I’ve mentioned that our 2014 Kia Soul long-termer achieves respectable fuel economy, but just how respectable is it? The EPA has the Soul’s figures pegged at 23/31/26 mpg city/highway/combined when equipped with the 2.0-liter engine and six-speed automatic. After a quick read through the Soul’s fuel log, I found that our real-world mpg is pretty close to the EPA ratings.
The average mileage that I and other staffers achieved was between 24-26 mpg. One staffer even drove conservatively enough to achieve 30 mpg. In the hands of the pros, Emissions Analytics, the Alien green Soul returned slightly below the EPA-rated 23 mpg in the city with 22.4 mpg. Although the Soul is marketed as an urban car, it’s also good on the highway in terms of fuel economy, as its Real MPG figure was recorded as 31.2 mpg versus the EPA’s 31 mpg. The combined Real MPG figure was also not too far off from the EPA’s 26 mpg, with the Emissions Analytics guys achieving 25.6 mpg.
Guess how many radio station presets the Soul has? Not 6. Not 9. Not 12. It has 18. 18!
As far as range goes, the EPA reports the Soul can travel up to 369 miles on a single tank. The closest I came to that range without put-putting into a gas station was after a road trip up to Palm Springs. Even with the car loaded with tons of girly stuff for a bachelorette weekend and two extra passengers, the Soul managed to rack up 358.8 miles before the estimated range on the instrument cluster went blank. Without knowing how much farther I could push the hamster-mobile, I stopped for gas and calculated my mileage, which turned out to be 25 mpg. I’ll admit I never use the Eco button, because, well, I just don’t like driving with it on. It impacts acceleration too much for my type of impatient driving.
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