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EV battery replacement.

281K views 743 replies 72 participants last post by  manandrade4 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hello,

I have a 2014 Smart For Two electric with 20,000 km which I purchased a year ago for $10,000.

The local MINI service center here in Toronto advised me yesterday that the EV battery needs to be replaced. The MINI center will be able to install it for around $1,200. The cost of the OEM EV battery from them is $11,000.

I found a few used EV batteries availabe at the junk yards here in Canada and more in USA for around $1,000. The problem is the MINI refuse to deal with aftermarket part and there is no trained independent mechanic locally who would do the job. I found one British mechanic who claimed to be an expert in Smarts, but after researching the issue he refused as well.

Please advise where to find someone who would do the job! Need one ASAP!
 
#2 ·
Were these used batteries tested? It would be difficult to test them once removed from a working car. Certainly a junkyard would not have the equipment or training to do it. Even just manually checking the pack voltage (much less the individual cell voltages) would involve opening the battery case (with lots of safety precautions) - and the BMS could still be bad.
 
#3 ·
At this point I would part the 2014 and go lease a new one with a full battery warranty. I got a new 2018 EV that was loaded (every option). No 'drive-off' fees, sign and drive and the payment is $169/month...


Oh, I speak from experience. My 2015 EV gave up the battery with 6 months left on the lease. MB Financial made the last 6 payments and sent me on my way in a far superior product.
 
#5 · (Edited)
Unlike other EV's which have 8 or more year battery warranties, the smart battery warranty is the same as the rest of the drivetrain warranty - only 4 years or 50k miles (80k km in Canada?).

However, recall in past fora about the old BAP plan, we discussed whether MB is actually legally obligated under emissions control regulations to honor an 8 (or 10?) year warranty for the battery in at least all US CARB states. We even were looking under the rear mat to see if a California-compliance placard was present - and all of the Smarts seemed to have them.

I'm not sure about Canada, although their regulations are usually harmonized with the US.

Discussion is here:


https://www.smartcarofamerica.com/f...ry-warranty-better-than-they-told-you-148737/
 
#631 ·
Unlike other EV's which have 8 or more year battery warranties, the smart battery warranty is the same as the rest of the drivetrain warranty - only 4 years or 50k miles (80k km in Canada?).

However, recall in past fora about the old BAP plan, we discussed whether MB is actually legally obligated under emissions control regulations to honor an 8 (or 10?) year warranty for the battery in at least all US CARB states. We even were looking under the rear mat to see if a California-compliance placard was present - and all of the Smarts seemed to have them.

I'm not sure about Canada, although their regulations are usually harmonized with the US.

Discussion is here:


smart battery warranty better than they told you
If my memory serves, isn't there a government forced warranty on these cars, forced by the US government, it was like 10 years or something, and the manufacturers sort of glossed over it afterwards? Seems like they generated their lesser warranty documentation without reference to it. Bears some research.
 
#7 ·
The battery is in a internal fault shutdown. It is a safety feature since over-discharged cells can explosively catch fire if recharged. Of course, the shutdown could be erroneous, but nonetheless, MB requires all service personnel to treat the battery pack as a sealed "black box". No internal battery components (cells, relays, the BMS pc board) are available for replacement. So, the only recourse is replacing the whole battery.
 
#8 ·
The Smart Center I have gone to had to replace my battery due to an error on their part. They were doing some warranty work and messed up the connection to the battery. That was in 2016. They told me the battery would have been $29,000 back then. So $11,000 at least sounds a little better.

My guess is that the cost includes surface shipping it from Germany or France or wherever it comes from. They told me at the time that they don’t even stock the batteries here they n North America. So this is going to be an eventual issue for a lot of EDs owners in the US and Canada. It would be really difficult to spend more on the battery than the car is worth for me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#9 ·
The Smart Center I have gone to had to replace my battery due to an error on their part. They were doing some warranty work and messed up the connection to the battery.
The number of ways that the Smart battery can be rendered unusable - even though there is not actually anything physically wrong with it - just vaporous software declaring it toast, or at worst, a bad pc board, is utter farce. Surely, LEAFs, Teslas Bolts, Volts, Kona's etc. don't do this?
 
#11 ·
I was just searching for the same information, In a LEAF owners forum, I could not find any reports of a LEAF discharging from 100 to zero while in storage - in fact, they recommend storing it at 60 percent of so - as I was recommending for the Smart. Also, no accounts of a pack being bricked because of service person's error. (which sounds really implausible - I wonder what really happened? The pack only has a couple connectors plus two coolant/warmant lines.

