Wondering if an electric car is right for your family? Check out the Kia Soul EV!
I recently had the opportunity to drive a 2015 Kia Soul EV courtesy of Kia and DriveShop. I actually own a Kia Soul and love it. My husband and I call it the biggest little car because it looks and feels like a compact car but it has tons of space. We love our Kia Soul! So I already knew what it was like to drive a Soul, but I was really curious about an electric car.
I’ve never had the remotest thought of looking at electric cars. I figured that they were way out of my price range. I also had absolutely no idea how to get the car charged. I’ve seen charging stations at random places, but they are few and far between. I did a little research and found that it can take a bit of time to charge the car even at a charging station. I just wasn’t convinced I was going to like the Kia Soul EV at all because it would just take too long and be too fussy to charge.
I was completely wrong. I loved the Kia Soul EV! It was neatest little car. I love the Soul to begin with, but the electric version is amazing. The car is dead silent. There’s no engine noise at all and when it is idling it’s just silent. The Kia Soul EV also has amazing acceleration. There is no engine that needs to switch gears so it effortlessly increases in speed. The rid is amazing and super smooth.
The Kia Soul EV can go about 80-90 miles on a charge so it’s not going to work for long road trips. But we rarely got the battery below 50 miles. Using the air conditioning, heat or other circumstances also uses the charge so I’m sure in the summer in Vegas it wouldn’t last quite as long.
The Soul comes with a charger that has a 120 volt plug so we would up just plugging the car in to an outlet in our garage every night. I had no idea that we could do that. We didn’t need a charging station at all. Now, a charging station would charge the car faster. It took a good 8 hours to recharge the battery using the 120 volt plug, but it worked great for us.
Aside from the awesomeness of being electric and not needing gas, the Kia Soul EV is pretty much the same as a gas powered Soul. The back seat is very spacious. I’ll often sit back there with the kids if we have another adult riding with us and we’re all comfortable even with a booster seat. The back seat did not have cup holders, though. I was really bummed about that because cup holders are a very necessary part of a car for our family.
The trunk in a Kia Soul is a tad on the small side. It’s the thing I dislike most about the Souls and I think Kia could really make better use of the space. But it’s not such a big deal that I don’t love the car!
My husband and I agree that the next time we are in the market for a new car, we will definitely be checking out electric cars. The Kia Soul EV is priced around $35,000 and while that’s a little more than a gas powered Soul, it’s not really that much more. The cost of not having to purchase gas and saving on emissions is definitely something to consider as well.
The entire week I drove the Kia Soul EV, I had the Electric Slide song in my head – so here you go! A little electric slide Kia Soul style:
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