When looking to buy how do you check battery

[LostinEVland]

How does one go about checking the life left in the high voltage batteries,, Thanks in advance

 

[NORTON]

An easy way, without getting into OBD2 and apps, is to do a test drive of over 50 miles and be sure the battery is fully charged at the start.
Check the 'Energy Usage' page to be sure.
You want your drive to use at least 50% of the capacity to make the results more accurate.

Check the page again at the end.
You're looking for kWh used and the percentage of charge.
Run the math.
2014 Spark EV had a slightly higher rating than the following years due to changing the cell supplier.
Somehow the EPA rating remained the same....

'14 was ~19kWh
'15 and '16 was slightly less.

Bolts don't give you that number directly on the screen, so it's easy on the Spark.
You can find lots of info on this forum about typical kWh numbers for used Spark EV's.

I haven't logged my numbers in a while, but my '14 is doing great at 97k miles.
It still displays ~73 miles of range on the GOM. But the GOM uses driving history. My usage is usually 80% ~70 mph driving with the AC on.

Good luck. Post your results. Hope it's a bargain Spark EV because the 8 year warranty is coming up.....

 

[LostinEVland]

.

 

[LostinEVland]

An easy way, without getting into OBD2 and apps, is to do a test drive of over 50 miles and be sure the battery is fully charged at the start.
Check the 'Energy Usage' page to be sure.
You want your drive to use at least 50% of the capacity to make the results more accurate.

Check the page again at the end.
You're looking for kWh used and the percentage of charge.
Run the math.
2014 Spark EV had a slightly higher rating than the following years due to changing the cell supplier.
Somehow the EPA rating remained the same....

'14 was ~19kWh
'15 and '16 was slightly less.

Bolts don't give you that number directly on the screen, so it's easy on the Spark.
You can find lots of info on this forum about typical kWh numbers for used Spark EV's.

I haven't logged my numbers in a while, but my '14 is doing great at 97k miles.
It still displays ~73 miles of range on the GOM. But the GOM uses driving history. My usage is usually 80% ~70 mph driving with the AC on.

Good luck. Post your results. Hope it's a bargain Spark EV because the 8 year warranty is coming up.....

Thank you for replying it is a 2016 and it gets round 60 miles to a charge. Is that bad? Buying from daughter, I've asked her questions about it but she just says I don't know, I plug it in at night drive to work and then home lol. So I am trying to learn from you guys and gals here

 

[RSC]

Sixty miles is pretty low and I'd be concerned, but this could just be recent driving history. Factors leading to a low estimate could include a lot of climate control, or starting out at the top of a hill, then driving back.

Better to follow NORTON's procedure. Even if you can't drive far enough to get the battery as low as recommended, you will get a better idea of battery capacity than by looking only at miles available after a charge. You do have to make sure the battery is fully charged before starting out, though. That's a must.

Edit:
But if the range easily covers your needs with some allowance for future degradation, I would say there is no problem.

 

[LostinEVland]

Sixty miles is pretty low and I'd be concerned, but this could just be recent driving history. Factors leading to a low estimate could include a lot of climate control, or starting out at the top of a hill, then driving back.

Better to follow NORTON's procedure. Even if you can't drive far enough to get the battery as low as recommended, you will get a better idea of battery capacity than by looking only at miles available after a charge. You do have to make sure the battery is fully charged before starting out, though. That's a must.

Edit:
But if the range easily covers your needs with some allowance for future degradation, I would say there is no problem.

Thank you we pulled the trigger mostly because she is moving to another state and it made it easier for her not to have 2 cars to take. I still haven't picked it up so will find out at that time. Either way we now are new owners of a Spark. Anything else I need to know? I have been reading my way thru this forum and will be a learning curve for this old dude lol