Just Bought 2015 Spark EV- Did I get screwed?

[MOdes2741]

Hello,

I am simultaneously excited and concerned about a 2015 spark EV that I bought just yesterday. I purchased from a dealership and the car has 30,000 miles on it. The car was not fully charged at the dealership when I test drove it. When deciding to buy the car I wanted to ask the question: what is the battery degradation like on this car?

When I spoke to the salesman he quoted the factory numbers in terms of its range. I took him at his word.

So last night I take the car home and it says the battery is fully charged and my range is only 58 miles!

I realize that I should have asked to see the car when the battery was at 100%, but I am curious if this range will somehow increase?

Any help here is appreciated. Thankfully this dealership has a 60 day 3,000 mile warranty on the car, but at this point I feel like throwing a fit and trying to return the car since I was told that the car still had its original range.

 

[SparkE]

questions about range come up a lot. You should look through the threads here.

- yes, the battery degrades
- the range depends on *how* the car has been driven (speed, heater use, stop/start, ...)
- cold weather will give you (*much*) lower range

look for the threads here, they will answer your questions.

 

[scrambler]

As you will find searching that forum, the range is an estimated guess based on the last few driving/charge cycles.
So it will take a few days for it to reflect your driving conditions.

There are various ways to get an estimate of the current battery usable capacity. If you don't have a fancy ODB electronic device, the best tool is the battery % used and kWh used reported when you press the leaf button. You should use these numbers when the battery is at least 50% used (the more the better, and try to catch a moment where both the % and the kWh number change at the same time to minimize rounding errors.
Also add all the % (driving, heating conditioning)

Then just divide the kWh by the Total of the percentages.
60% used battery and 10kWh used would mean 10 / 0.6 = 16.7 kWh usable capacity.
My spark 2014 has about 60k miles an is down to a little above 14 kWh usable capacity.

Then your range will depend on your driving condition which is reflected in the average Miles / kWh number you can see on the dashboard.
If you have 16 kWh usable capacity and you average 5 miles / kWh, your range will be 5 x 16 = 80 miles

 

[NORTON]

....When I spoke to the salesman he quoted the factory numbers in terms of its range. I took him at his word....

1st thing:
Is this the first car you ever bought? If so then you are excused. If not,, wth?
Do you not know how to tell when a 'used car salesman' is lying? His lips are moving. Seriously, look up least trusted 'professions'.

Why did you not demand having the car fully charged before driving it off the lot? Hopefully you paid a good price and did your research...

2nd:
Return it if you can. Or try to give your GOM time to see what life with you is like. You won't be sorry for entering the EV future!

The Spark EV is the best of the 'short range' EV's, if you can live with its size and style. It is a bargain and a fast fun car! IMHO!!

 

[MrDRMorgan]

Hello,

I am simultaneously excited and concerned about a 2015 spark EV that I bought just yesterday. I purchased from a dealership and the car has 30,000 miles on it. The car was not fully charged at the dealership when I test drove it. When deciding to buy the car I wanted to ask the question: what is the battery degradation like on this car?

When I spoke to the salesman he quoted the factory numbers in terms of its range. I took him at his word.

So last night I take the car home and it says the battery is fully charged and my range is only 58 miles!

I realize that I should have asked to see the car when the battery was at 100%, but I am curious if this range will somehow increase?

Any help here is appreciated. Thankfully this dealership has a 60 day 3,000 mile warranty on the car, but at this point I feel like throwing a fit and trying to return the car since I was told that the car still had its original range.

"Then your range will depend on your driving condition" - This is very true!

Operating an EV is a real LEARNING EXPERIENCE and, after four years of driving my Spark EVs, I am still learning.

My personal experiences with a 2015 Spark EV, and that of a few others, indicate a 2015 Spark EV with 30k miles on the ODO will have an HV battery capacity of approximately 15 kWh. Your driving style, coupled with the environmental conditions in which you are driving, will determine how many miles per kWh you get. The worst conditions are cold wet weather when you first start out and you have the heater cranked up to get the cabin warm. Try it! I have seen my kWh/ mi numbers right around 1.75 - 2.0 when I first started out in 32 deg. F weather and which gradually increased to 4.3 kWh as the cabin warmed up. I find I get my best performance at 60 deg. F and above as long as I do not turn on the AC. When I turned in my leased 2015 Spark EV, which had 30k miles on the ODO, my "calculated" battery capacity was 15.5kWh at 6.2 mi / kWh. This gave me a full-charge GOM range of about 95 miles.

This will be a fun learning experience. Charge up your battery to 100% and make sure the Energy Information display is reset to zero. Take the car for a nice long 50 mile+ drive. Set the transmission to L if you drive in town. This will let you see how regen and one-pedal driving works. If you drive on the highway at higher speeds, you can drive in L or D. You will feel the regen work as you drive in L and take your foot off of the accelerator. When you have driven about 50 miles, stop and record the information on the Energy Information display (Leaf button), Then calculate your battery capacity as explained in an earlier post. Note: you will get you best mi/kWh driving in L and in town at lower speeds. Fast acceleration and speeds higher than 60 mph will nibble into your GOM range too.

Bottom line: Get to know your car! This is one of the most enjoyable cars I have ever driven. Even though I had to turn in my leased 2015 Spark EV, I still have a 2014 Spark EV 2LT w/o DCFC and a 2016 Spark EV 2 LT with DCFC. I bought both of these cars as used vehicles and both have performed exceptionally well. The current battery capacity in my 2014 Spark EV is 16.2 Kwh with a fully charged GOM of 87. The 2016 Spark EV battery capacity is 15.6 kWh with a fully charged GOM of 95. Both cars have less than 18k miles on the ODO.

NOTE: My current battery capacity degradation data for both cars shows I am losing about 1.2 kWh per year even though I have less than 20k miles on each car. I suspect that the cause may be fully charging the battery to 100% rather than just charging to 80-85%. I will be testing my theory this year as I continue to charge both cars.