Kia is set to launch its first electric car in the UK. The Soul EV looks great, but high-tech typically brings high prices. Can this stylish EV really ever add up?

[From November 2014] According to figures compiled by Kia, the fastest growing segment in the car market is electric vehicles, so it’s not surprising that the Korean giant has chosen to make it’s popular mini SUV, the Soul, available as an electric-only version. The Soul EV goes on sale in the UK before Christmas.

Far from simply ditching the conventional engines in favour of an electric motor and a battery, the Soul has undergone a fairly radical rethink in order to go zero-emission. With Kia also working on hybrid, plug-in hybrid and hydrogen technologies, it is fair to say that the firm is hedging its bets a little, but the Soul is its first attempt in the UK, at least, to push something that doesn’t run on petrol or diesel.

Kia is going to appoint a selection of its dealers to sell and service the EV, but it has modest sales expectations, with around 170 units a year expected to find homes. As a result, only one trim level and two colour schemes are available.

What’s the 2015 Kia Soul EV like to drive?

The standard Soul drives pretty neatly anyway, but it would reasonable to expect the extra weight of the batteries and electric motor to dull things dynamically. Oddly, that is not really the case. From behind the wheel, the Soul feels more than eager enough, as many electric cars do, thanks to instant availability of torque from rest. It can sprint to 60mph in around 11.5 seconds which is around a second slower than 1.6 diesel models, but the EV does so in virtual silence. The claimed range for the EV is 124 miles on a single charge and the top speed is 90mph, which mirrors the official figures of the Soul EV’s natural predator, the Nissan Leaf.

In order to take the additional weight of the batteries, the floor of the Soul has been beefed up with extra steel crossmembers, which has the effect of making it more rigid than the standard car. There’s also some 277kg of batteries beneath the floor, although if you are going to add weight anywhere, between the wheels and low down is not a bad place to do it. Aerodynamic improvements have also been made to make the EV slip through the air as cleanly as possible and this has reduced the wind noise at speed.

The effect of all this is that the Soul EV drives really very well. For town driving, there is a mode with extra regenerative braking to keep the batteries topped up, which allows one-pedal operation, where backing off the accelerator pedal essentially applies enough braking force. For most conditions, the standard drive mode requires less thought.

Refinement is usually a strong point of any electric car and so it is here. The ride is a touch firm, but is never uncomfortable, even over poor road surfaces.

What’s the 2015 Kia Soul EV like inside?

At a glance, the interior of the EV looks much like the standard Soul’s, but there are a few key differences. First up, Kia is keen to ensure that buyers know the EV is as green as it can manage, which means a lot of the interior materials are greener versions than those seen on the standard car. Items such as the dashboard panel, headlining and various plastic panels are made using bio- rather than petroleum-based plastics with a view to the car being more recyclable at the end of its life. It is nice place to be, though, regardless of what it is made out of.

There is only one interior finish available, and no options, because it’s already very well equipped with a large colour touch-screen infotainment and nav system. The cabin is finished in light grey with light blue piping; despite the floor being 80mm higher than in the standard car, to accommodate the batteries, the EV has reprofiled seats which ensure headroom is just as good as in the very roomy normal Soul. Both front and rear seats are comfortable and there’s plenty of room for four adults.

Boot space is also slightly reduced by the need to house all the electric paraphernalia under the floor, reducing the regular capacity by 30 litres, at 324 litres with the seats in place. All told, though, the boot is big enough for a car in this class and easily eclipses the BMW i3’s.

One thing that Kia is very proud of in the Soul is the hyper-efficient heating system. Typically, running the heater or air-conditioning in an electric car has a devastating effect on the range. Kia has developed two key technologies to mitigate this as much as possible. First is a setting which heats or cools only the occupied part of the cabin when there is one person on board. This means considerably less energy is expended and there is no detriment to the comfort of occupants.

The other clever development is that, rather than having an electric heating element to put a bit of warmth in the car on a cold morning, the Soul harvests warm air from around the car’s complex electronic systems, and from the ‘back end’ of the air-conditioning system, to ensure that no warm air is wasted when it might be put to good use. Kia reckons this system gives the car a significant advantage over rival cars, which lose considerable range in order to keep the cabin comfortable in hot or cold conditions.

