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Re: Driving tips to charge battery better.

Posted: Tue Jun 18, 2019 4:57 pm
by deguy
I think the key to getting the HEV into EV mode is the tap on the brakes or coasting to reduce speed by 1-2mph. I use cruise control all the time after a quick coast. It helps me stick to the speed limit 🙂

In one of the German forums I think someone had a look at the OBD2 data and worked out that regenerative braking roughly corresponds to the thin blue bar and friction braking to the thick blue bar, which would make some sort of sense. I've certainly not come across anything that makes me think that's totally wrong.

Re: Driving tips to charge battery better.

Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2019 4:57 pm
by jerrytaff
I have the PHEV, and will set it to the HEV mode on motorways as it depletes the electric power quickly when under load at 70mph. In that mode it too can be encouraged to switch to EV mode by tapping the brakes, and I used to do that when approaching a downhill section. However, it didn't seem to make any difference to the overall fuel economy.

I think that what happens is that the car tries to keep the battery charge within a certain window. When coasting, going down hill it will, if left to its own devices, use the ICE to put some charge back in the battery to get it towards the top of the charge window before spontaneously switching to EV mode. Tapping on the brakes encourages it to switch to EV mode immediately, but then, as the battery depletes sooner, it approaches the bottom of the charge window and switches back to HEV mode earlier. Over a long journey the car uses the same amount of electric power regardless of whether you encourage it into EV mode, its just a case of when and how that energy is used, and there is no real net effect on economy to be gained by tapping the brakes. The HEV is no different from the PHEV in that respect.

Re: Driving tips to charge battery better.

Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2019 9:54 pm
by djbobbins
The car will manage battery state of charge to within a fairly narrow band as this is the best way to preserve battery life.

Assuming the lithium polymer batteries behave in a similar way to lithium ion, a specialist engineering colleague of mine who works on grid scale battery projects told me that a good quality Li-ion battery will have a guaranteed cycle life of about 5,000 cycles. This increases to some thing nigh on infinite for small modulations in state of charge.

Therefore, if I was in Kia’s position and didn’t want people complaining that their batteries were life expired after a few years, I’d definitely set the software up so it doesn’t drain or fully charge the battery on a regular basis!

Re: Driving tips to charge battery better.

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2019 7:15 am
by stever
see pics below

Re: Driving tips to charge battery better.

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2019 2:10 pm
by Fields
Do a few doughnuts in it round an empty car park mate :lol:

Re: Driving tips to charge battery better.

Posted: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:02 pm
by ron in new mexico
My experience has been driving in sport mode in the PHEV in the city, will recharge the battery pretty quickly. However the down side is it uses more gas while one is doing that. But if for some reason I absolutely needed to have some charge, that is what I would do.
Coasting on long downhills does the job as well. Braking at least by the gauges, provides the most charge of all, but I have yet to find a appreciable downhill in which I could brake for a very long time constantly. And I do live in the mountains. Coasting seems to do a pretty good job of it.