[NearZero]

With Corona Virus, not driving much. It's a new '19 Niro has 450 miles on it. Moved Niro out of Garage and back in 1 week ago just fine. Went out to use yesterday and NOTHING. No key unlock from FOB (was unlocke already, but checked), no interior lights, no dash activity, no START button work.

Pressed the magic 12V RESET button, waited 10 seconds and started car with button just fine.

Did I leave the car in 'acc' mode last time used as was looking at options on Dash? Did I leave a light on? Is this going to happen all the time?

Obviously, there is a problem with the 12V battery being smaller than most cars and not holding up under 'off' loads like we are use to. Kia KNOWNS this too, or they wouldn't have put the magic 12V RESET button on the dash and implemented some charge circuit to move power from traction battery when press this button.

I know GM has battery run down protection from the early 2000's, where ALL lights and acc are turned off after a time to protect the battery. Kia didn't do this as read the hatch light can cause problems if left open.

Having a problem with only 3 weeks ownership makes me scared for the little 12V battery life long term. I THINK it is covered by the 10/100k warranty, but not sure.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad to have the magic 12V reset button,but seems like a factory hack.

 

[atc98092]

Your 12v battery is actually park of the high voltage traction battery, just partitioned off from the higher voltage. There is no lead acid 12v battery in the Hybrid. The PHEV and EV do still have separate lead acid batteries. So yes, it should be covered by the long term warranty.

You likely did nothing wrong, and the car performed as designed. Unless you go out 24 hours later and the 12v side is again dead, I doubt there's anything amiss.

 

[FlNiro]

Also don't forget to NOT leave your key FOB close to the car if it's parked inside your garage. If the key FOB is too close to the car it will keep communicating with the car and the car won't go to sleep. Hence a drained and sleepy Niro.

 

[NearZero]

Also don't forget to NOT leave your key FOB close to the car if it's parked inside your garage. If the key FOB is too close to the car it will keep communicating with the car and the car won't go to sleep. Hence a drained and sleepy Niro.

THANKS!!!!! Did not know this. Will do. (Ha! a drained and sleepy Niro. LOL, Love it)

 

[NearZero]

Your 12v battery is actually park of the high voltage traction battery, just partitioned off from the higher voltage. There is no lead acid 12v battery in the Hybrid. The PHEV and EV do still have separate lead acid batteries. So yes, it should be covered by the long term warranty.

You likely did nothing wrong, and the car performed as designed. Unless you go out 24 hours later and the 12v side is again dead, I doubt there's anything amiss.

Only bad thing here is remote FOB would not have unlocked car if had been locked. This is good to know that the 12 V RESET works and may have to use hard key every now and again.

 

[NearZero]

Also don't forget to NOT leave your key FOB close to the car if it's parked inside your garage. If the key FOB is too close to the car it will keep communicating with the car and the car won't go to sleep. Hence a drained and sleepy Niro.

What is that distance from key to car to keep awake and make him sleepy?

 

[atc98092]

What is that distance from key to car to keep awake and make him sleepy?

Usually about 5' or so is enough. But if the fob is in the house and the car's in the garage, that should be fine.

And if it's totally dead and the car's locked, there's a "normal" key within the fob that can unlock the door.

 

[NearZero]

Usually about 5' or so is enough. But if the fob is in the house and the car's in the garage, that should be fine.

And if it's totally dead and the car's locked, there's a "normal" key within the fob that can unlock the door.

5 feet, ok, so not TOO close. And the Niro key hole is way easier to access that on a Volt. It is really hidden on that car.

 

[yticolev]

Your 12v battery is actually park of the high voltage traction battery, just partitioned off from the higher voltage.

It is not part of the traction battery and can be replaced separately. No harm done, but you do keep saying this.

This system is not a hack, it is a feature! When the 12 volt battery gets too low while parked, a relay opens to stop the voltage from continuing to fall to prevent damage. This is superior tech versus most cars, including those with lead acid batteries which are also damaged when the voltage drops too low. The battery reset button closes this relay restoring voltage to the 12 volt system. When this happens, voltage is restored to the 12 volt systems, allowing you to turn the car on - which you are supposed to do after such an event and leave on for 30 minutes (you don't have to actually drive the car) to recharge the 12 volt battery.

