[irco]

I've had my E-Niro 4 for 8 weeks now, extremely happy with car overall, range, comfort & driving experience all good.

However yesterday Saturday 22/08/2020 went to car and found it totally dead. Key fob wouldn't work, opened car manually and nothing worked, dashboard totally blank & no response from start button. Car had 94% charge showing when I switched it off the previous day. Tried plugging in main charging cable with zero result.

Called local Kia dealer who had no idea & told me to call RAC as that's why they provide the service with a new car.
Tried calling RAC, phone lines all down eventually found 0800828282 number online & that worked.
RAC arrived after 2 & a half hours & bloke was stumped, he said there should be a battery reset button but couldn't find one. After consulting his laptop, other colleagues by phone, my user manual and Google he resorted to his battery boost starter which worked and car all came back to life. Not sure if this is a recommended solution from Kia? He then advised to contact my local dealer first thing Monday & report issue & hopefully find a cause/solution.

Have any other E-Niro 4 owners had this same issue & what was the solution, is there a hidden reset button?. If it's a flat auxiliary battery issue can it be safely charged with a standard 12 volt car battery charger. Has anyone used one of the small L-Ion battery boosters available to sort out a similar issue.

Thanks for any help/info in advance.

 

[championc]

Previous extensive thread about 3 months ago. Well known BMS issue. Car 12v fails to be kept topped up and dealers blame Dashcsms for the draining. It just needs a bare 12v to fire up the relays to allow the car to start, so an L-ion booster would indeed work. All you actually needed was to clip on a standard 12v battery charger for a few seconds.

New software was confirmed for the Kona but there's no indication yet that it's coming for the e-Niro

 

[irco]

Thanks for the reply, appreciated

 

[foggy69]

I had exactly the same issue with my 2020 Soul.
When the RAC plugged in their gizmo, it said the battery had 2v left in it. He charged the battery with something in the van, but advised the battery needed a proper charge. Luckily the local dealer could charge it overnight, but did not have the time to check the battery or carry out any fault finding.

The Uvo app had been giving a Caution message about the battery a few times, so I am now keeping an eye on it.

 

[irco]

I got no indication on UVO app that battery was low, in fact UVO stopped working for a few days before car lost all power. Don't know if you've got an iPhone & UVO interface works differently on that.
It's a bit of a pain that this issue could manifest itself without warning then we've to rely on RAC to get going again.
As this seems to be a common issue I'd have thought Kia would be rolling out a fix/recall.

 

[prawlin]

Have you got anything added to the car? Dashcam? OBD data monitor, anything left plugged into the always on USB port? Even maybe a door left slightly open Or interior light left on?

Sorry if you know this and have none but any one of these could potentially discharge the 12V battery over time. Or it may be a bug in the car somewhere. Nobody seems to know for sure what’s going on yet. The charging system is a bit strange but usually seems to work fine once the battery has been given a decent long charge from an external charger. The car doesn’t seem to be great at recovering a battery that has been discharged even by regular driving. It seems to need a good long charge to properly kickstart it.

I’ve picked most of this up from reading others experiences. I get mine next month. I’ll be watching the 12V behaviour like a hawk via a bluetooth battery monitor/data logger. If I learn anything useful, I’ll publish it on here for certain.

I suspect the firmware improvement from the Kona will have already been applied to the currently shipped cars, though I’m only guessing.

Peter

PS. The UVO app ceasing to work for a few days seems to be a clue. It might even be a cause, rather than a symptom. Maybe the software relating to the app comms in the car gets latched on somehow, or maybe it repeatedly tries to connect to the servers continuously, thus draining the battery excessively? This is only a wild guess. As of now I have no evidence, it’s just a stab at it.

 

[irco]

Thanks for the reply. Nothing connected & nothing left on.
I wouldn't like to think that UVO would flatten battery enough to render car inoperable, especially after being driven then parked for 30 hours.
Hopefully main dealer may be able to shed some light on problem tomorrow and shed some light on the absence of a battery reset button.
It's the only blackspot so far, otherwise car is exceptionally good, especially having solar panels, all charging to date has essentially cost £0. Much better than letting it feed back into grid 😁

 

[finchlean]

Thanks for the reply. Nothing connected & nothing left on.
I wouldn't like to think that UVO would flatten battery enough to render car inoperable, especially after being driven then parked for 30 hours.
Hopefully main dealer may be able to shed some light on problem tomorrow and shed some light on the absence of a battery reset button.
It's the only blackspot so far, otherwise car is exceptionally good, especially having solar panels, all charging to date has essentially cost £0. Much better than letting it feed back into grid 😁

I've got the KIA Soul 64kWh and there is no battery reset button. AFAIK it's only fitted to the hybrid cars. The latest software on my car periodically charges the 12V auxiliary battery when car is parked & switched off.

 

[irco]

I've got the KIA Soul 64kWh and there is no battery reset button. AFAIK it's only fitted to the hybrid cars. The latest software on my car periodically charges the 12V auxiliary battery when car is parked & switched off.

Thanks for info, someone needs to tell the RAC this. Bloke was everywhere looking for it, under dash, under bonnet, in glove compartment & Google 😁
I'll check with dealer re software version. PIA if need to connect jump leads to reset battery when/if it happens for no apparent reason.

Do you know does auxiliary battery also get charged when main EV battery is charging?

 

[prawlin]

I've got the KIA Soul 64kWh and there is no battery reset button. AFAIK it's only fitted to the hybrid cars. The latest software on my car periodically charges the 12V auxiliary battery when car is parked & switched off.

AFAIK it charges the 12V for 20 minutes once every 24 hours whilst the car is turned off. No longer no shorter.
To the OP, check that you have auxiliary battery saver+ option turned on. I believe it should be on by default. Without that activated the daily top up charge would not occur.

