New 2014 owner; looking for info on getting Torque to work.

[MisturChips]

Just picked up a 2014 Spark last week, and it's a LOT of fun to drive!

Trying to get Torque to produce relevant results, and so far I can only get a few things to pop up.

Is there a 'guide' on how to poke through the settings etc to get some thing more useful than jsut 'Hybrid battery" percentage and an oddly flat 'HP' graph?


Also, I noticed under the hood is quite grimy from it's former life in Los Angeles commuting every day. I was considering taking the air compressor / blow gun to it and / or a trip to the self car wash to give it a spray-down with the 'spot-free rinse' RO water. Any advice here?

Also looking to see if I can get any other relevant info on the displays like actual battery capacity, SOC etc. It's "cute" for sure as it is, but I'd rather see some more detailed info...

 

[RSC]

I can't give detailed instructions, since it's been a while, but basically you need Torque Pro, not just the basic Torque, and you need to download custom PIDs to a .torque folder. There is a lot of information at //allev.info/boltpids/. The Bolt PIDs will work on the Spark EV, at least the ones that I know of, including battery capacity, SOC, and cell voltages.

 

[MisturChips]

OK. I will give that a gander.

Tonight's escapades brought me to quite a low state of charge after taking a high-speed highway trip a few cities away, followed by a return trip at even faster speeds before my typical commute home.

According to the energy info screen, I used 11.6kWh, and the display showed 6mi range (min 5/max 7) remaining.
Torque shows the battery percentage at 18 percent.


So... if 11.6kWh is 82 percent of capacity, my battery then has degraded to a little over 14kWh capacity in regular use.
Still got 3.4mi/kWh on the 26.4mi trip home, though...

 

[Infinion]

TorquePro has an amazing feature where you can use the OBDII reader to collect and upload data in 1/2/5/20/60-second intervals for route planners to access. When going up mountains or long flat distances I'll use A Better Route Planner and TorquePro together with my phone and OBDII reader to read live SoC, capacity, and consumption information to help plan the route with high levels of accuracy. It takes into consideration hills, traffic, and even wind speed.

I highly recommend TorquePro, it opens the door to some interesting functions with the help of the Bolt PIDs

 

[MisturChips]

I already had Torque Pro.

Set up the Bolt .csv info, and it seems.... off a bit.

Tried to measure charge rate on my Bosch 240V 30A unit today, and it only indicated 8 amps, yet was to be finished quite quickly. I wonder if that's BATTERY current vs. inlet current before the inverter....


I've cobbled together some more interesting 'dashes', and eventually I want to chart each cell's voltage.
Need to decide which I like best for this:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JENrHVaQr2pu3rTs5

Vehicle is indicating 13kWh estimated capacity on the battery, so I may need to take it to a stealership for a test (CA forced a 10-year battery warranty, I believe, so I still have some time to do this).



Bonus: Tried charging on 240V from home this evening. Forgot to try to check for charge input current, but it definitely added significant juice in only an hour. The adapter's good for 16A.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pDNbf5RRoJJpC1udA

 

[Infinion]

I already had Torque Pro.

Set up the Bolt .csv info, and it seems.... off a bit.

Tried to measure charge rate on my Bosch 240V 30A unit today, and it only indicated 8 amps, yet was to be finished quite quickly. I wonder if that's BATTERY current vs. inlet current before the inverter....

Yes you would be correct about it being battery current, but there is no inverter involved besides the on-board charger's DC-DC converter boosting the volts and dropping the amps as a result.

Do you have a screenshot of your displays? If you want to see the AC voltage, AC current, and input power you should add a display that reads
"CAC Volts" where CAC likely stands for "charger AC"
"CAC Amps"
"DCC PowerIn" which likely stands for DC-DC power input

what it sounds like you've added is the 'CDC Amps' which reports the output current flowing to the 2P96S battery pack. That would explain the 8 amps as high voltage DC, because the Spark EV's stock on-board charger doesn't have other input charge currents under 16A except for when it is completing a full charge or the 240V EVSE has reported to the car a lower-available charging current from settings or otherwise.

Here's an example of a past screenshot during 240V charging, where 8 amps DC appears on the CDC display, and 16 amps AC appears on the CAC display.

I've cobbled together some more interesting 'dashes', and eventually I want to chart each cell's voltage.
Need to decide which I like best for this:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/JENrHVaQr2pu3rTs5

For what it's worth, you'd be better off using 'Min Cell' and 'Max Cell' which will sample all 96 series cells at once. This will let you just glance at the figures, and give you an idea of how much the pack is in need of balancing. Otherwise, it would be easy to miss such information regardless of how it was presented just out of the sheer quantity of cells you'd need to review.

Vehicle is indicating 13kWh estimated capacity on the battery, so I may need to take it to a stealership for a test (CA forced a 10-year battery warranty, I believe, so I still have some time to do this).

Let us know how it goes, lots of 2014 owners would be interested to know your experience. It would also be very interesting to see what condition replacement packs are in for the 2014 year as those cells are nearly one of a kind since the manufacturer, A123 systems, is now defunct. Hopefully replacement packs have been stored in a cold room and maintained at a healthy SoC for 7 or 8 years!

Bonus: Tried charging on 240V from home this evening. Forgot to try to check for charge input current, but it definitely added significant juice in only an hour. The adapter's good for 16A.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pDNbf5RRoJJpC1udA

Makes sense, the Spark won't accept higher than 16A with its current hardware. After all, the fuses in the charge port are 20A...

Would also be worth checking how much voltage sag the EVSE has with 'CAC Volts'. I've visited some public chargers that have been as low as 190V and only received about 2.6kW!

 

[MisturChips]

Interesting.

Running the histograms shows most cells are quite close - Still need to add the rest.

Tried DC charger this evening, and....

Its pulled just over 16KW almost the entire time, although errant connection happened twice before it would actually start charging, and the vehicle reported 51KW DCC PowerOut and nothing on DCC Current.

Also tried level 2 charger to be sure, and a bit over 3KW was had (Forgot to grab a screenshot)


Need to wipe anything that doesn't update regularly, and try to get the battery current to fit on this screen, as well as capacity. BTW, the eco widget ended up solid green earlier today (heh).


Does Torque record data for everything, regardless if it's on the dash? IF so, I could always rout things through excel and see what I can come up with.