These recent accounts of pack failure in the Smart (with the possible exception of Bruce's situation) occurred in conditions far less severe than those four things that Nissan warned LEAF owners about.
 
#12 ·
Though this thread doesn't say 100 to 0, it's pretty clear that it would discharge significantly in cold storage, especially over a period measured in months:

battery heater and days subzero parking - My Nissan Leaf Forum

...mentions battery depleting from 8 bars to 4 bars over 2-3 weeks parked at -18C/0F.
I parked in the driveway at 95% dash SOC at Friday noon (probably 23.75 kw-hrs capacity)...Saturday noon...If I trust LeafSpy, it lost maybe 4.95 kw-hrs (about 20% of charge). The maximum possible loss should be 300 watts for 24 hours, or 7.2kw-hrs.
 
#15 ·
In the case of the Smart, per the service primer reference in the sticky above, the battery heater is run off the 12V system, so only the 12 volt battery gets run down. Unlike some other EVs (Tesla I think) the Smart ED is not set up to periodically turn on the DC-DC converter to re charge the 12V battery. That can only be done manually by turning the keyswitch on or plugging it in to an EVSE for charging.


Of course, normal healthy lithium battery cells themselves self-discharge only at an extremely slow rate. I have some old LiFePO4 cells that stay at the nominal 3.2-3.3 volts even after sitting in the garage for 2-3 years.
 
#16 ·
In the case of the Smart, per the service primer reference in the sticky above, the battery heater is run off the 12V system, so only the 12 volt battery gets run down.
Wow. That seems like a strange design, as a 300W heater is about the same load as 5-6 old-school halogen headlamps. I would think that would run down the Smart 12V lead-acid battery so quickly as to be more of a nuisance than a meaningful protection system for the car's battery.

Apologies for the technical error.
 
#18 ·
Presumably, the battery heater does not turn on at any low temperature unless plugged in for charging or the key switch is turned on - in which case the DC-DC converter is turned on and the 12V battery stays charged. This design arrangement prevents the heater from discharging the 12V battery if it isn't plugged in, or worse, discharging the traction pack. (This is supported by reports that there is a small wait period before the car can be put in D and driven in -20 or colder temperatures.) But, it opens the traction battery to possible damage from extreme cold weather if it cannot be plugged in. It was a design compromise.

But at any rate, cold temperature was not a factor in one, and maybe two of the recent cases of a bricked battery pack.
 
#19 ·
Presumably, the battery heater does not turn on at any low temperature unless plugged in for charging or the key switch is turned on - in which case the DC-DC converter is turned on and the 12V battery stays charged.
Very sad just how much we don't know about smart ED and thus must depend on "by guess - by golly" and less than scientific case study as we do our rather feeble CSI investigations?

This as the smart dealer/service network evaporates and ED trained technicians become an endangered species.

Appears our commitment to and expectation of Daimler/smart was a rather one sided relationship and perhaps sooner rather than later our simple, low maintenance EV could fault itself into oblivion??? :shrug:
 
#22 ·
LOOK at youtube.com and i have read where they teach YOU how to bring the battery that is old, back to life. as for mechanics not sure. this is one reason i dont like ev yet. someday maybe. how many miles per charge did you get? me i test d rove one for a week and averaged 57 although they advertised 100 miles per charge. sucks. i went and bot a 2009 gas, with 12000 miles for the price of your labor, a lil more, but, close. dont get robbed
 
#23 ·
Jim,


The most immediate information is simply a simple description of how the cars systems were designed - i.e. the environmental and operating conditions that turn on the pack heater and the pack cooler on an off, and also all the conditions (cell voltages, temperatures and anything else) that trigger a pack fault condition so we can stop playing detective.
 
#24 ·
Now I am starting to wonder how long my battery will last?
After reading the thread though:
1: My Smart is used daily so no sitting at all.
2: I charge it daily from 50% to full.
3: I live in a warm climate so it never gets cold.

But I don't know how it was treated before.

I bought it used from a 3 year lease return from San Diego CA with 30,153 miles on it for $8,000 and it is the best car I ever drove for the money!

I get 75 to 80 miles range on a full battery still. 0-60MPH in about 7 seconds.
 
