Kia Niro BEV

GRA said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

webeleafowners said:

I’m not familiar with the US market. But in Canada the most popular non Tesla EV is the Leaf so all public DC fast charge locations include Chademo. What are the most popular non Tesla EV’s in the US? Obviously not a Leaf if Chademo is going away there.

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Discounting EA's obvious bias, Chademo is doing just fine.

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The cars aren't. There are only two cars currently available here that use CHAdeMO, the LEAF and the Outlander PHEV, both Japanese brands. More importantly, look at the list of non-Tesla 200+ mile BEVs currently available here.

CCS: i-Pace; e-Tron; Bolt; Kona; Niro.
CHAdeMO: LEAF.

Even the short-range Honda Clarity uses CCS. The CCS Soul will arrive as a 2020, and VW Group will be introducing a whole slew of BEVs using CCS over the next few years, as will the other European manufacturers. EA has no incentive to build more CHAdeMO stalls than they are required to, has no plans to upgrade them to provide more than 50kW, and no one is building QC sites at a profit, so unless some manufacturer like Toyota were to step up and build a network similar to EA's as a necessary marketing exercise ala' Tesla, CHAdeMO will be limited to intra-regional use - almost no one's going to count on the single EA CHAdeMO QC per site to be operational and available when they need it for a road trip.

Maybe if China were to start importing cars here in a big way CHAdeMO would be viable for the long-term, but given Chinese cars' current lack of production quality and refinement as well as the tariff fight, that's not going to happen for a while if ever.

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EA is an American thing I guess. Are they pretty dominant as far as the number of installations go? You would think that Chargepoint etc would want to appeal to as many customers as possible. Interesting times ahead. But for the time being it’s 50-50 Chademo/CCS here.

webeleafowners said:

EA is an American thing I guess. Are they pretty dominant as far as the number of installations go? You would think that Chargepoint etc would want to appeal to as many customers as possible. Interesting times ahead. But for the time being it’s 50-50 Chademo/CCS here.

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EA is "Electrify America", and as far as non-Tesla QC sites for road trips, yes, they're dominant here (233 sites as of today with more to come), all courtesy of Dieselgate. See https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger

There's also EC, "Electrify Canada", but they're more recently established and have yet to open any sites, and I don't know what the Canadian and Provincial Governments will require of them re the CCS/CHAdeMO split. EC website: https://www.electrify-canada.ca/index

Map: https://www.electrify-canada.ca/locate-charger

As you can see, BC and AB along with ON/QC will be getting the initial sites.

Good to know. Interesting.

GRA said:

webeleafowners said:

EA is an American thing I guess. Are they pretty dominant as far as the number of installations go? You would think that Chargepoint etc would want to appeal to as many customers as possible. Interesting times ahead. But for the time being it’s 50-50 Chademo/CCS here.

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EA is "Electrify America", and as far as non-Tesla QC sites for road trips, yes, they're dominant here (233 sites as of today with more to come), all courtesy of Dieselgate. See https://www.electrifyamerica.com/locate-charger

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At least for now, EVGo actually has more sites* than EA, so in one way, they may be considered "dominant", since they have the largest non-Tesla charging network in the US. Unfortunately, most of those sites are "50kW" chargers as opposed to the 150-350kW (CCS) chargers that EA is installing.

Of course, EA is growing much faster than EVGo, and it's only a matter of time before they are overtaken.

*The catch here is that each EVGo site only has one dual-plug (CCS + CHAdeMO) charger. EA may have more actual chargers in the ground today, I don't know. My point is that EVGo is doing the most to keep CHAdeMO "alive" in the states.

EVGO no longer opens single station sites in WA any more. They are all 2+ dual format stations along with 2 J1772 plugs. EA may have 6 stations but still no more than a single plug to me. Add to that; already several cases of a single CCS car charging on the dual format station and the likely reason why??

