In Phoenix Area, Determined to Have a Spark EV

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BetteInSCW

Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2018
Messages
22
I know that the heat :oops: in the Phoenix area is not ideal for an EV, but I want one anyway. Would like feedback from any EV owner in a location where temps are 100+ in the summer. It's easy to check where the previous owner lived, but I am wondering if I should even avoid a car that has been sitting outside at a dealership here. One I like is in Scottsdale, has been at the dealership for 2-3 weeks, stored outside (at least they don't fast-charge them). Should I consider buying/shipping from a cooler location? It would go straight into my garage to be babied for all time.
 
Here in Davis, California we frequently have temps over 100. And in my non-insulated garage it can be 110. We had two Nissan LEAFs, which lack thermal management, and both showed substantial loss of range after two years, and by the end of their three-year leases they were almost useless. Thank goodness we leased so we weren't stuck with them! We've now had two Spark EVs, which have thermal management, and neither has shown any loss of range in 30 months, in exactly the same temperature conditions. So, moral of the story is make sure any EV you choose has thermal management. Sitting outside in inventory shouldn't have any noticeable effect. By the way, some EVs claim to have thermal management, but it's just a fan. What you want is a system that circulates coolant using a pump and a radiator. Chevy Bolt , Spark and Volt have this, as do Teslas. I'm not sure what other EVs have it, but I'm sure that information is available on various EV forums or from Internet research.

If it's a used car you're considering, all else being equal, I'd choose one that came from a cooler climate. You could check the CarFax to see where it spent its time before moving to Scottsdale. Even if it's from a hot climate, if the mileage is low the likelihood of any serious degradation of the battery is low. And remember EVs do have a really long battery warranty, so you're covered. If it's a Spark EV you're considering, remember they were only sold new in California, Oregon and (I think) Maryland, so the chances of its coming from a really hot climate are reduced.
 
I went for the best looking condition and best battery life left myself. I bought my car in Phoenix but from private party (who garaged it) and only had it 1 summer in Scottsdale. The ones I looked at the dealerships in Phoenix area (including Courtesy Chevy) were just beat up, poor battery shape and clearly leased vehicles that the owners cared very little about -- lots of scratches, door dings, scuffs and wear on the interior too! ..thus I went private party

Beware of cars that have sat around unused for long periods of time or excessive use of DC Fast charging. It seems a lot of 'carvana' cars have 20 to 25% battery degrade happening while mine has maybe 2% battery loss since new. (I still see as high as 119 miles on 1 charge sometimes)
 
I bought a 2015 Spark EV 2LT over the weekend. I absolutely love it. It has only 15K miles and looks perfect. The former "owner" leased it in Temecula, CA, which is not excessively hot.
My Q is: I've been charging it at the lowest level (120V, 8A) during the hottest part of the day, in my garage. I charge from 4pm to, say 9:30pm. Then I unplug it since around 9:30pm the temperature in my garage has dropped to 90-91. At that point it's not fully charged. I wonder if I should just leave it plugged in all the time. The Chevy Volt manual recommends that Volt owners do that, but the Spark manual gives no guidance. If I left it plugged in, it would fully charge, and then stop charging. I believe the battery cooling system would continue to run though. Which would be worse--to leave it fully charged, but with the cooling fan on, or let it remain only halfway charged, but maybe getting too hot in my garage? Sometimes in Phoenix the night temperature doesn't drop below 90, and my garage can be hotter than that.
 
I just went through this in another thread. But, the best thing to do is set it to charge overnight (use the on/off peak charge settings) when it’s coolest outside.

When I leave for work my car has completed charging within the last couple hours. When I get home, I plug it in, it doesn’t start charging until 2am (maybe 3am, I can’t remember). This way it spends the least amount of time at full charge.
 
CCIE said:
I just went through this in another thread. But, the best thing to do is set it to charge overnight (use the on/off peak charge settings) when it’s coolest outside.

When I leave for work my car has completed charging within the last couple hours. When I get home, I plug it in, it doesn’t start charging until 2am (maybe 3am, I can’t remember). This way it spends the least amount of time at full charge.
I have been using the completion time setting to accomplish the same purpose. I set the time in the morning when I want the car fully charged and the car's computer determines when to start charging based on the input voltage being used to charge the car. The only drawback is I will always end up with a full SOC. I have tried, and it worked, setting the charging completion time to a later time and then manually interupt the charging cycle before the cycle ends. This allows me to have lower than 100% SOC.

I am going to look into the off-peak charging setup to see if I can set the charging cycle for a specified number of hours in order to not have 100% SOC when I leave in the morning. Thanks for the suggestion.
 
BetteInSCW said:
I bought a 2015 Spark EV 2LT over the weekend. I absolutely love it. It has only 15K miles and looks perfect.

