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How Much Energy Does The Hyundai Kona Electric Use To Precondition?

With any car, energy use is significant. When it comes to EVs in cold weather, knowing the efficiency hit is paramount. How does the Hyundai Kona Electric fare?

How Much Energy Does The Hyundai Kona Electric Use To Precondition?

Steven Loveday Steven Loveday

By: Steven Loveday

Jan 9, 2019 at 6:00am ET

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Will preconditioning negate the Hyundai Kona Electric's terrific range estimates?

We recently shared a YouTube video courtesy of The EV Puzzle. It dealt with how long it takes the Hyundai Kona Electric to defrost in reasonably cold temps. It turned out that you can defrost the Kona quite quickly, but temps were not ridiculously cold (still -2 Celsius, 28 Fahrenheit is a median, if you will). If you follow the segment, you're likely aware that the Kona has an impressive range. So, for those that live in areas with a cold climate, preconditioning is a necessity. The question is, how much range might one lose?

Related Hyundai Kona Electric Stories:

This YouTuber and new Kona owner notes that there's not a preconditioning app interface via smartphone for the Kona. That being said, its timer system doesn't work out very well or save energy, and the pre-set preconditioning time is too long. He claims he won't rely on the system until Hyundai makes changes. Instead, you can rely on preconditioning the car manually, which saves about one-third of the lost energy.

Do you own an EV? Let us know about preconditioning in the comment section below.

Video Description via The EV Puzzle on YouTube:

Kona Electric - Defrosting, preconditioning on a timer Energy usage test

Happy New Year.

Following on from my last video about defrosting the Kona ... (embedded below)

I think it's only right to compare and discuss the alternative way of defrosting an EV and that's with preconditioning.

Many EVs have the feature to effectively program the car to turn on the heating system to warm the car up before you depart. The net effect is, it will defrost the windows of the car and be comfortable for you when you're ready to depart. Some EVs have an App interface on mobile phones that will allow you to remotely set the parameters for this and activate it.

The Kona does not. It has a timer capability that can be used to set a departure time and a temperature. The car will heat or cool to the set temperature ready for your departure. It must be plugged in however for preconditioning to work.

It activates 30 minutes before your departure time so allows a considerable time for the required cooling or heating.

From a 5C ambient temperature starting point my Kona took 0.91kWh of energy within the 30 minute preconditioning period. A huge cost of £0.13 ($0.17 US or €0.15Euro)

Heating the car manually, waiting in the car, appeared to use approximately one third of that energy.

With preconditioning probably being used at peak commuting times in the morning is it relevant whether the EV is being charged or heated from the home at this time?

What do you think?

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Personally, I'm of the opinion a remote app interface is needed but it needs to allow for a shorter preconditioning period and allow heated seats, steering wheel and mirrors to be defrosted also.

I'm unlikely to use preconditioning in the Kona very often after these tests.

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