Should I buy one?

Maybe.

Kia suggests the price is likely to be around £30k, with the government grant for plug-in cars dropping that to around £25k. That puts it at a slight disadvantage to the Nissan Leaf, which costs £23,590 after the grant when comparably equipped, and assuming you want to own the batteries – which is your only option with the Soul.

Nissan also offers the option of leasing the batteries for a monthly cost with the Leaf, which means you won’t be responsible for any maintenance, and also brings much lower initial purchase costs, with the top-spec Leaf Flex costing £18,590. Renault offers the an even cheaper rival to the Soul – the Zoe, which is smaller and can only be had if you lease the batteries from £70 per month, but will still seat four comfortably and be practical to live with, and costs from just £13,995.

Viewed in isolation, the Soul EV is a very appealing, technically clever and nice to drive electric vehicle but even with the government discount for plug-in cars, it is still likely to be too pricey for the majority to consider as a stylish second car. If you like the Soul, a petrol version in a comfortable trim level will be £10,000 cheaper, and that buys you a lot of petrol.

That said, if an electric car fits into your lifestyle, the Soul EV is a very likable, practical addition to the market and should be considered a genuine rival to the Nissan Leaf, Renault Zoe and even the BMW i3.

Source: What Car

ECO FACTS

Model/Engine size: Soul EV

Fuel: Electric

Fuel economy combined: N/A

Green-Car-Guide rating: 9/10

INTRODUCTION

We’ve already driven the Kia Soul EV at its UK launch, but what is it like to live with, and does it have a more practical range than rivals in real-life?

SUMMARY

• All the normal electric car qualities: very refined, quiet, strong acceleration

• Attractive benefit in kind company car tax and low running costs

• Reasonably spacious, practical shape for an EV

• Limited range may not suit everyone, and subjective styling

BACKGROUND

Having some degree of electrification on our cars is the only way to achieve our emission reduction targets. Plug-in hybrids provide a practical overall driving range, but a small electric range, but pure EVs mean zero-tailpipe emissions – if you can cope with the limited overall driving range. A number of manufacturers are bringing EVs to market, even with the prospect of small sales numbers; the Soul EV is Kia’s offering, and it promises a longer range than rivals, with an individual shape and styling.

DESIGN & ENGINEERING

Two distinct types of electric cars are now emerging – ones that are designed from the ground up as electric cars – such as the Nissan LEAF and BMW i3 – and ones that are standard models with the petrol engine replaced by an electric powertrain – such as the Volkswagen e-Golf, and now the Kia Soul EV, which is built on the same production line as the petrol and diesel Souls.

So this is a regular Soul, but with a 275kg lithium-ion polymer battery bolted underneath the floor and the electric motor (producing the equivalent of 109bhp) under the bonnet.

The rest of the interior and exterior is virtually the same as a petrol or diesel Soul, apart from aerodynamic features such as the blanked-off front grille and special lightweight alloy wheels (the basic Soul body is not the most aerodynamic of shapes). There are also super-low rolling resistance tyres, which can reduce energy consumption by as much as ten per cent compared with regular low rolling resistance tyres.

The electric powertrain has no impact on space inside the car apart from an 80mm higher floor for rear seat passengers, and luggage capacity is reduced by 31 litres to 281 litres to accommodate charging cables under the boot floor.

The Soul EV’s interior heating controls can just be used by the driver only, to save energy. It also has an intelligent heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system which includes a heat pump to recycle air that has already been heated or cooled within the cabin. The interior can be heated or cooled while the car is plugged in, so saving battery power on the move.

Kia claims that its battery has a class-leading energy density of 200 Wh/kg and an energy storage capacity of 27 kilowatt-hours, and there’s a heating and cooling system to keep it at an ideal operating temperature.

