Is CBEV battery 64 kWh?

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roperld

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The web page https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-two-battery-options-210-mile-range/ states:
"The long-range Kona will come with a 64 kWh battery"
"Interestingly, Hyundai is using LG Chem as one of its powertrain suppliers. According to Gas2, the Kona is speculated to feature the same motor used in the Bolt (~204 hp). Also of note, the Bolt uses a 60 kWh LG Chem battery pack, but it appears that the Kona’s pack will be a touch bigger (or perhaps GM is just promoting the usable capacity over the net capacity)."
My web page http://www.roperld.com/Science/CBEVCharging.pdf seems to indicate that the CBEV has a larger kWh unused at the top than does the LEAF because the CBEV power levels off much nearer the end of charging than does the LEAF. Since the LEAF has about 2 kWh unused at the top, an extra 4 kWh at the top of the CBEV appears reasonable.
 
Since the power curve is nearly constant except for the last ~20 minutes of the ~5-hour charging session I conclude that the battery has several kWhs capacity beyond “100%” SOC and that the ~20-minutes slow down near the end is due to the 288 battery cells being voltage balanced.
Click to expand...

How does that follow? You started from an arbitrary point below 50% reported (not necessarily actual as we don't know what Chevy is reporting), but just because there is (surely) an end balancing stage you can't conclude that it must have greater than 60kWh battery.

There's no way to test this AFAIK. You could try to drive the battery truly to zero, then do a full charge, measuring how much energy it uses. But what if it ends up as 60kWh? Well by definition if there's any end buffer (say something crazy like 10kWh) then by definition Chevy is only going to charge to 60, leaving that last bit as unused capacity to pamper the battery.
 
roperld said:
The web page https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-two-battery-options-210-mile-range/ states:
"The long-range Kona will come with a 64 kWh battery"
"Interestingly, Hyundai is using LG Chem as one of its powertrain suppliers. According to Gas2, the Kona is speculated to feature the same motor used in the Bolt (~204 hp). Also of note, the Bolt uses a 60 kWh LG Chem battery pack, but it appears that the Kona’s pack will be a touch bigger (or perhaps GM is just promoting the usable capacity over the net capacity)."
My web page http://www.roperld.com/Science/CBEVCharging.pdf seems to indicate that the CBEV has a larger kWh unused at the top than does the LEAF because the CBEV power levels off much nearer the end of charging than does the LEAF. Since the LEAF has about 2 kWh unused at the top, an extra 4 kWh at the top of the CBEV appears reasonable.
Click to expand...

The battery packs are integrated frame pieces and would likely be more trouble to shoehorn into another p[platform then to do a different configuration suited to that specific platform, adding 4 extra kwh in another configuration for use in what we can assume is a larger vehicle to get that magic 200 mile range makes more sense .

interesting car though, if they lost the molded plastic fenders, Lexus knockoff grill and two tone roof I'd even call it decent looking.
 
roperld said:
The web page https://insideevs.com/hyundai-kona-electric-two-battery-options-210-mile-range/ states:
"The long-range Kona will come with a 64 kWh battery"
"Interestingly, Hyundai is using LG Chem as one of its powertrain suppliers. According to Gas2, the Kona is speculated to feature the same motor used in the Bolt (~204 hp). Also of note, the Bolt uses a 60 kWh LG Chem battery pack, but it appears that the Kona’s pack will be a touch bigger (or perhaps GM is just promoting the usable capacity over the net capacity)."
My web page http://www.roperld.com/Science/CBEVCharging.pdf seems to indicate that the CBEV has a larger kWh unused at the top than does the LEAF because the CBEV power levels off much nearer the end of charging than does the LEAF. Since the LEAF has about 2 kWh unused at the top, an extra 4 kWh at the top of the CBEV appears reasonable.
Click to expand...

The charge tapers approximately the same amount of time in both hilltop mode and full charge. I don't see the taper pointing to the amount of "reserve" battery.
 
The Chevy Bolt pack is CERTAINLY greater than 60 kWh total capacity, since 60 kWh is the usable capacity.

When you hit “0%” after driving 240 miles at 4.0 kWh/mi the lights and dash and electronics are still running. The battery isn’t “dead”, it has reached the enginneered safe stopping point.

Conversely, if you start at the top of a hill with a “100% charge” battery, YOU STILL GET REGEN on the way downhill, but is limited at approx. 25 kw (70 kw is normal).

The Bolt battery can be inferred to be at least 64 kWh capacity, if you chose to stress it to the Max.
 

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