2016 Kia Soul EV Battery Replacement under Warranty

December 2019 was a strange time for us to buy a car. Catherine had been in and out of hospital, and was not doing well (she would die just over a month later), but she was enthusiastic about the idea nonetheless. Perhaps she took some comfort from offering me agency to scratch my electric vehicle itch. Perhaps she needed a distraction as much as I did. Perhaps she was simply as intrigued by the idea as I was.

Regardless of the reasoning, after an extended test drive in early November, we traded our 20 year old VW Jetta in for a 2016 Kia Soul EV in early December. I’ve been driving it ever since, and have become a happy convert to life with an electric vehicle.

On the day we first test drove the Soul, the estimated range was 155 km, as shown here on the range estimator on the dashboard:

On the day we picked up the car, a month later, the range was down to 146 km, but that wasn’t unexpected, as it was a month closer to winter by that point, and the range in all EVs goes down as the temperature falls.

In the five years since, I’ve seen both that seasonal rise and fall of range, and a gradual decrease in overall range (also not unexpected with EV batteries in general). Last summer I was down to about 110 km in warm-weather range, and last winter, during really cold times, it could sink as low as 70 km.

This summer, though, things took a more precipitous dive, and I was getting a report of 75 km of range at the best of times. 

We use the Soul primary for local trips, so 75 km of range was generally more than enough, but it did mean that a trip from the camper on the north shore back into town — about 45 km — required an in-town charge before returning, and that was annoying. And it meant charging more frequently.

As the weather started to turn cooler this fall, I suddenly remembered that the battery in the 2016 Kia Soul EV comes with an 8 year warranty:

High Voltage Battery Capacity Coverage
The Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery (EV Battery) Capacity warranty coverage period is 8 years or 160,000 kilometres from the Date of First Service, whichever comes first, for capacity loss below 70% of the original battery capacity. This warranty covers repairs needed to return battery capacity to 70% of original battery capacity. If possible, the EV battery components will be repaired or replaced, and the original EV Battery will be returned to the vehicle. If necessary, the EV Battery will be replaced with either a new or remanufactured Lithium-Ion Polymer Battery.

On realizing this, I logged into the Kia website to look up the “Date of First Service” for the car and found it was October 31, 2016. Meaning my battery warranty was set to expire at the end of next month.

Reading various online forums about the actual practice of obtaining a new warranty I read a lot of stories about how that “capacity loss below 70%” was calculated, including suggestions that even if actual range was falling below 70%—and it clearly was in my case—it was the “state of health” of the battery that was calculated, and that might not relate directly to the range. The general sense I got was that Kia was recalcitrant about battery replacement, and I’d have to fight my way through their counter arguments.

Nonetheless, I thought it was worth a shot, so I booked an appointment with Discover Kia here in Charlottetown for a diagnosis, and I dropped it off for the day on September 4. Later that afternoon, I received an SMS with a link to a video (I really like this aspect of Kia service):

Needless to say, I was very pleasantly surprised by this diagnosis:

Good afternoon, Peter. This is [REDACTED] from Discover Kia, updating you on your 2016 KIA Soul EV, regarding the health of a high voltage battery. With the low range that you are experiencing. Our technician checked the state of health of the high voltage battery, and yes, it is low. It is at around less than 45 %. So we have ordered a battery for you. As soon as it comes, we will schedule for the replacement. Thank you very much for choosing Discover Kia. 

When I picked up the car I was told I’d be contacted when the replacement battery arrived; a few weeks later I got that call, and, after leaving the car overnight for the service, the following morning I got another video:

The video was an update on progress of the battery replacement:

Good morning, this is [REDACTED] from Discover Kia, giving you an update on your 2016 Kia Soul, here for high voltage battery, uh, 28. 8 kilowatt hour battery replacement. The work is underway, as you can see here, that’s the battery pack. Goes underneath here. Uh, we will let you know as soon as it is complete. Thank you very much for choosing Discover Kia.

If you’re eagle-eyed, you can see what I believe are both the new battery and the old battery in that video; these were a lot smaller than I imagined them to be.

Later that day I picked up the Soul. The service advisors told me the warranty cost to Kia was in the range of about $6,000, so I count myself lucky to have acted.

When I got back in the car, I was pleasantly surprised to find the estimated range reported at 189 km:

This was 34 km more range than when I bought the car, and 39 km more range than Kia’s originally-reported estimated range of 150 km for the vehicle when it was brand new.

In other words, it’s like getting a brand new Kia Soul, 8 years into its life.

Of course the Soul, in respects other than its propulsion, is still a Kia Soul, and while it lacks the oil and fuel and related maintenance, it still needs regular brake work, its air conditioning failed this summer, and there’s a little rust starting to show on the hatchback. So it’s not quite like getting a brand new car.

But 189 km of range upgrades the possible roles of the car in our daily lives: we can now easily get to the camper and back (twice, if we drive economically); we can easily get to Summerside and back; and even driving to Halifax is well within the realm of possibility (when the range was less, there was too far between charging stations between Aulac and Stewiacke to make it possible).