The Soul EV can be recharged using a standard domestic socket, a wallbox supplied as standard with the Soul EV, a public fast charger, or a public rapid charger. Using a UK 230-volt domestic power supply, the Soul EV can be fully recharged in 10 to 13 hours. With the wallbox or a public fast charge point, the time can be reduced to around five hours. Using a public rapid charger the batteries can be topped up to 80 per cent of capacity in 33 minutes.

KIA SOUL EV DRIVING EXPERIENCE

We previously drove the Kia Soul EV on its launch on a fairly short route in London, and initial impressions were good, but what is it really like to live with over a longer period, as part of everyday life?

We drive a range of different cars every week, including petrol, diesel, hybrids and EVs, and it’s always the EVs that provide the best experience in urban driving. They’re virtually silent, very refined, have great response when accelerating, and with no gears or clutch, they’re easy to drive. However these are qualities that are common to all EVs, so how does the Soul differ?

The key difference is that the Soul does genuinely appear to have a longer driving range than most rivals. We’re not talking about a huge difference, but when you need to cover 80 miles in one day, in a car that has a range of around 80 miles in real-life driving, an extra 10 miles range makes a big difference.

You notice this most when keeping an eye on the remaining range during driving – the range displays of other EVs have a habit of plummeting under many driving conditions, whereas the indicated range left on the Soul EV remains much more constant.

The outcome of the range not plummeting is that you find yourself not having to recharge the car every night – you can go two to three days without charging.

Another practical benefit of the Soul EV is its spaciousness. Although based on a supermini footprint, because it is essentially a square box, it does have more room inside for people and luggage than most other EVs. Having a compartment under the boot floor for cables may reduce some of the official luggage space, but it’s a neater solution than having cables lying in the boot. It has a very clearly laid out dashboard which features an excellent reversing camera.

The Soul EV has a comfortable ride and decent handling, helped by the low centre of gravity due to the batteries, and the steering is well-weighted, but the brakes, due to focusing on regenerating energy, have a different feel to conventional petrol or diesel cars and take a bit of getting used to.

The main issue with the Kia Soul EV is its styling. The ‘normal’ Soul looks perfectly acceptable, however the EV version has features such as the blanked off grille, flat wheel covers, high profile, energy efficiency tyres, and in the case of our test car, blue bodywork and a white roof. Overall this gives the impression of a ‘cartoon car’. This contrasts to the likes of the BMW i3, which has super-cool styling. We would suggest that Kia needs to look at the styling of the Soul EV and make it less ‘eco’ and more desirable for both private and business buyers.

KIA SOUL EV ECONOMY AND EMISSIONS

The whole point of living with the Kia Soul EV for a week was to find out what its range was in real-life, and to see if that was sufficient to live with. The official range of the Soul EV is 132 miles on one charge. Just like the discrepancy between official and real-life mpg figures, the same discrepancy also exists between official electric range and real-life electric range. On average over a week we achieved a range of 82 miles between charges. This is obviously less than the official 132 miles, but is better than some other EVs that we’ve tested, which have only managed around 64 miles in real-life.

We would stress that this range was achieved after typical driving; we’ve achieved a 40% improvement on the official range of an electric car on the RAC Future Car Challenge event, so with very careful eco-driving, we’re fully confident that you could achieve a range of over 100 miles in the Soul EV (in an urban environment rather than in any higher speed driving). The trouble is, there’s usually not the time, the inclination or the traffic situation to drive in an eco-fashion consistently.

Of course the big idea behind pure electric cars is that they have zero tailpipe emissions. It’s impossible to have missed all the stories in the media over recent months about the air quality problems in our cities, with diesel engines being responsible (particularly old diesel buses, taxis and trucks rather than modern diesel cars). Pure electric cars such as the Kia Soul provide a solution to this problem.

However EVs can be accused of just moving the emissions problem from the tailpipe to the power station, so ideally electric car owners would charge their cars using a renewable energy source, which would mean both the car and its energy would be zero CO2.

PRICE, EQUIPMENT AND MODEL RANGE

There’s only one Soul EV model and it costs £24,995 after the £5,000 government Plug-in Car Grant. You can choose between two colours, blue (with a white roof) or silver. Kia will also install a recharging point at your home if you buy a Soul EV – as long as you have suitable off-road parking. The Soul EV is no different from any other Kia in terms of the reassurance offered; it comes with a seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty.