Because its the station closest to the front door of the store... :evil:

I don't want to discount the time difference between a 50KW and 150/350KW charger, of course its less. When we get to 200 kWh cars, it becomes a very big deal. But at 40 and 60 kWh, a 53KW charge rate feels plenty fast. In the couple times I have used the Chademo (EA and Nissan), usually the car is at 80% before I can eat and finish my coffee. Certainly guess its different if you are just watching the charge.

DaveinOlyWA said:

EVGO no longer opens single station sites in WA any more. They are all 2+ dual format stations along with 2 J1772 plugs. EA may have 6 stations but still no more than a single plug to me. Add to that; already several cases of a single CCS car charging on the dual format station and the likely reason why??

Because its the station closest to the front door of the store... :evil:

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Yes, the west coast is far ahead of the east coast regarding all things EV. Meanwhile I have never seen an EVGo station (in person) with more than 1 CHAdeMO / 1 CCS. Most are 100A, a few are 120-125A. I've only seen two locations that have a J1772 option. The good news is that they are usually located far from the front door of the store, so at least they aren't ICE'd.

I think most CCS-car drivers aren't aware of the facts that 1) EA only has 1 CHAdeMO and 2) if the corresponding CCS is being used, the CHAdeMO cannot be. It's at least partly a problem of education.

GetOffYourGas said:

At least for now, EVGo actually has more sites* than EA, so in one way, they may be considered "dominant", since they have the largest non-Tesla charging network in the US. Unfortunately, most of those sites are "50kW" chargers as opposed to the 150-350kW (CCS) chargers that EA is installing.

Of course, EA is growing much faster than EVGo, and it's only a matter of time before they are overtaken.

*The catch here is that each EVGo site only has one dual-plug (CCS + CHAdeMO) charger. EA may have more actual chargers in the ground today, I don't know. My point is that EVGo is doing the most to keep CHAdeMO "alive" in the states.

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Almost a certainty, as the typical EA highway site has at least 3 CCS and 1 dual CCS/CHAdeMO, while some sites have up to 9 CCS + the one dual stall. Even the "urban" sites will have two CCS, 1 dual and 1 L2.

GetOffYourGas said:

DaveinOlyWA said:

EVGO no longer opens single station sites in WA any more. They are all 2+ dual format stations along with 2 J1772 plugs. EA may have 6 stations but still no more than a single plug to me. Add to that; already several cases of a single CCS car charging on the dual format station and the likely reason why??

Because its the station closest to the front door of the store... :evil:

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Yes, the west coast is far ahead of the east coast regarding all things EV. Meanwhile I have never seen an EVGo station (in person) with more than 1 CHAdeMO / 1 CCS. Most are 100A, a few are 120-125A. I've only seen two locations that have a J1772 option. The good news is that they are usually located far from the front door of the store, so at least they aren't ICE'd.

I think most CCS-car drivers aren't aware of the facts that 1) EA only has 1 CHAdeMO and 2) if the corresponding CCS is being used, the CHAdeMO cannot be. It's at least partly a problem of education.

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Only about 3 years ahead!

Then we only had a single 100 amp station but then most (one simply has no space to expand) went to 2 or 3 stations and bumped to 125ish amps. That process took a year to cover our region. But all 3 new installs are 2 or more.

In the EPA ratings, how does the Niro have a negative Coef B (lbf/mph) rating? (Telsa 3 has a negative rating as well).

https://iaspub.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=45390&flag=1

DougWantsALeaf said:

In the EPA ratings, how does the Niro have a negative Coef B (lbf/mph) rating? (Telsa 3 has a negative rating as well).

https://iaspub.epa.gov/otaqpub/display_file.jsp?docid=45390&flag=1

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I told you already. It is a best fit polynomial. The coefficients do not map to actual forces.

Sagebrush,

You did tell me. What I am trying to figure out is whether the Kona/Niro really do have better overall efficiency at the same CoD, or whether its due to small inaccuracies in the tesing procedure. I have been trying to encourage the EV auto testing shows to do a side by side 55MPH test, but no luck so far. As a relatively experienced EV driver, its not too hard to put any EV EPA rating to shame (ex. I've done 120+ miles to a charge in my 2013 3 years after purchase), but it that isn't what the "normal" driver experiences.

