue 😬

I am aware of this fault first hand. 2 weeks ago I hand the warning that the 12v is faulty, I trickle changed it but after a few day the 12 battery had no energy, I contacted Kia and they said if I brought the car in they would inspect it but sadly they could not look at it until 9th May (next week) I have been using the car since but it has worsened like charging battery each day, I am able to run the car for 1 hour before I have to ‘jump start it’ I hope the Kia dealer is familiar with this fault, i don’t think changing the battery will cure the fault

Hi, Brian, I have a LOT of information on this. You might wish to DM me through the forum and I will share more details of what I have found. I too had this issue and I think there is an impact of the preconditioning update but it's also down to the quality of the battery. The VCMS is pretty poor IMHO... I have examples. It might be worth a call/email.

If your 12 volt went flat even once I think it has a very difficult time keeping its state of charge so the most minor thing will depleted

What 12 volt starter are you using

So, today it was my turn to get the 1st ever flat 12v battery on my EV6. I'd just moved the car to the road to wash it, the key was inside the house, away from the locked car, with everything shut. After the wash & brush up, I unlocked the car, went to start it then got the 12v battery low message.Then it died with the doors unlocked. As the physical key only locks the front doors from the outside I had to lock the passenger doors with the key, but using the white plastic circle on the door edge. The AA were called out & that only took 2 hours. - Now shopping for a portable 12v jump starter. P.I.T.A.

I don't know if it's related, but I never got 12 V issue, but 3 days after the battery preconditioning update I got a 12 V discharge issue. I got 2 others 12 V issue about 8 to 10 days between each. The dealer did phantom drain tests. He found relatevely high comsomption, but not very abnormal. He removed the BMS fuse for few minutes to reset the BMS, after that the consumption become more normal. I will keep an eye on my 12 V battery monitor on the next few days. I hope it fixed the issue.

Brian, so the 12 Volt battery never really did discharge completely - it's just the software that "thought" that it did. Did you have the BM2 monitor on the battery at the time? That could have provided independent data on the real health of the 12 Volt battery.

Have you got a good 12v battery charger? That might resurrect your battery!

Losing my marbles , these cars are nothing but headaches i loved it & now I cant get 2 or 3 days where I am getting screwed daily missing jobs costing me my job & so much more Im so disappointed at this point.

A shame you didn't have the BM2 connected. My guess is as others have mentioned either a false positive or the 12V voltage did drop below the threshold temporarily. Most of these messages are triggered and remain even those the state that caused the trigger may have only been for a few seconds.

Is it 2023 MY ?

EVs will be so reliable, they said. They have so few moving parts they'll never break or go wrong, they said. Makes me think of my first smartphone where I was sh!tting bricks doing software upgrades lest it bricked itself. The joys of early adoption! Maybe I'll hold off getting an EV for a bit 🙄

I leave my motorolla M1a plugged all the time and no 12v battery issues here (knock on wood)

The next fail ....