Winter Package (heat pump and battery heater) install after purchase?

You are likely to have zero to no chance of getting those items retrofitted by a dealer on a Niro EV that does not have them factory installed. The battery heater in theory is possible but it would require software retrofit that I doubt KIA would sanction. The heat pump would be much more involved, again not likely, sorry.

 

I think this is probably correct.

In theory you could order the battery heater and figure out where to install it. You might or might not be able to figure out how to get it wired into the rest of the car. But the software thing is going to be the deal breaker, and I haven't heard anything about a Hyundai or Kia owner getting that turned on by the dealer.

The heat pump is likely to be even harder, even more expensive, and even more unlikely to get successfully installed. We would almost need someone to do a tear-down of a model with and without to figure out what's needed (aside from software), and I don't see anyone volunteering.

Getting back to the battery warmer, I can make a couple of observations here. First, if you are charging at home, the battery heater isn't needed at all. The main advantage of the battery warmer is that it helps with DC fast charging - making that charging a bit faster. Even then, it would still take some number of minutes for the battery warmer to warm the battery up to the point where faster charging even kicks in.

Secondly, there is some amount of waste heat in the electric motor, and this is captured and used to warm the battery. In the winter I would sometimes take several hour drives, and I got into the habit of going to the DC fast charger right after the drive so the batteries would be warmer, and this helped a lot (note - I have a Kona, but I believe the Niro drivetrain is pretty much the same). Going to a fast charger first thing in the morning when everything is ice cold results in some pretty poor charging speeds. If you were on a long road trip, the batteries should already be warm.

I believe the battery warmer also helps protect the battery from damage in extremely cold temperatures like they have in some parts of Canada. But in the U.S., there aren't that many places where it gets this cold. If you have a heated garage where you park the car, it is even less of a consideration.

For normal driving at highway speeds, my recollection is that the power consumed was something like 15kW or thereabouts - if the electric motor loses 10% as heat, then you effectively have a 1.5kW heater warming up the battery. So my guess is that something like a 30 minute drive is probably all that is needed to warm the battery in preparation for charging. If you had one of those OBDII readers, you would be able to check the temperature as you drive and see for real.

 

Hi all!
I am a Kia Eniro user in Spain, our Eniros do not have winter mode or heat pump, now in winter I move through very cold areas, the Pyrenees and Andorra, and the fast charge... is to die for! a charge from 10 to 80% can take almost 2 hours, I have been investigating and for the winter mode or battery heater it is necessary to replace a tube with this device, the car is prepared at the connections level, and at the software level I would not be surprised if it were very easy to enable
The problem is to get this piece, I want to make a claim campaign to Kia Spain or if there is a Kia central Europe where to expose this complaint that they give us the option to put it, I find it embarrassing that such a good car in winter suffers from coldgate
If in Spain, which is not a "very cold" climate, we have this problem, I do not want to think about those of you who live in really cold areas like central Europe.
Has anyone thought of doing a campaign claiming it?

 

I live in Vermont and my Niro has a heat pump and battery heater. I have a gauge which reads battery temp. When it is below freezing, the battery starts out cold and does not gain much more than 3-5 °C while driving if that. When you plug in, it helps, but often times, but the time it gets to 25°C, your at 60% where charging starts to slow down anyway. The key to improving thing it some type of auto preheat control like Tesla, Polestar or a manual control that could turn on the heater for say twenty minutes before you got to the fast charger

 

I took a drive today, 130 mile round trip, freeway sixty miles an hour, with about a forty five minutes stop at LL Bean in the middle. Outside temp was -1C to +1C. Battery started of at -1°C. at halfway point got up to 3.5°C. Plugged into a 62 Kw fast charger at about 105 miles. Battery was at about 4°C when I started, Charger ramped up to 41 Kw @ 39% of battery, climbed slowly to 44Kw at about 53%. Heater maintained 27°C and it raised the battery temperature to 16°C after about 18 minutes of charging. So if I waited another 18 minutes, I might have gotten full power charging power for about three minutes, but the battery would be at 67%, which is when things slow down anyway. This is why a manual turn on the battery heater is beneficial. navigation based would of course be better.

I think VW has given up heating the battery all the time to maintain charging speeds at lower temperatures, and has now got some type of manual preheat instead, but this might be in Europe. I watch too many videos. Sorry for all the centigrade temps, but the battery gauge came from Canada and reads in centigrade

 

For Europe you can get KIA parts here:
https://www.originparts.de/index.php?stoken=4E10EE3B&lang=1&cl=search&searchparam=375V2Q4000