If it is better, which if fine, I want to better understand why (drive train, acceleration curve, weight, wheels, etc...).

DougWantsALeaf said:

If it is better, which if fine, I want to better understand why (drive train, acceleration curve, weight, wheels, etc...).

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The EPA drag polynomial cannot be used to answer that question directly, but you can narrow down the suspects:

Track down the tyre RR to calculate road friction;
Calculate air drag from CdA and speed
The difference between that sum and the power graph from the roll down test is the mechanical friction during coasting plus the power drain from being in Ig-on.

Was looking at the Kia site. It does look like there are a number of Niro EVs available (in states where they are offered)

Has Kia been able to up its shipments/distribution?

Niro has been getting some additional favorable reviews, with tested range consistently at/above EPA.

Does Kia/Hyundai allow for testing battery capacity/degradation like with Leafspy?

DougWantsALeaf said:

Was looking at the Kia site. It does look like there are a number of Niro EVs available (in states where they are offered)

Has Kia been able to up its shipments/distribution?

Niro has been getting some additional favorable reviews, with tested range consistently at/above EPA.

Does Kia/Hyundai allow for testing battery capacity/degradation like with Leafspy?

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For that matter Doug, has Nissan been able to up their production? We checked with our sales dude and our Eplus SL is still on track for feb delivery. We are out of the country till then anyway so no big deal but still. A lot of people are just walking out and buying a Tesla once they get told it’s six months to get a Leaf. I have no problem with that as I think the model 3 is a great car but still, seems Nissan has some untapped demand there. Have they mentioned increasing production at all? This may be a regional problem in B.C. as EV adaptation has gone thru the roof here.

Ours will obviously be a 2020 model. Wonder what the updates will be. There are usually a few every model year.

For those concerned with Niro/Kona efficiency - simple fact to know - Hyundai/Kia EVs are the most efficient EV on the planet at the moment, and in far second place is Tesla Model 3, others are far-far behind. The only difference, if you keep cars for a long time - Hyundai offers unlimited life time warranty on battery and 5 year/unlimited miles power train warranty , while Kia offers only 10 years/100,000 miles battery warranty and 5years/60,000miles power train warranty.

Keep in mind that the Kia and Hyundai battery warranties are for workmanship and not for degradation.

Leaf 15. Ok, what does Kia do to achieve that efficiency? It’s not aerodynamics. Is it drivetrain? Just curious where they are getting their gains?

DougWantsALeaf said:

Leaf 15. Ok, what does Kia do to achieve that efficiency? It’s not aerodynamics. Is it drivetrain? Just curious where they are getting their gains?

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aerodynamics helps Ioniq a lot, not much to Kona/Niro. As for efficiency of the drivetrain, if you took electrical engineering courses - being electric does not mean being efficient, it is all function of the design and cost. Then comes integration between subsystems. Hyundai/Kia offers heat pump, that is integrated into battery and HVAC loops so it helps with low temp in the winter when all other EV suffers the most. Tesla also wastes a lot of power on computers to keep it running and devours battery even while turned off (0.5-1 kW/h depending what features are on or off), Hyundai/Kia are more efficient in this area by far - it hardly looses any charge over a week, while Tesla looses 2-5% daily just to check once a day battery SOC over the phone.

As for battery - tiny temp sensor would bring perfectly healthy battery to a screeching halt and render it inoperable, cell degradation is non-existent on LG batteries, 2016 Ioniq/Soul EV owners did not detect any degradation after 3 years (nobody would dare to say it about Leaf batteries or even Tesla ones). Also unlike most EV batteries at least Soul/Ioniq EV batteries are serviceable, could not say about Kona/Niro yet. We do have SoulEVSpy android app to check on battery and other internals of the car, so claims are not just made on consumer assessment or guesses.

2016 IONIQ/Soul EV owners did not detect any degradation after 3 years

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That just isn't true. The Soul EV has suffered from similar degradation issues to the Leaf.