I pressured CtB for more details before my car arrived,

I had an email from them saying it is 70% Capacity Guarantee and 8 years 125k miles.

There does not seem to be anything on the website or warranty books to back this up and there does not seem to be any way to easily check battery capacity (Unlike my old Zoe). But going on how my previous cars have performed battery wise, which I checked the capacity on every few 1000 miles, I have decided with the Kona to not bother and just drive it.

I very much doubt it will reach 70% in 125k miles unless something catastrophic happens, my Zoe with its smaller 41kwh battery hit 96% at 35k miles with very heave use and daily rapid charging

(So by their reckoning the battery will be useless when the cars range is down to about 200 miles 64kwh battery)!!!

You should be fine with the Granny charger as long as your home socket is good condition

But if you can use the rapid or costco I would do that instead as that will give a truer picture of real life use and if you can live with having to do that.

EDIT: Just wanted to add about Charging at Costco, if its anything like the ones I have been to you have to go to the Tyre centre prove membership, then (When they find the card or find someone free) they come out to activate it, and you have to do the same dance to deactivate it. I imagine it would get very irritating having to do it on a regular basis.

 

Hyundai seem to be very secretive about this!

The web site states -
WarrantyLike every Hyundai, the KONA Electric is built to the highest possible quality standards. And we guarantee that quality with a 5-Year Unlimited Mileage Warranty*, so you can enjoy the things you love in life, without having to worry about your car. Additionally, KONA Electric’s high performance lithium-ion polymer battery is warranty protected for 8 years or 125,000 miles, whichever comes first. * Warranty terms and exclusions apply

However, I emailed Hyundai uk to ask for a copy of the warranty terms and exclusions that pertain to the battery warranty and did not get a reply. I have also asked my normally very helpful dealer with no answer…..

Maybe we need a concerted campaign to get an answer?

Lets all pile in here - Hyundai UK and here Hyundai Motor UK (@Hyundai_UK) | Twitter

 

Hyundai seem to be very secretive about this!

The web site states -
WarrantyLike every Hyundai, the KONA Electric is built to the highest possible quality standards. And we guarantee that quality with a 5-Year Unlimited Mileage Warranty*, so you can enjoy the things you love in life, without having to worry about your car. Additionally, KONA Electric’s high performance lithium-ion polymer battery is warranty protected for 8 years or 125,000 miles, whichever comes first. * Warranty terms and exclusions apply

However, I emailed Hyundai uk to ask for a copy of the warranty terms and exclusions that pertain to the battery warranty and did not get a reply. I have also asked my normally very helpful dealer with no answer…..

Maybe we need a concerted campaign to get an answer?

I would be happier to leave it alone., under the consumer regs if they dont make something clear then its deemed an unfair contract, so at the moment with the way its worded there is nothing they can do to defend themselves against any issues as they have not made exclusions visible or available.

Also I think the wording about terms and exclusions refer to the standard exclusions and mileage limits on certain parts under the standard 5 year warranty

 

Thanks chaps, my Google search skills are normally pretty good but I couldn't find anything definitive for the warranty. I'll have a little look with my OBDII scanner next week and see if there's any battery info that can be gleaned from that.

As for the comments on charging, also much appreciated. I have used Costco with a Zoe and i3 and it is exactly as you mention. It should be fine for the odd charge every couple of weeks or so as I can walk back home in 10 minutes and leave the car there all day.

I've got a whole raft of chargers locally to use and I'll try a couple them this week to get a view of how convenient they are. The rapid is a Genie one and I've got the card and app setup.

There are also 4 Polar 7kw chargers a 2 minute walk away that aren't that well used but I fell over with these before when they crapped out early in the charge on an i3 and I went back a few hours later to find hardly any juice had gone in. Without an app for the Kona this could be a problem.

Despite being a flat dweller I am ground floor and can easily run the charger out now and again without upsetting my neighbours but it's no ideal to have that as a regular means to charge. I need to really put some thought in over the next six months or so to what routine I'm going to adopt.

 

'Emergency use' is a bit misleading, basically what they're saying is if you haven't got access to a charging station then you can use it howevers it's all to do with where you live and where you charge, anyone that buys a new Kona, Ioniq Electric or PHEV will see there is a warning sticker on the side of the ICCB advising that it shouldn't be used for regular charging.

I'm certainly no engineer but basically the gist of it is it won't hurt the car or the ICCB but if the wiring in your house is old or not in the best condition then the constant power draw over hours can cause it to heat up and potentially melt or catch fire.

 

Thanks Dom

 

I agree with @Dom1988, it's about the safe loading of a 13A socket, and the car manufacturers are covering their arses. By telling you only to use a dedicated high power outlet for an EV, which should have been professionally installed, protects them.

 

I used the granny lead but was extra cautious because it was on the same ring as the tumble drier, washing machine, kettle and iron. It would be pretty easy to overload the circuit and trip the RCBO if they were all active alongside the charger.

Thankfully the brick has a button to toggle amperage; I set it to 8 amps and avoided using the tumble drier whilst it was charging. It just took a loooong time to add any meaningful range!

 

More importantly....... how on earth did you get to borrow a Kona Electric for a week!?

 

Exactly

Exactly what I was wondering!!!

 

Why not contact OLEV so they can ignore you too?

As they have done with the group request we Ampera owners made to them.

 

I never said borrow I found one to rent. If I'm to shell out this sort of money I want to be sure its the right choice.