Hey, just curious, did you buy the red one from Carvana with 15K miles? If so, I almost bought that one but decided on the blue one with 15K miles instead lol.
 
I didn't buy the Carvana one, I bought a white one at Red Rock Automotive in Scottsdale. I never would have driven a Spark, but they recommended I test-drive one. Red Rock is the only dealer in the area that knows anything about electrics--they post good photos of the charge port, the cable, all the LCD screens, etc.
I like the idea of programming it to finish charging at a late-morning hour, then unplugging it early. This morning, fully charged, it showed a maximum of 92 miles. (of course with a.c. in the 100+ heat it works out to much less).
 
P.S. Glad you bought the blue one--blue is the best color in the Spark EVs, and there aren't many of them.
 
BetteInSCW said:
I didn't buy the Carvana one, I bought a white one at Red Rock Automotive in Scottsdale. I never would have driven a Spark, but they recommended I test-drive one. Red Rock is the only dealer in the area that knows anything about electrics--they post good photos of the charge port, the cable, all the LCD screens, etc.
I like the idea of programming it to finish charging at a late-morning hour, then unplugging it early. This morning, fully charged, it showed a maximum of 92 miles. (of course with a.c. in the 100+ heat it works out to much less).

Oh cool, there were no dealerships anywhere near me in Florida that had Spark EVs, so I basically just had to test drive a gas Spark at the Chevy dealership and hope for the best with Carvana. Luckily it all worked out though, and glad to hear it's working out for you too.
 
BetteInSCW - I think you wrapped up at Red Rock just as got there, my daughter bought the blue Spark they had on the lot. Congrats on the car, my kid is loving hers.
 
BetteInSCW said:
I didn't buy the Carvana one, I bought a white one at Red Rock Automotive in Scottsdale. I never would have driven a Spark, but they recommended I test-drive one. Red Rock is the only dealer in the area that knows anything about electrics--they post good photos of the charge port, the cable, all the LCD screens, etc.
I like the idea of programming it to finish charging at a late-morning hour, then unplugging it early. This morning, fully charged, it showed a maximum of 92 miles. (of course with a.c. in the 100+ heat it works out to much less).
I use the following numbers to calculate the number of hours I need to disconnect before the time I programmed charging to actually end:

L1 EVSE at 120 VAC and 8 amps: .70 kWh / hr
L1 EVSE at 120 VAC and 12 amps: 1.0 kWh / hr
L2 EVSE at 240 VAC and 16 amps: 3.3 kWh /hr

As an example, if my full-charge HV battery capacity is 16 kWh and I only want to charge to 80% SOC [3.2 kWh less than a full charge], I would set my charging time to end the following number of hours after the time I actually planned to leave:

L1 EVSE at 120 VAC and 8 amps: 4.6 hrs
L1 EVSE at 120 VAC and 12 amps: 3.2 hrs ( remember that you need to manually reset to 12 amps for each charging cycle)
L2 EVSE at 240 VAC and 16 amps: 1.00 hr

Assumptions:
L1 < 2 kWh is ~71% efficient
L2 > 2 kWh is ~87% efficient

7/72018: Last night I tried this method using my Bosch 3.3 kWh L2 EVSE. I set my charge completion time to 9:15 am and I disconnected at 8:00 am. Using Torque Pro, I measured the HV battery SOC and it read 85.1%. My next test will be to set my completion time to 1.5 hrs after my planned departure time to see how close I can get to 80% SOC.
 
Pagester said:
BetteInSCW - I think you wrapped up at Red Rock just as got there, my daughter bought the blue Spark they had on the lot. Congrats on the car, my kid is loving hers.

That blue one was a beautiful car. Perfect tires, low mileage, everything clean. Congrats to your daughter too!
 
I live in the Phoenix Chandler area. The Spark EV does great in the HEAT, no battery degradation at all in 3 years. I also head up the Phoenix Electric Auto Association 501C3 non profit. We meet in downtown Phoenix at the Unexpected art gallery every last Saturady of the month. 10 AM to NOON. Drop in and talk with owners of all types of Electrics.

Liquid cooling on the spark and Fiat 500e and BMW along with Tesla are great. Others with no or poor cooling are very bad like the LEAF and KIA SOUL EV. They dies in 2-3 years. Very poor warranty of the LEAF too.
 
jstack6 said:
.... The Spark EV does great in the HEAT, no battery degradation at all in 3 years. .....
Come on, jstack, tell the truth... :roll:
How many miles are you up to? Are you calculating and logging data?

Degradation is a fact of life for BEV's.
But then it is a fact for gassers also.
 
Thank you for the notification. I will try to make it to the meeting (Unexpected Gallery, last SAT of month). I see very few EV's in my area (Surprise, Sun City West, El Mirage), and would like to know about others.
 
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