I just learned today about Tesla's issue in which their software automatically throttles Supercharging speeds after a set number of charges -- 200 something in this particular case: https://electrek.co/2017/05/07/tesla-limits-supercharging-speed-number-charges/ Does anyone know if this happens with the Kona? I'm a bit concerned because I plan to keep mine as long as possible, but this would put a pretty big damper on it, taken in combination with the existing throttling for temperature, the charging curve, the charger's own limits, etc.
I doubt it as the Kona does not charge as fast as the Tesla.. I probably have close to 170 fast charges already in the first 22 months..
Interesting article. First the individual did not charge atypical. He almost exclusively charged with DC fast charging. Most were Chademo which is limited to 50kwh. 50-60 charges were supercharger sessions. Supercharger sessions frequently reach 150kwh to 250kwh which far exceeds the Kona EV's 78kwh max. If you generally charge with a level 2 charger at home this stresses the batteries less and prolongs the life of your batteries. I wouldn't worry about any future limit as most won't ever fast charge this much. If you do, maybe someday you may want to restrict your charging speed. It will degrade your batteries if done as much as the individual in the article.
I think that Tesla has a "counter" on how many DC charges were done regardless of speed.. I believe that it "should" consider speed.. If you charge at 250kw for 200 sessions you will degrade the battery much more than you would in 200 50kw charges or 200 24kw charges.. All charging is DC.. When you charge AC, your cars onboard charger tuns the AC into DC.. So, if you charge on a 20kw DC charger, you won't degrade especially your Tesla battery more than AC charging. Teslas charge at 17.2 kw maximum on level 2.. So, if you charge on a 20kw DC charger versus 17.2 kw on AC charging will not make a difference.. On the Kona there is a biger difference as the Kona won't charge more than about 7.6 kw on the input side and 7.2 kw actually going into the car. As I said before I virtually only charge DC Fast and my car has over 51k miles and no degradation.. My 80% range is still between 260 and 270 miles at 51000 miles.. That's the same it was when I bought the car.
I do agree they Tesla may be DCfast charging too fast. One big difference is that the Kona has 98 cells that have to take the full brunt of the charging. Tesla has 4416 cells each fused that take the charge. Each taking a small slice of the wattage. I haven't done the math. The Tesla has a 75 kwh battery and the Kona has 64kwh, ignoring any buffers. That said, there are 96% of the Tesla battery packs still in use after 10+ years. Excessive DCFast charging will, I'm sure take a toll with degradation. If you start out with 326 miles of range, it's a little easier to loose some range than 258 miles. Kona is more conservative on charging and that was a plus in our decision to purchase one. The Tesla, though can have a few batteries fail with only a slight reduction in range while if one fails in the Kona, your bricked. We took the jump to Kona because we were given a lifetime warrantee on the batteries. If it hadn't been for recall 200, we would have kept it. Interestingly, we now own a Y. We use Teslafi website to track all our charging. We have pushed 440Kwh supercharging so far and 571Kwh with AC level 2 charging. The data is tracked constantly using a access key allowing it to communicate directly with the car. I'm sure the AC Level 2 will far outweigh the Supercharging once the newness of the car wears off.