I admit I don't understand the 30 minute requirement, it shouldn't take long to transfer sufficient capacity from the traction battery to the 12 volt battery via a DC to DC voltage converter. If this happened to me when I wasn't intending to drive off, I think I would try five minutes on, and see if that was sufficient. Perhaps the 30 minutes is to cover the edge case where the traction battery is also depleted to allow the engine to turn on to recharge the traction battery. I've never seen the charge level display on the traction battery near empty when I've stopped the car though.

I've had to use the reset button twice, both times with a (different) BT OBD reader plugged in. They have very low rated current draw, but if they were actively communicating to my phone 20 feet away in my house, perhaps this required extra current depleting my 12 volt battery. Needless to say, I don't leave such readers plugged in overnight anymore.

I've left my key fob in the car several times without injury. It may well use more energy outside the car if in range of the door sensors. I've also left an interior light on overnight without triggering the relay. So absolutely, the source of your excess current should be tracked down if this repeats.

 

[NearZero]

It is not part of the traction battery and can be replaced separately. No harm done, but you do keep saying this.

This system is not a hack, it is a feature! When the 12 volt battery gets too low while parked, a relay opens to stop the voltage from continuing to fall to prevent damage. This is superior tech versus most cars, including those with lead acid batteries which are also damaged when the voltage drops too low. The battery reset button closes this relay restoring voltage to the 12 volt system. When this happens, voltage is restored to the 12 volt systems, allowing you to turn the car on - which you are supposed to do after such an event and leave on for 30 minutes (you don't have to actually drive the car) to recharge the 12 volt battery.

I admit I don't understand the 30 minute requirement, it shouldn't take long to transfer sufficient capacity from the traction battery to the 12 volt battery via a DC to DC voltage converter. If this happened to me when I wasn't intending to drive off, I think I would try five minutes on, and see if that was sufficient. Perhaps the 30 minutes is to cover the edge case where the traction battery is also depleted to allow the engine to turn on to recharge the traction battery. I've never seen the charge level display on the traction battery near empty when I've stopped the car though.

I've had to use the reset button twice, both times with a (different) BT OBD reader plugged in. They have very low rated current draw, but if they were actively communicating to my phone 20 feet away in my house, perhaps this required extra current depleting my 12 volt battery. Needless to say, I don't leave such readers plugged in overnight anymore.

I've left my key fob in the car several times without injury. It may well use more energy outside the car if in range of the door sensors. I've also left an interior light on overnight without triggering the relay. So absolutely, the source of your excess current should be tracked down if this repeats.

Say not as elegant as could be. This is a new car, and that scares me. Car is 3 weeks old, and don't want to track down any vampire loads in a NEW car. The programming could have done this automatically. They know for 12V voltage and traction battery charge level. Why not automatically move power from the big battery to the 12v, like the PHEV does? I've never seen the big battery below a little under 1/2, so could draw that down abit before have any problems. Then the user (me) would not have know this even happened.

Just hope I left it in ACC mode and that is the draw. Then worried about nothing.

 

[atc98092]

It is not part of the traction battery and can be replaced separately. No harm done, but you do keep saying this.

This system is not a hack, it is a feature!

I agree it's a feature.

But perhaps I've misunderstood the 12v battery on the HEV. I do see how I mis-phrased that, I that's my mistake. I didn't mean to imply it can't be replaced. But it is just another L-ion battery isn't it? It's not the usual lead acid battery, right?

 

[NearZero]

Ok, I think I get it. This small part of the battery is set for 12v for 'normal' car 12 volt things like computers, lights and radio. This battery is disconnected when its voltage gets too low to keep from over discharging it. Car appears to be 'dead' but is just sleepy. (HA) Pressing the magic button closes the contact again to put the 12V battery 'back on line' and the computers come alive to allow the car to start from the big battery which was never really dead. Then run gas for 30 minuntes to be sure to charge up small and big batteries. This 'bring back online' would make sense, otherwise in 10 seconds how much charging does the little battery get from the big one? Would think almost nothing, as charging it would take time or a decent size DC-DC converter to do it in 10 seconds.

Question. The computers don't loose data when powered off? Radio seems to remember what presets were. And the gas engine fuel trims must be maintained or they have to be relearned and an emission test would flunk until they were all relearned and tested. So computers are using some sort of FLASH memory or the computer memories are NOT disconnected when everything else is.

I'm starting to understand this system a bit more.

 

[yticolev]

Say not as elegant as could be. This is a new car, and that scares me. Car is 3 weeks old, and don't want to track down any vampire loads in a NEW car. The programming could have done this automatically. They know for 12V voltage and traction battery charge level. Why not automatically move power from the big battery to the 12v, like the PHEV does? I've never seen the big battery below a little under 1/2, so could draw that down abit before have any problems. Then the user (me) would not have know this even happened.

