Appealingly quirky electric crossover touches down in the UK with a 64kWh battery and a 280-mile range

What is it?

If the e-Niro is to be thought of as Kia’s ‘normal’ electric vehicle, you get the sense the Korean firm might want you to think of the new Soul EV as its cool older cousin. You know, the one who vapes and listens to bands you’ve never heard of.

Its looks are key to that. The third-generation Soul retains the unabashedly boxy profile and boosted ride height of its predecessors. To this tester’s eyes, it’s not quite as energetically styled as it once was; perhaps that’s got something to do with the sort of sleepy look the new headlight design lends the front end. Nevertheless, it’s quite appealing; there’s still a healthy amount of quirk appeal about the design, which is an increasingly rare phenomenon.

In Europe, Kia will be selling the Soul only as a battery electric vehicle (BEV), while petrol models will still make their way to the US. Here in the UK, the decked-out First Edition model, which costs £33,795 post-Government grant, is for now the sole offering (sorry).

Despite the initial lack of choice, however, Kia UK seems pretty confident in the Soul EV’s potential. It already has some 2000 units on order, along with 8000 e-Niros. Given that just under 38,000 BEVs were sold here throughout the entirety of last year, it looks like Kia is gearing up to claim a fairly sizable chunk of the market for itself between now and December.

Read more: Autocar

The Kia Soul EV is a small, all-electric SUV-like hatchback that rivals cars like the Hyundai Kona Electric, Volkswagen e-Golf and Nissan Leaf. It arrives in the UK in late 2019.

The Soul EV builds on the funky charm of its predecessor by maintaining the quirky styling, but upping the performance dramatically. It’s zippy to drive and boasts a very impressive 280-mile range on a single charge. If you’re in the market for an electric car, it’s definitely one of the first cars to check out.

The Soul has always been a bit different from the mainstream, and this latest version continues that trend. It’s got narrow headlights and the familiar boxy shape that continues from previous incarnations, and is slightly larger than the car it replaces. Exact UK specs haven’t yet been announced, but expect all models to have full LED headlights and at least 17-inch alloy wheels, as well as a choice of vibrant paint colours and options to have a different coloured roof.

The interior design of the Soul is a bit more funky than other models in the Kia range. You’ll even be able to specify an ambient lighting system that pulses in time with whatever music you’re playing. The seating position is high, looking out over the bonnet, and visibility is pretty good thanks to the boxy shape.

Read more: Autotrader

High-riding electric hatchback gains the range to match other Hyundai group EVs

What is it?

This is Kia’s all-new electric Soul, now slightly larger, packed with substantially more technology and most appealingly of all, furnished with a drivetrain and battery pack that will enable it to officially travel 280 miles between charges.

If you use a 50kW charger, 80% of that range can be replenished in 75 minutes. And those numbers are sufficient to make the Soul EV viable as an everyday, all-journey car. Kia has yet to announce a price, but it will be usefully less than the e-Niro’s £36,495.

Given that car’s outstanding blend of range, performance and price, it should be no surprise that the new, second-generation version of the Kia Soul uses exactly the same electric motor, power electronics and battery systems. Kia also points out that the huge cost of developing and manufacturing this drivetrain necessitates sharing it across these three models within the Hyundai Group.

The Soul sits on a different platform, however, and one that is structurally stiffer and 30mm longer in the wheelbase than previously. The front overhang has grown by 25mm, for intriguing reasons we’ll come to, but the wheelbase stretch does at least yield another 13mm of rear legroom. The boot’s bigger as well, though not by enough to eliminate criticisms of a shortfall.

There’s plenty of extra tech, too. Adaptive cruise control and lane following afford a useful amount of autonomy in heavy traffic, there’s an extensive suite of electronic safety systems, a head-up display and various features designed to maximise the battery pack.

These include cooling and heating the 64kW battery with liquid rather than air, while a button enables you to control heat or chill only the driver’s portion of the cabin if you’re one-up and need to eke. An in-built heat pump recovers waste heat from the coolant, while driving modes that include Eco and Eco Plus help, as do four levels of brake regeneration, these altered via paddle shifts as per the e-Niro.

What’s it like?

It looks bigger and it feels more grown-up, especially inside where the cabin takes on a new level of sophistication and convenience. But the biggest difference will be in your mind, because like the e-Niro, this is an EV in which that ‘will-I-make-it’ anxiety can largely be forgotten.

The Soul’s new TFT instrument cluster displays your range in fairly big digits, and in contrast to older EVs, they tumble at a considerably slower rate, and sometimes more slowly than the rate at which miles are covered. It’s also much easier to slow the decline with careful driving.

Read more: Autocar

New Kia Soul EV will challenge rival electric cars including the Nissan Leaf and Hyundai Ioniq Electric, and here’s everything you need to know about it…

On sale: Early 2019 | Price from: £32,000 (est)

Treading the fine line between funky looks and being practical for families, the Kia Soul is a boxy small SUV which competes with small SUV rivals including the Nissan Juke, Renault Captur and the current class leader, Seat’s Arona. An all-new version has been revealed at the Los Angeles motor show, but in a sign of the times it will only go on sale in electric Soul EV form in the UK, with conventionally powered versions reserved for the US market.

That means that as well as the small SUVs mentioned above, rivals also now include the Nissan Leaf and Hyundai Ioniq Electric.

2019 Kia Soul EV electric motor and range

Described as being “just as quirky, fun-loving and crowd-pleasing as ever,” the new Soul EV is powered by a single electric motor developing 201bhp and 291lb ft of torque. There’s also new suspension designed to give the car more agile handling and a more comfortable ride – both are areas where the old Soul fell down next to key rivals. Drivers can choose from four different modes – Eco+, Eco, Comfort and Sport – which adjusts the accelerator response to potentially conserve energy, as well as adjusting the Soul’s climate control and regenerative braking settings. All of that could lead to you getting more miles out of each full charge, the same as hypermiling in a conventional car.

Read more: What Car

Kia wants to keep its Soul lineup exclusively electric in Europe. The decision was made against the backdrop of falling sales of the fossil-fuelled versions of their little car. A turbo Soul called the Final Edition marks the change.

Kia have made up their mind and so there will be no other Soul but the Soul EV be available at dealerships across Europe. For the Koreans the switch reflects the reality of a market, where most people opted for the all-electric version, particularly at a time when there were not many EVs on sale.

But also today, sales are strong. In Germany for example, of those 2,245 Kia Soul sold this year so far, 1,899 had an electric drive.

Moreover, Kia is about to release the next generation, this time sitting on the same platform also used for the Kona and Niro plug-ins.

Read more: Electrive