CONCLUSION

So, after a week of living with the Kia Soul EV, would we buy one?

The first consideration has to be whether a pure EV is suitable for your driving needs. Pure EVs are ideal for use in urban areas, where they can help combat issues of air pollution. However off-street parking to allow charging is often a challenge in urban areas. Although an infrastructure of public charge points is being built up, all the statistics show that people mostly charge at home or work.

So although the ideal is that a pure EV such as a Kia Soul is a person’s only urban mode of transport, the reality is that many EVs are bought as a second car, when there is also typically a decent-sized, diesel-powered estate car in the household. In this scenario cars such as the Soul EV are ideal for shorter journeys. The issue is whether the whole life costs stack up, which may be an issue if only low mileages are covered.

From a business perspective, the Soul EV would be ideal for regular short journeys, and the company car BIK tax rate from April 2015 is just 5% (it was zero prior to this date). Although the purchase price is high compared to conventional cars in this class, running costs are very low – around one-fifth of a petrol car.

So, if you think a pure electric vehicle would be suitable for you, should you choose a Kia Soul EV? It has a better real-life driving range than some rivals, and it’s a practical shape. It drives equally as well as other EVs. On the downside, the styling may not be to everyone’s tastes.

So after a week living with the Soul EV, overall it remains a perfectly acceptable car to live with if it’s suitable for your driving requirements, and it offers another choice in the fairly limited pure EV market place; it maintains its original Green Car Guide rating of 9 out of 10.

Source: Green Car Guide

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

“So the question is — what next? I’ve driven the Tesla for so long that returning to a gas car feels like backward time-travel. Do I say giddyap to these things?”

That’s a line I wrote late in my 38,000-mile odyssey at the wheel of our long-term Model S P85+. Which, when it was recently returned — rolling silently (and cruelly) away without me in it — left me feeling as if my beloved starship from the future had abruptly dropped me back in the ordinary-old circa 2015. Plunk, there I am on the ground — amid a small puff of dust.

And there I bewilderedly sat, an alien from Elon Musk’s future returned to the primitive present.

No more giant multi-touch screen? No more magical over-the-air updates? No Superchargers? Back to driving mere ordinary cars? Never!

But even the irrepressible Mr. Toad in me had to face the fact that I needed a way to get around. So I started typing emails.

After coming up goose eggs in my attempts to coerce either Hyundai or Toyota into letting me sample their hydrogen fuel cell wares (the first, stymied by internal corporate barriers, the second, just premature timing), I made a list of available battery-electric cars. Based on what? One thing, baby. Range.

My round-trip commute is a minimum of 76 miles (a bit more when the 405 is closed for late-night construction, which it usually is). So, conservatively, let’s say its 80. Adding a 10 percent fear factor makes it 88. OK, now let’s run through the list of available non-Tesla BEVs out there:

• Smart ForTwo: 68 miles — too short.
• Ford Focus Electric: 76 miles — nope.
• BMW i3 BEV: 81 miles — nope, but cool carbon-fiber tech.
• Chevrolet Spark EV: 82 miles — nope.
• Volkswagen e-Golf: 83 miles — nope, but certainly fun to drive.
• Nissan Leaf: 84 miles — we’re inching closer.
• Mercedes-Benz B-Class Electric Drive and Fiat 500e: 87 miles — ack, short by 1 crummy mile.
• Kia Soul EV: 93 miles — eureka!

So the Kia is actually my one and only pure battery-electric choice since Toyota discontinued its slow-selling, 103-mile RAV4 EV ($49,800 — no wonder). The sole quasi-alternative was the BMW i3 with Extended Range, which would have amusingly punctuated my trips with brief firings of its two-cylinder engine-generator, needing refueling (with gas) every week and a half or so. Unfortunately, our slow-motion BMW-courting hasn’t resulted in a date; disappointing, but simplifying things.

Read more: Motortrend