So a vampire load in a new car needs to be tracked down, just as in a car several years old. First suspect is usually the user, as it was in my two such events. And yes, this relay is a very elegant solution.

The PHEV system sucks and is a battery killer. Not knowing about a charging event while parked is not a good thing (you said you would not even need to know) and the PHEV does alert you when this happens. The PHEV does limit the number of times this can happen to avoid damaging the traction battery.

The HEV with a smaller traction battery cannot afford an automatic system as that could drain the battery causing really expensive damage.

The computers don't loose data when powered off?

Yes, some counters such as estimated mpg and trip meter do zero. It is possible just like ICE cars, disconnecting the 12 volt battery also resets some learning of driver habits and environmental conditions by the engine and supposedly the transmission (Kia claims it learns anyway but if so, they are probably just talking about which next gear is predicted and preselected).

 

[Gerd_NL]

Also the HEV has a power relay to disconnect it from the hole system after switch-off the car. The 12V-battery is constantly connected due to e.g. buglar-alarm, keyless-entry.
If the 12V-battery is down due to long time the car is not used or a door is not closed correctly and there is not Battery-Reset button, a Jump-Starter helps here.

 

[ScooterMaxiJim]

So a vampire load in a new car needs to be tracked down, just as in a car several years old. First suspect is usually the user, as it was in my two such events. And yes, this relay is a very elegant solution.

Agreed, a very elegant solution, and it was what was on my mind when my 2013 C-Max continually ran into depleted battery problems and Ford service needed several attempts and various recalls to finally address the problem. Toyota also ran into the problem with the earliest Prius models. Generally, the term used is "parasitic" load, and it comes into play more often as cars rely ever-more on electronic monitoring. The solution is to provide good capacitors on everything that requires constant draws... but that can get expensive.

 

[AlgaeKiller]

I think it's a neat feature. It had to be used to get mine out of the showroom because it had been played with a bunch and it was 'dead.' Before they took it out to fuel it up and clean it before I took her home, my salesman showed me how it worked. It didn't seem like it even took 10 seconds but it fired right up and I have yet to have to use it. I think it's pretty cool, if I were at the lake or in the country and was playing music from my Niro and happened to run the battery down, just hit the button and your are good to go.

 

[yticolev]

I think it's pretty cool, if I were at the lake or in the country and was playing music from my Niro and happened to run the battery down, just hit the button and your are good to go.

In that scenario, you are better off leaving the car "on". The one time I tried it, about 90 seconds of engine time every 10 minutes to keep the 12 volt battery charged.

 

[jmurphEV]

I think it's a neat feature. It had to be used to get mine out of the showroom because it had been played with a bunch and it was 'dead.' Before they took it out to fuel it up and clean it before I took her home, my salesman showed me how it worked. It didn't seem like it even took 10 seconds but it fired right up and I have yet to have to use it. I think it's pretty cool, if I were at the lake or in the country and was playing music from my Niro and happened to run the battery down, just hit the button and your are good to go.

Like @yticolev said, the beauty of a hybrid is that the gas engine will only run when it needs to so the way to go if you want to run the radio or other accessories is to just leave the car on and let the computer figure it out. I was reading about the new Ford F150's that have an optional 120/240 VAC generator function built in. The top trim hybrid has an available 7.2kW unit. The generator (more correctly, the inverter I suppose) draws power from the hybrid battery pack and the gas engine runs to recharge it as required. The claim is that it can provide max power for up to 35 hours on a full tank of gas. Not the most efficient generator I'm sure, but still, very convenient. Interestingly, if you get the non-hybrid version, you can only get a 2kW model. In that case obviously the engine runs continuously to power the AC supply.

 

[FlNiro]

Does anybody know if any aftermarket companies make a kit with a plug so you can plug your Niro in to power your house if you lose power after a storm? I believe there was a company that made that for a Prius and was wondering if you can get the same thing for a Niro?

 

[atc98092]

Does anybody know if any aftermarket companies make a kit with a plug so you can plug your Niro in to power your house if you lose power after a storm? I believe there was a company that made that for a Prius and was wondering if you can get the same thing for a Niro?

That is called Vehicle to Grid (V2G). The electronics in the car have to support it. Can't be added after the fact without significant changes, but I would suppose it's possible. Nissan has worked on it, but I haven't heard of any other manufacturers getting serious about it yet.