Winter 75kW Charging Test: Hyundai Kona EV 2020 

I'm glad it was helpful!

Glad it was helpful!

Glad that you are considering an EV. Not driving everyday is not bad for the battery. Leaving the battery on very low or very high state of charge for a long time is bad. So if you leave the battery at around 50 to 70% for a long time it won't do anything to the battery. Level 1 charging is definitely viable if you don't drive a lot. Overnight, the Kona can charge around 70km range on Level 1. Again, I would set the charge limit to 70 percent to protect the battery. The only thing to be careful with is I wouldn't charge on Level 1 at the maximum capacity of the outlet. For example, in North America, the maximum for 120V outlets is 1.8kW. I would probably get a cable that could change current and charge at 1.4kW or lower. If you constantly charge at the outlet's maximum you increase the chance of the outlet burning out especially when it is an old outlet from an old house. When the vehicle is not charging, the Kona's battery could go to -15C and still be fine. I have never seen the battery temp go below -15C even when the ambient temperature is -30C. So I assume the vehicle is using a bit of energy to warm up the battery. The vehicle will be able to warm the battery whether or not it is plugged in. But when it isn't plugged in, you will slowly drain the battery overtime if the ambient temperature is consistently below -15C. The Kona EVs affected by the recall are 2019 and some 2020 vehicles and they are buying back or swapping batteries for the affected vehicles. So far, there haven't been any reports of 2021 or 2022 vehicles catching fire. I sure hope Kona's won't have that problem anymore for everyone's sake.

@@READYSTEADYCHARGE Thanks for the terrific and detailed answer.

The trip is most likely possible in a 62kWh Leaf, as long as you can find charging within the right distance and the chargers you want to use work. But the Leaf rapidgates after repeated DCFC sessions so driving 1000km per day may result in slower and slower charging speed throughout the day. Since the Leaf has only air cooling, your battery's temps are at the mercy of the ambient temp.

I use a Vgate blue tooth OBD2 dongle. It's a simple one, nothing fancy. You can connect to your phone via blue tooth and read the data with an OBD app on your phone. The little display is a separate accessory. This connects tot he OBD2 dongle through blue tooth as well. I got the display from this website. evobd2.com/

I'm not 100% sure why all the DCFC here are charging money based on time and not energy. There was only one that was energy based but later it was changed to time based as well. It is more fair to have kWh based cost since EV charging speed vary so much. I think the one advantage to time based cost is that it encourages people to move on as soon as their charging speed drops. Some DCFC locations only have one charger within 200km radius. It is a problem if you have someone plugging in and then leaves and no one else can charge. It could also be for the sake of simplicity to have a time based cost.

@@READYSTEADYCHARGE thanks for the reply. We tend to have over-stay fees that make staying beyond 60 or 90 mins prohibitive, almost a fine/sanction type level. Even saying that I’m seeing more ‘new’ EV drivers hanging around for 40 mins to get from 80-95% on the one available rapid 🙄🙄🙄

What's the difference, both means electric and electric vehicle

@@paco9713 I believe Kona electric is the electrified version of the Kona (ICE) so the platform is not optimized for an EV. But it doesn't matter, the vehicle is great.

I would say around 50 minutes, maybe a bit less, starting at 11% battery on this 350kW DCFC

@@READYSTEADYCHARGE how much would it cost at an EV station?

@@Luwee808 Petro Canada 350kW DCFC in Alberta costs $0.33 per minute. Which is around $20 per hour. It only uses time to determine cost so the faster your EV charges, the cheaper per kWh of energy.