Peter

 

[Xinix]

The fact that a car with a 64 kWh Li-Ion battery still has a 12V battery on board is actually beyond me. How hard can it be to hook up a transformer to the main battery and supply 12V to all the components that need it?

 

[irco]

AFAIK it charges the 12V for 20 minutes once every 24 hours whilst the car is turned off. No longer no shorter.
To the OP, check that you have auxiliary battery saver+ option turned on. I believe it should be on by default. Without that activated the daily top up charge would not occur.

Peter

Yes auxiliary battery saver+ definitely on double checked again this morning. Thanks.
Can auxiliary battery be safely charged in situ with a standard 12v charger without disconnecting anything?

 

[prawlin]

Yes auxiliary battery saver+ definitely on double checked again this morning. Thanks.
Can auxiliary battery be safely charged in situ with a standard 12v charger without disconnecting anything?

Good question. I definitely would do and have done so on many cars. But I can’t take any responsibility should something bad happen (unlikely). Suggest you read the instructions that came with your charger.

Providing the charger design doesn’t go hugely over voltage, I can’t see how it could cause any harm.

Peter

 

[prawlin]

The fact that a car with a 64 kWh Li-Ion battery still has a 12V battery on board is actually beyond me. How hard can it be to hook up a transformer to the main battery and supply 12V to all the components that need it?

That’s exactly what it does do now.

When the car is turned on, all the 12V equipments (and the 12V battery itself) are powered from the D.C. to D.C. converter (transformer if you like) from the HV battery. However for safety reasons, when the car is turned off, the HV battery is isolated by switching off the battery contactors. So to initiate the start up, you need a 12V battery to energise the various systems that enable the HV contactors to close. Also, there are various ancillary systems which need to still be operational when the car is turned off.

I believe Tesla are doing a system that eliminates the 12V battery. I doubt it will become the norm though, for a long time to come anyway.
Peter

 

[Xinix]

That’s exactly what it does do now.

When the car is turned on, all the 12V equipments (and the 12V battery itself) are powered from the D.C. to D.C. converter (transformer if you like) from the HV battery. However for safety reasons, when the car is turned off, the HV battery is isolated by switching off the battery contactors. So to initiate the start up, you need a 12V battery to energise the various systems that enable the HV contactors to close. Also, there are various ancillary systems which need to still be operational when the car is turned off.

I believe Tesla are doing a system that eliminates the 12V battery. I doubt it will become the norm though, for a long time to come anyway.
Peter

Thanks for the explanation, but I still don't see the problem. It should be trivial to disconnect the battery mains so that no high power circuit exists, and just keep the link to the converter active to feed the 12v system. Admittedly, the converter could go haywire and cause a short circuit, but the same can be said for any component within the battery enclosre. But then again, I Am Not An Engineer. It just strikes me as odd.

 

[prawlin]

Thanks for the explanation, but I still don't see the problem. It should be trivial to disconnect the battery mains so that no high power circuit exists, and just keep the link to the converter active to feed the 12v system. Admittedly, the converter could go haywire and cause a short circuit, but the same can be said for any component within the battery enclosre. But then again, I Am Not An Engineer. It just strikes me as odd.

I understand your viewpoint entirely.
One thing that always miffed me with Prius, and same applies to PHEV and EV is when 12V is flat you have umpteen kilowatts of energy in the big battery that you can’t get to, so frustrating. They should have built in some kind of emergency manual override to the main HV contactor. Such that when the 12V battery becomes discharged (and sooner or later they always seem to do) then a tiny bit of the huge amount of available power in the big battery could be used to temporarily 'jumpstart' the flat 12V battery and get the car going again. Rather than having to call breakdown services etc etc. Just push the emergency button for a few seconds! Simples 😉

Peter

 

[Xinix]

I understand your viewpoint entirely.
They should have built in some kind of emergency manual override to the main HV contactor. Such that when the 12V battery becomes discharged (and sooner or later they always seem to do) then a tiny bit of the huge amount of available power in the big battery could be used to temporarily 'jumpstart' the flat 12V battery and get the car going again. Rather than having to call breakdown services etc etc. Just push the emergency button for a few seconds! Simples 😉

Peter

Now that you menton it, the e-Niro has a 12V reset button! It had slipped my mind but when I googled, I came up with e.g this link

EDIT: that was for the HEV. So it's doable at least....

 

[wizziwig]

New software was confirmed for the Kona but there's no indication yet that it's coming for the e-Niro

That update has not fixed the issue. Kona owners are still finding dead 12V batteries.

All that was done with that update is remove the "Battery Saver+" from menus (so owners can't turn it off). They also temporarily reduced the interval between the automatic 20-minute charges from 24-hours to 4 hours (or 6 hours, don't recall exact number). Car eventually reverts back to the old 24-hour interval if parked too long.

Most of the dead 12V battery reports came in Winter time when battery performance is reduced. We will likely need to wait for colder weather to see if there is any improvement.

 

[irco]

Good question. I definitely would do and have done so on many cars. But I can’t take any responsibility should something bad happen (unlikely). Suggest you read the instructions that came with your charger.

Providing the charger design doesn’t go hugely over voltage, I can’t see how it could cause any harm.

Peter

Suggest you read the instructions that came with your charger.🤣😂🤣😂
Sorry not laughing at you, charger approximately 40 years old & chances of finding any instructions are non existent. However there is a BMW 435d xDrive in the family & it charges that no problem with battery still connected. Battery on that car tends to run down through lack of use but BMW at least gives a dashboard warning that battery is needing charged.

 

[DragonQ]

Worrying that this issue is still occurring in 2020 models. I have a standard 12V car battery charger at home - can I use this for an e-Niro's 12V battery like I would a normal car if it ever goes flat?