#29 ·
Now I am starting to wonder how long my battery will last?
After reading the thread though:
1: My Smart is used daily so no sitting at all.
2: I charge it daily from 50% to full.
3: I live in a warm climate so it never gets cold.

But I don't know how it was treated before.

I bought it used from a 3 year lease return from San Diego CA with 30,153 miles on it for $8,000 and it is the best car I ever drove for the money!

I get 75 to 80 miles range on a full battery still. 0-60MPH in about 7 seconds.

My entire situation is almost identical to yours. Hoping to get at least 4 years out of my car, driving it likely about 20,000 miles per year.
 
#25 ·
Smart Car,



Note that the foregoing discussion is about battery pack assembly failure are due to something breaking or a bad design feature - either software or hardware.

This has nothing to do with how long the battery pack will last as far as the life of the cells themselves. The standard advice cotinues to be to leave the battery pack at a less than full state of charge whenever possible (A SOC of 60 percent is ideal). This is especially beneficial for battery life in hot climates.
 
#27 ·
I do understand this thread started with battery problem errors and not range or life.
Do you know if the Smart has a setting to stop charging at say 80%, I know Chevy has that in their Bolt EV. I wish I had some way of stopping the charging before full because I have no Regen when I leave to work every morning.
 
#28 ·
No, unlike the Bolt or LEAF, there is no way to do a "short charge" except to use a timer at the power-supply end. My Open EVSE does this - you can set a clock time to turn-on and a turn-off, or a one-time charge duration.

Also, it is fine to charge it to full, then use the car within a few hours - just don't leave the car sitting with a full battery for days, especially in hot temperatures.
 
#34 ·
Smart ED dead traction battery restoration

We live in Central Oregon ... beautiful high desert country ... from which this winter, we escaped. We left our 2013 Smart car in the garage, and connected to a Siemens Level 2 charger, thinking all would be well when we returned in the spring. Unfortunately, when we returned we found the car to be completely dead, even though the external charger said it was connected properly, and that the car was fully charged ... or at least showed green lights all around.

I found the regular 12V battery in the car to be dead, and charged it with an external automotive charger. The car then looked pretty much normal ... except the traction battery indicated zero charge, and there was a flashing dashboard warning stating that the car required service.

Not all Mercedes dealerships are authorized to work on the Smart Electrics so my choices were either downtown Portland or Medford. Not wanting to fight Portland's downtown traffic with a loaded trailer, I contacted the Medford folks and arranged for a service visit at their next available opening. The following week I loaded the car onto a trailer & made the 3-hour trip (each way) south. I'd already explained the situation to the service advisor on the phone, but had to go through the whole thing again when I got there ... telling them again about the extended storage of the car, and that afterwards, the main battery wouldn't take a charge from a Level 2 charger (or the 110V charger supplied with the car). I specifically requested a thorough inspection of the battery, on-board charger, and battery management system. I authorized 3 hours of shop time for these tasks. Even though I'd scheduled this service a week in advance, I had to leave the car at the dealership as the service tech certified to do this work was surprisingly not on site for the scheduled service.

A week later I was contacted by the dealership and told, "The traction battery will not take a charge, and needs to be replaced." I asked how they had attempted to charge the battery and was told that they'd used a Level 2 charger ... the same kind I have at home ... and that their test indicated that several cells in the battery pack were well below minimums. They could not provide a list of which cells were bad. I asked if they'd tested the on-board charger and BMS, and they said no, but their service procedure indicated that the traction battery needed to be replaced, and that's all they were authorized to do. I was quoted a replacement price for the battery of $9000 ... and that price did not include installation ... and a delivery time of 6-8 weeks. I asked how they could be certain that a battery replacement would cure the issues exhibited by the car if they hadn't tested the BMS and on-board charger, and the service advisor told me that replacing the battery was the procedure they were required to follow.

I returned to the dealership, found that I'd only been charged for one hour of "service," paid the $160 charge, and trailered the car home. And by the way, loading a dead car onto a trailer by yourself is never any fun. (They were prohibited from helping me, according to their service manager, and I thanked them for the clarity of their procedures. Silently.)

