I’m not
sure what particular alignment of incentives and mandates occurred to make the Kia Soul EV a quasi-viable product, but
I’m not really mad that it happened, and I’m glad Kia didn’t seem to make a
half-hearted attempt at it. Like every EV I’ve driven so far, it’s a pleasant,
borderline fun way to zip from point A to point B (and maybe even back to point
A) in luxurious, serene silence.
It
doesn’t hurt that the refreshed Soul is a clean and even somewhat
futuristic-looking box of a car. A revised suspension eliminated much of the
tippiness that hurt the first-gen Souls, and I have to assume that adding a
heavy battery pack low in the car doesn’t hurt stability, either.
Steering
isn’t great, but sadly that’s nothing new for Kia. While I’m griping: The
heaters have the smell of a hot glue gun while they’re warming up (an EV can’t
really use a heater core like a liquid-cooled car can), and there was a super
high-pitched whine present at times in the cabin -- like a squealing
television. I couldn’t trace it to a particular system.
I’d be
curious to see how fast this is in relation to a gas Soul, but since there’s no
noise of a straining engine to listen to, it feels eerily quick and smooth.
Unlike the BMW i3, the regen braking isn’t enough to bring the car down to 0
mph, but with practice you’ll be able to get close to a dead stop before fully
applying the brakes.
The
biggest challenge was on low-traction surfaces, which, unfortunately, prevented
me from seeing just how speedy and agile the Soul EV actually is. The car did
not seem to handle slick morning ice very well at all. I didn’t get a chance to
check the tires, but I’m assuming they weren’t winters. Swap them out, you say
-- but then, on a system as delicately energy-budgeted as the one here,
switching away from the low rolling-resistance tires and aero wheels will
probably wreak havoc on the range, or at least range calculation. Besides, I
think a bigger part of its unpredictable handling came from the way the
traction control/ABS attempted to play with regenerative braking on
reduced-grip surfaces.
Despite
sub-freezing temperatures, the range indicator seemed to be honest, even if a
full charge yielded only a stated 64 miles. The cold doesn’t help batteries any
and neither does heavy heater or air conditioner use. Cleverly, the car
minimizes energy expenditure for cabin climate control with features like a
heated steering wheel, heated and cooled seats and a system that detects
whether anyone is in the passenger seat and doesn’t heat/cool an empty part of
the cabin unnecessarily.
Still,
I’m guessing the 93-mile estimate must be for moderate San Francisco-esque
climes. Even with the lack of a home charger, 64 miles was enough to cover my
15-mile daily round-trip commute plus a few after-work errands.
But 64
miles, or even a full 93 miles, is not enough to spontaneously sprint across
town and back for dinner after work unless there’s an open charger at the
restaurant. At least not comfortably. Range remains a major issue here --
probably the major issue here, even when you take the theoretical pre-credit
$35,650 sticker into account. Even if an EV is able to cover 90 percent of my
daily driving needs with ease, I’m not going to pay a premium for something
that would ultimately be a second car.
Aside
from range anxiety, the only thing that bugs me about electrics in general,
even the good ones, is that they’re almost too conventional. From their
exterior looks to their interior layouts to their driving characteristics, the
Soul EV, the Spark EV and even the Tesla Model S (distinct in that isn’t based
on a gas-burning volume-seller) all seem to be designed to provide an
internal-combustion experience minus the noises and tailpipe emissions.
I don’t
know what a car totally liberated from the legacy of internal combustion would
look like, but the very first automobiles were basically carriages minus the
horses. Eventually, designers realized that they could move in a different
direction, and I’d like to see the same thing happen with EVs.
Until
then, the Kia Soul EV will
get you where you want to go and back without any trips to the gas station in
between. Well, 90 percent of the time, at least
EXECUTIVE EDITOR RORY CARROLL: The 2015 Kia Soul EV seems “right” to me
in a way that other Kia
Souls never really have. The standard Soul is an oddly styled, well-packaged
little thing with a lot of weird teeny-bopper features. It’s advertised by
goofy anthropomorphic hamsters and comes in a range of Nickelodeon-approved
colors. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a car for children.
