Last Thursday I drove my 2019 Kia Niro PHEV 150 miles from my home in Massachusetts to a folk festival in New York, where we camped in a field. The 26 miles of traction power were, of course, depleted by the time we arrived. I left the headlights on while setting up our tent. On Friday afternoon I got the "Key not detected" message, then lost all auxiliary power and the car would not start. (Perhaps I should have driven in HEV mode to preserve the charge in the traction battery, and that would have recharged the 12V battery?)
I was hesitant to jump start the 12V battery, as page 8-39 of the manual says "recharge it by slow charging (trickle) for 10 hours." There is a reference to jump starting on page 7-7, but I thought this might refer to the Niro HEV, not the PHEV. After speaking with KIA roadside assistance by phone for advice, I decided to go ahead with a jump start using a Chicago Electric portable charger Model 38391 provided by the festival security team.
Although I believe I could have attached the charger to connection points under the hood, I was hesitant to do this, so I attached the charger directly to the 12V battery in the rear cargo area. This, of course, required crawling from a side door over my cargo to manually release the rear liftgate! (The mechanical key works for this as described on page 4-26.)
The car started immediately upon connection to the portable charger. I drove the car 20 minutes in one direction on a state road and 20 minutes back to the festival site, not daring to turn off the car once until I had returned. The Malfunction Indicator Light (page 4-98) remained on for the entire trip. After I turned the car off, the auxiliary functions all worked properly (locks, interior lights, etc.) for the rest of Saturday and into Sunday.
On Sunday, I kept the load on the 12V battery to a minimum by turning off the interior lights, but we did open and close the doors and liftgate frequently. On Sunday evening we loaded up the car and prepared for our return home. Just as we were about to leave, the car went dead again. I unloaded the cargo, crawled into the cargo area, released the liftgate, borrowed the portable charger again, jump started the car again, and we were on our way home. The Malfunction Indicator Light remained lit again for the entire trip.
The car operated normally on Monday and Tuesday and the Malfunction Indicator Light did not come on. I waited until Tuesday night to charge the traction battery.
I would appreciate any comments or suggestions. I admit it was unwise to leave the headlights on to set up our tent. But I fully expected that driving for 40 minutes would be enough to return the system to normal. Apparently that is not the case. I am wondering what precautions I should take for future camping trips. As I mentioned above, perhaps the best strategy would be to travel in HEV mode to preserve the charge on the traction battery, and switching to EV mode only when on the way to a charging point or home.
Would anyone advise me to have the car checked out by my dealer, or does this all sound like expected behavior?
My car remains at the factory setting with the "Aux. Battery Saver +" function enabled (page H35, 4-84). According to my interpretation of the manual, there appears to be a separate "Battery saver function" on page 4-116. This page describes a way to override this feature by turning the parking lights off, then on again. I may very well have performed this override when setting up my tent--further contributing to the depletion of my 12V battery on that fateful Friday night.
Thank you.