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Thankfully that doesn't matter, the effect is the same. The comments under that Levin article are just hilarious! Just what I needed for a Friday laugh.

"Always be charging" or ABB in EV parlance simply means don't pass up a charging opportunity if it presents itself. More applicable to the early days of the Leaf than now.

I've measured my Kona's average battery cycle efficiency and it's 98%. So, while driving at highway speed with the motor drawing an average of 15 kW, the battery loss means 1% of that is lost as heat, 150 watts. Heat losses from the inverter are also available and that could add three times what...

Right, sometimes I forget that you have winter over there. I'm not sure if the Kona can do the battery in the preconditioning phase.

Good questions. The battery management system knows what the battery power limits are and those numbers can be read over OBD on H/Kia EVs. Generally every EV will have a means to heat the battery, usually a resistance heater of some description in the coolant loop and using that of course is...

Your's uses a full-synthetic ATF and mine a 70W GL-4 gear oil, which is much the same as far as gears and bearings are concerned. Unless you're hearing a gear whine when starting off there's really nothing to worry about. In the 5 years I've been following H/Kia forums no one has ever reported a...

Nothing at all. You can beat on it the moment you drive off. In below freezing temps power may be limited until the battery warms up and many EVs have means to warm the battery pack coolant.

A 2-seater is a bit unlikely because hardly anyone else wants that in a cheap car. The Fiat 500e is close with 200 miles of range and a back seat you wouldn't want to sit in. I've heard Bolt seats are pretty awful and it will have close to the range you want but not in winter. Not sure why you...

I'll wait until I get down to around 45% percent then add 20% overnight using the portable 1.7kW charger to bring it up to 65%. At least for this NMC cell chemistry the effect of sitting at some charge level on degradation is like a bathtub shape around ~50%. If I needed more than 20% daily I...

There are battery pack teardown videos on YouTube for all sorts of EVs. Tesla's in-house round-cell designs are potted after the cover is attached to ensure they don't move - making them exceptionally difficult to repair. By saving costs up front using a round cell, they simply moved the design...

Keep rocking that 1-star safety rating!

Since the subject came up and I've not looked at these before, I thought I would check out one of these allegedly "low quality products" at the dealer in the next town. I'll note that Chinese-designed and built models are flying off the shelves here in NZ at 3/4 the price of base-spec mainstream...

The start motor example with a fixed commutation angle is simply not comparable to the sophistication found in 3-phase motors (with either PM or electrically-excited rotors) with high-frequency inverter drives that have been used widely in industry for 2-3 decades and now EVs. Every factory...

It's an overreaction from the dealer likely because Hyundai did not document service limits for damage.. There's a protective fibre-type sheet, then an aluminum cooling panel stamped to form channels, then the pack underside itself. The cells are installed in further aluminium housings to form...

Unless I've missed something the few innovations are: 1. Steer by wire. At both ends. 2. 48V auxiliary power to an unspecified percentage of the car. Clearly it's highly desirable for the electric power steering but what about all the other peripherals like door window motors, computers...

Don't the wheels fall off at 100%? :) I'd think the cost of real estate in that location would be the killer for ROI.

The filter on my Kona EV, much maligned as being based on a non-EV-dedicated platform, can be changed in under 2 minutes. Munro Associates has a recent video covering the evolutionary differences between a couple of Tesla's cylindrical-cell type battery packs. These of course have serpentine...

Lol, I'm a mechanical engineer and after a year of owning the Kona EV I bought a used manual-trans 4WD only because I missed doing normal car maintenance. I love the EV but driving the ICE is like the kid's cars you find in malls that you put a coin in. Yeah, they still have 'em here.

My ratio is $3.055/l x 3.785g/l over $0.263 = 44, but more importantly my very small gasoline SUV costs 7 times more to fuel than the EV. That said, that savings could never cover the lost opportunity on the nz$40k added cost of purchasing the EV, without driving considerable miles/year. But...

The heat pump in my Kona EV draws around 0.6 to 0.8 kW in winter, about the same as the AC in summer, about 4% of the total draw from the battery when driving at highway speeds. When starting under 7°C the cabin resistance heater (commonly referred to as the PTC) kicks in first, drawing about...