Hyundai Ioniq 5 Notes Limited Charging Power After A Cold Night

A fast-charging test of a car that spent the night outside reveals limited fast-charging power.

Hyundai Ioniq 5 (source: Kyle Conner)

Mark Kane

By: Mark Kane

Feb 8, 2022 at 8:30am ET

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In one of the latest episodes, Out of Spec Reviews' Kyle Conner checks the fast-charging performance of a brand new Hyundai Ioniq 5 in cold weather conditions.

We know that most electric cars note a significant drop in the charging power when the battery is cold (this is also why the regenerative braking is limited). The root cause for this is the typical limitations of lithium-ion batteries (not all chemistries, but usually the energy-dense ones, used in EVs).

An active solution for that would be a battery thermal pre-conditioning, which is available in many models, but not yet in the Hyundai Ioniq 5, according to the video. It's expected that Hyundai will add such a feature through an over-the-air software update.

Test results

The tested Hyundai Ioniq 5 spent a night outside at low temperatures and a low state of charge of 28% SOC. In the morning, it was 26°F (-3°C). The car covered a further 15 miles to a fast-charging station when, after a few unsuccessful sessions with Electrify America charger, finally started charging.

The session started at 20% state-of-charge (SOC) from about 63 kW. The car estimated that it would need 37 minutes to reach 80% SOC, and 63 minutes to reach 100% SOC.

For reference, in optimum temperature conditions, it should do 10-80% SOC in about 18 minutes and charge at over 220 kW peak (the 77.4 kWh battery version).

The difference is quite significant, but not the end of the world - Kyle Conner comments - especially considering that there were reports in Europe about just over 30 kW of DC charging power in the cold (different battery version).

"It’s time for a coldgate test of the Hyundai IONIQ 5 77kWh US version! We’ve heard many reports of Europeans seeing not much over 30kW so we had to give it a try and see what our US cars are doing. As far as this test goes, it’s not totally repeatable. We’d love to see more data points on this charging curve with colder and warmer temperatures!"

What do you think?

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Comments

The 18-minute session ended at 44% SOC. Charging power decreased to 57 kW. Considering that a total of 19 kWh was dispensed by the charger, the average power was about 63 kW.

Start
20% SOC
63 kW
estimated 37 minutes to reach 80% SOC
End (after 18 minutes)
44% SOC
57 kW
Average
+24% SOC points
+19 kWh
average power of about 63 kW

The result does not seem to be bad (and would likely be even better if there was a pre-conditioning feature to heat up the battery ahead of fast charging).