For
some reason, with the EV, the quirky styling makes sense. The exterior gets a
few EV-specific details that I could really take or leave, but the interior is
brightened up a bit with some white trim here and there. It doesn’t transform
the cabin, but it does make it feel a little more grown-up and special.
I
rarely prefer an electric power plant to a gasoline one, but the electric motor
here seems to fit the character of the car. It’s not fast, it doesn’t even feel
fast, but the smoothness makes sense here. And, in mixed driving through
below-freezing weather, the Soul seemed to manage its charge well.
Standard
Soul EV amenities include a Navigation with eight-inch screen, a 6.6kW on-board
charger, Rear Camera Display, power windows, power driver’s seat and cruise
control. Photo by Kia
WEST COAST EDITOR MARK VAUGHN: I first saw this Kia Soul EV three years ago at
the Consumer Electronics Show, where it appeared as the Ray EV Concept. As an
electric car it was a no-brainer: add a battery to a Soul and replace the
four-cylinder gas engine with an electric motor. Kia would meet any and all
California zero-emission vehicle mandates with ease. Nothing’s that simple, but
it sure seemed that way then. I told Kia that they should build
it, so I take full credit -- or blame -- for the Soul EV’s presence in the
American market (ha!). The three-years-ago Ray EV had only 15.4 kWh battery,
not much by today’s standards. The production Soul EV you see here has a 27-kWh
battery, enough to give it a 93-mile EPA range. That’s pretty good even by
today’s standards. My wheezy Mitsubishi iMiEV -- purchased in 2011 -- has a 16
kWh battery and a listed range of 62 miles. The class-sales-leading Nissan Leaf
has 24 kWh of battery and a range of 84 miles. (When it comes to electric cars
it is way too easy to spend the whole time dissecting statistics like that.
Anyone considering an electric car should spend a week or two writing down how
far they actually drive each day. The vast majority of urban and suburban
dwellers will find that it’s almost always well within the range of even the
miniscule Mitsubishi. A setup as grand as the Kia Soul EV will
surely cover 95 percent of modern drivers’ needs 95 percent of the time.
The
Soul EV is a pretty good entry. It has all the room, versatility and
practicality of the Soul from which it springs, not to mention the exterior
styling, if you like that. Mine was the + trim level, which included heated
seats at four locations, more proximity beepers than you can stand to listen to
and connectivity enough to suit the most plugged-in Millennial. When I first
drove it into the driveway and hooked it up to my 240-volt wall socket, it
beeped blue lights on the dash that could easily be seen from inside the house
so I’d know the state of charge just by looking out the window -- two solid
blue lights and a third blinking. Once it was full all the blue lights stopped
blinking and the dash readout read 98 miles.
Knowing
as I do that EVs get their best range in stop-and-go traffic, I rolled out into
the worst of LA rush hour misery, circling the beleaguered downtown at a crawl
-- down the 110 to the 10 to the 101 to the 5, etc. I did this for a couple
hours (you really should thank me) just to see what range it would return.
Well, at 4.3 miles per kWh according to the car’s very thorough console readout
it worked out to 116 miles, way better than the EPA estimates and better even
than the 98-mile range estimate when I had a full “tank.” You can play around
with the eco mode and with the braking mode to see which returns the best
mileage for you.
I even
tried a 0-60 mph launch and got 9.6 seconds. None of these EVs except the
$100,000 Tesla are going to return impressive numbers, but the Soul EV is right
in there with the Leaf in terms of acceleration.
Suffice
to say that this is the golden age of electric cars. There are many
alternatives out there -- I like the Volkswagen e-Golf best -- and even more if
you want a plug-in hybrid EV. The Kia
Soul EV is merely the most recent, and one of the better, additions to a
wide-ranging fleet of choices.
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