In 2013, we'd been told by the Mercedes dealership where we'd purchased the car that the battery pack and drive train in this car were actually a Tesla system, and because the Tesla/Panasonic 18650 batteries and modules containing them are now available, I decided to try to repair the car myself. I removed the battery pack and opened it ... and soon determined that the batteries inside were not Tesla/Panasonic cells, but Li-tech pouch cells and that the whole assembly was manufactured by SB LiMotive, a German joint company of Bosch and Samsung SDI. I've also discovered that SB LiMotive is now defunct. These discoveries have dampened my enthusiasm for attempting a repair myself, and I still have a nagging suspicion that because the car was working perfectly when we parked it and was dead when we next tried to drive it, some other part in the car has failed, making any repair or replacement of the battery a fools errand ... especially when the Mercedes folks seem unwilling or unable to complete this work.

But still game, I measured the voltage of each of the 3 modules inside this battery pack, and all were about 13.5V ... or about 10% of what they should be. I attached a lab power supply to each of the modules in turn, and, as this power supply was only capable of delivering a controlled maximum of 35VDC, I slowly brought each module to that level, bringing the total pack voltage to 115VDC ... or about a third of what it should normally be. I saw no current spikes during this charging, and noticed no unusual smells or sounds.

With a little more disassembly, I discovered that I could measure and charge individual cells without disassembling the modules, and did so with 4 cells in one of the modules. These cells measured between .8 and 1.8 VDC before any charging, and by ramping up the charging voltage on each of the cells to 4VDC very slowly, I've managed to revive these cells. I started the charging at 100mA on one of the cells, and it took about 12 hours to get the voltage to 4VDC. On the last cell I experimented with, I held the charging current maximum to 1A, and it tapered much more rapidly as the cell voltage neared 4VDC. 24 hours after this charging procedure, all of these cells measured about the same value: 3.7VDC.

These results are encouraging, but I still had no explanation as to how the battery could have been so completely discharged while plugged in to a certified charging system. I later learned that if the key wasn't left in the ON position the 12V battery would soon run down, and that this would then interrupt the whole charging and temperature control system. Because the car was parked and connected to the charger in a garage where the ambient temperature was below freezing for more than 2 weeks, I worried that the cells in the traction battery may have been damaged by freezing. Or the Siemens charger just fried the whole battery pack. Or it could be that the BMS in each module is taking far more energy than it should ... or the maybe the phase of the moon was just wrong. I just didn't know.

Resolute, I continued charging individual groups of cells until all cells in all modules retained 3.7VDC for at least 24 hours, and each module looked pretty much like the one in the attached photo.
This brought the total unloaded voltage of the traction battery pack to 337.6VDC, which is very close to the nominal, unloaded voltage of this pack of 339VDC. I reassembled the battery pack, sealed it, and reinstalled it in the car.

When I turned the key, the results were disappointing. The dash energy displays still both read zero, and there was a red flashing notification on the dash that the traction battery had a fault, and that the car should not be towed. Subsequently, I've learned that "only the dealer" can reset a traction battery fault indication ... and this must be done before the car can be driven ... and since the dealership in Medford will certainly refuse to do this, I'm wondering if there is an alternative?

Any and all help would be appreciated.
 

Attachments

#36 ·
Smart ED dead traction battery restoration

Thanks for the reply! It looks like this project can only read battery voltages, and the faults, if any. I need to reset a fault ... or maybe reboot the whole system ... but I'll bet these faults are stored in an EEPROM, and as there are no schematics and no user-available procedures, the hack you suggest may be the way in ... if only I could find someone who's managed to do it.
 
#37 ·
Jon - hoping for the best for you. I assume your car/battery does not have an extended warranty and you're not paying for the battery lease program. Might be time to find that lawyer we have been discussing who will take your case and push to have that eight year battery warranty made retroactive, since that's what the 453's now have. There is a very slim chance that Mercedes might even try to work with you to avoid any bad publicity. Try to kick it upstairs to Mercedes/Smart HQ.

Len
2014 EV Coupe 18,000 miles
2014 EV Cabriolet 12,000 miles
 
#38 ·
Len,

Thanks for the reply. You're right, we're bare on this one ... no extended warranty, no lease.

We've put about 40K miles on this little car, and just loved it ... until it died an untimely death. What I've managed to do with it has actually made this even more frustrating for now the battery is just fine but the battery fault error seems untouchable. If I can't find someone who has managed to hack the computer on their own Smart & clear this kind of fault, I may have to try the great Mercedes in the Sky. Now that they're dealing with their own version of diesel-gate though, I suspect that they're not going to worry much about a lone owner in Nowhere, Oregon, complaining about a 6-year old battery.

Jon
 
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