I'll post up the details after the rental is finished as I haven't used this company before and wouldn't like to recommend somewhere until I have. It's £60 a day which I know is steep but should be worth it in the long run.

Its just so hard to get an extended test drive in one of these even for more than a few hours, seemed the way to go.

 

Where did you find one to rent?

I'd be interested to see what you find with an OBDII scanner. With our e-Golf and OBDeleven I can see the battery SOC in Watt hours so can see how much the capacity is dropping, along with lots of other info. Would be interesting if we can do the same with the Kona.
We also intend to keep our cars for quite a while. We drive a lot of miles, though not compared to stageshoot, and would like both cars to keep going with a good capacity for at least 5 years and over 100k miles

 

Hi Woodulike, its a firm in Surrey who already rent Teslas from a mixed fleet of their own cars and car share cars (ie owners who rent out their cars when not in use).
The Kona belongs to one of those owners and it's on their books when he doesn't need it.

I picked it up after work today and did around 30 miles home on the motorway and a bit of town driving no issues. I tried the Torque app earlier on this evening but my OBD2 dongle won't talk to the car for some reason. I have an OBD eleven dongle which I'll try again probably tomorrow and see if that one works.

Initial impressions are a mix of surprise at just how well its put together and the quality of the materials they've used and disappointment at just how noisy the tyres are at speed. Having said that I drove a good section of the horrible concrete part of the M25 and that is extremely noisy even in a well insulated car.

I've left it on a pod point post for an hour or so just to get familiar with how it works and see how long it takes to walk home (10 mins each way). After that I intend to check out the rapid (Genie Point) up the road at the weekend and take some longer trips on mixed roads.

It's a really nice, quality feeling car and I'm looking forwards to spending a bit more time with it.

I'll pop up my thoughts when the rental is over and a few photos. It's a blue Premium SE 64 model.

 

Back to the purpose of the thread - has anyone got the details of the battery warranty?

 

I have had a reply from Hyundai about the battery warranty. They said go to - 5 Year Car Warranty |Hyundai UK
and select "Warranty Terms & Conditions" at the bottom of the page. It will open up a PDF, and information in regards to the battery can be found on the second page.

The pertinent para is - 26) Battery damage caused by insufficient regular charging (i.e. low mileage users) will not be covered. The reason for this is if a battery is left at low charge for long periods of time this will damage the plates
within, which is not a manufacturing defect but a lack of regular battery maintenance.

See Hyundai UK Facebook page

 

That sounds a lot like they're talking about the 12V aux battery!

 

I agree - so I then asked them to confirm that was applicable to the 8 year battery warranty and they said it did.

 

Certainly does, they cover the 12v battery for 2 years / 24k miles.

The high voltage battery is mentioned buy only in the table as 96 months / 125k miles.

My guess is they're confident it won't degrade to such an extent in that time that they can't fend off any warranty claim as "wear and tear".

 

I had a look today but I couldn't find anything pertinent to do with degradation, nor anything to do with charger use or behaviour.

The only thing I can think of where it mentions Warranty Ts n Cs and the battery pack of the vehicle is usage. For Private Hire and Hire Reward vehicles etc the pack is only covered for 5 years and 100k, not the 8 years and 125k.

 

That can't be right. Anyone doing low miles doesn't have a battery warranty because they may have left the battery sitting at a low SOC.
Equally they could look after the battery really well by charging to 70% once a week and only using it down to 30% and the battery is in really good condition, but there's a genuine fault and the battery fails.
A high mileage car could still be left with a low or high SOC as well at points in its life. Doesn't make sense to me.

This sounds like someone who doesn't know what they are talking about answering the questions. Last year when we had ordered the e-Golf people were making enquiries about different things and getting some wrong information just because the people answering the questions didn't understand EVs. This is probably the same.

 

I'd go with that, I doubt the folks that handle the social media are engineers or warranty experts, they'll just read out of the book that says batteries aren't covered from degradation due to lack of use. Again I'm no engineer but from what I gather it's only the lead acid batteries that have them.

 

I agree with you, but it seems to be the only answer Hyundai UK has!

I asked them to confirm this is the only exclusion for the 8 year warranty and they replied - Hyundai UK The warranty terms and exclusions, where you're referring to, is related to the 5-Year Unlimited Mileage Warranty, which is also marked with a "*" Mike. The only difference is that the battery in our electric vehicles are covered for 8 years/125,000 miles, the terms and conditions remain the same.

 

Hello friends, I hail from lands far away but my struggle is the same.
If we keep this thread alive we can all learn more, or have a place to cry when future battery replacement is denied on a technicality.
Here in NZ, Hyundai offered a 10 year unlimited kilometre warranty up until 1 April 2019.
I was able to confirm from Hyundai that the warranty sold before this time is transferable to new owners.
What I'm not clear on is the details.

Will they replace the battery with a new one, or reconditioned cells of 70% capacity?
How will they determine if you were negligent with battery care, and can they deny claim on this basis?
Is it return to base where car was first sold, or can any dealer assess warranty claim and install battery?
Does warranty apply when car is resold through a dealership?
Of course I could ask them for T's and C's, but if they've gone to the trouble of scrubbing the internet of this content, is there really any point?

 

Afaik replacement of battery is about individual cell change rather than the full monty. Providing you charge and use the car as per manual I cannot see warranty being a problem.

 

I think you'll find it's the whole battery pack @andyswarbs - Here's how you do it.

John.