Goodbye Nissan Leaf, hello Kia Soul EV

[GRA]

"You may or may not like the look of the Soul, but apparently a lot of folks do, as they sell a ton of them."

"a ton"
Really? We'll have to wait for the 10/14 BEV numbers.

U.S. (ICE Soul) YTD, 115,579+, plus another 7,927+ in Canada: http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2011/01/kia-soul-sales-figures.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[Ingineer]

We would like to take a look at the EVSE that is provided with the Soul EV to assess upgrade potential. The first owner to contact us willing to let us check it out will be compensated. Please contact us for information.

Looking forward to being able to support owners of the Soul EV!

-Phil

 

[evnow]

Our m/kW is at 4.3 My Leaf was 3.8 Now that is a 100-mile car.

You may begin to cry now.

Yes, but because you still don't know the difference between kw and kWh. Sigh.

I think it is also naive to compare m/kwh without any controls.

 

[lorenfb]

Our m/kW is at 4.3 My Leaf was 3.8 Now that is a 100-mile car.

You may begin to cry now.

Yes, but because you still don't know the difference between kw and kWh. Sigh.

I think it is also naive to compare m/kwh without any controls.

Exactly!

My Leaf yields about 5.1 miles/kWh. So what, i.e. it's all a function how the vehicle is driven.

 

[ksnogas2112]

Exactly!

My Leaf yields about 5.1 miles/kWh. So what, i.e. it's all a function how the vehicle is driven.

Not quite 'all' on how it was driven. There are definitely environmental aspects. May 1, 2013 drove from home-office-lunch-office-home with one result. Did the exact same drive the next day but with 30* colder air temp/battery temp and a foot of snow on the ground (mostly melted on the streets, a little slushy) but with significantly different results. I posted here back then...not sure where. IIRC the 1st was 4 m/kWh and the 2nd was 3 m/kWh.

 

[lorenfb]

Exactly!

My Leaf yields about 5.1 miles/kWh. So what, i.e. it's all a function how the vehicle is driven.

Not quite 'all' on how it was driven. There are definitely environmental aspects. May 1, 2013 drove from home-office-lunch-office-home with one result. Did the exact same drive the next day but with 30* colder air temp/battery temp and a foot of snow on the ground (mostly melted on the streets, a little slushy) but with significantly different results. I posted here back then...not sure where. IIRC the 1st was 4 m/kWh and the 2nd was 3 m/kWh.

The driving mode has the most effect when doing a test under like conditions! You added two additional
variables, temp and snow on the ground. As the saying goes, "Apples to apples".

 

[nosuchthing]

I never hypermiled on my Leaf. I refuse to be a road hazard in #4 lane. And we never got anything higher than 4.0. It mostly sat at 3.7, last year at 3.9. That was it. I am quite amazed that Soul, being a heavier car, was this morning 0.2 higher than yesterday at 4.5. And this is all freeway driving with hills. With 25 kWh usable that comes to 112.5 miles range. In fact, it did show 111 starting range at full charge this a.m. That is one nice number to be staring at, folks.

Another Soul cherry on top I forgot to mention: The steering wheel has telescopic adjustment, beside the usual up and down. Love that car. It's exactly what Leaf '11 was not.

In retrospect and overall I do feel let down by Nissan. Still can't believe I was able to unload it for 11,500.

 

[mwalsh]

Love that car. It's exactly what Leaf '11 was not.

I think somebody else mentioned this, but Kia spent a LOT of time with LEAF owners, both in paid focus groups and at club gatherings. They clearly put the best suggestions into their product.

 

[nosuchthing]

I do wish Kia used the Leaf shifter or something similar. That was one progressive move. I used it a lot sitting in Park at the red lights.

 

[evnow]

The problem is, Kia has the same unknown (at that time) as the Leaf '11 battery. I know they blow cabin air, but that only covers 1 hour per day. Rest of the time Leaf will be sitting in the torrid heat of southwest US ... we don’t know what that does to the battery.

BTW, this thread is in danger of becoming an alternate Kia thread. I’ll probably merge it with the original.

 

[Moof]

I think this is all very great. The more the merrier. I suspect that Nissan will make some nice changes in their major revision. They have already cleaned up a lot of little things between the 2011 and 2015. I figure that in another half dozen years we will have a dozen good choices with >100 mile real range (hopefully 150 will be the new mark to hit), and be able to get a good EV is more than a 4 door hatchback (the Soul is really a hatchback masquerading as a psuedo SUV'ish thing).

I know Nissan hopes that by being first out of the gate they will have a leg up like the Prius did for hybrids, but frankly I love seeing the competition drive us towards a better EV.

 

[nosuchthing]

No merging please! This is a personal goodbye to my Leaf saga that lasted over 3 years. It would be nice to hear from other converts to the likes of i3, MBB perhaps, etc.

 

[mwalsh]

but frankly I love seeing the competition drive us towards a better EV.

I love seeing all the EVs around, period. There isn't a highway drive I do now where I don't see multiple plug-ins of one caste or another.

Back when I first got my LEAF it was myself and a literal handful of other local LEAF owners (less than a half-dozen for Southern California at the time); a smattering of Volt owners; the very occasional Tesla Roadster owner; and one or two of the Old Guard still driving original Rav4EVs.

 

[GRA]

The problem is, Kia has the same unknown (at that time) as the Leaf '11 battery. I know they blow cabin air, but that only covers 1 hour per day. Rest of the time Leaf will be sitting in the torrid heat of southwest US ... we don’t know what that does to the battery.

The huge difference being that Kia is putting their money where their mouth is on battery capacity right off the bat, instead of dumping it on the owners, and for the 10 yr./100k miles that Nissan originally was claiming the LEAF's battery would hold out, but is only willing to back for a bit more than half that, after being forced to. I don't know how much insulation the Soul's pack has, but given the thermal inertia of a pack I imagine that say two half hour periods a day of active cooling will affect the average temp of the pack considerably. It's certainly a step up from the LEAF, if not a full liquid-cooled system. I haven't checked yet whether or not the pack will also cool to protect itself if connected to a charger.

 

[lorenfb]

You can probably get >150 on the Soul driving like that... :lol:

We can get >100 miles if driving 45mph

Yes Tom, that's a good laugh.

 

[LeftieBiker]

Back when I first got my LEAF it was myself and a literal handful of other local LEAF owners (less than a half-dozen for Southern California at the time); a smattering of Volt owners; the very occasional Tesla Roadster owner; and one or two of the Old Guard still driving original Rav4EVs.

Don't forget the people who actually invented the Plug-In Prius: the people who did home conversions on their Gen II Priuses.

 

[mwalsh]

Don't forget the people who actually invented the Plug-In Prius: the people who did home conversions on their Gen II Priuses.

Those, and other "home brew" solutions, I would almost never see outside of EV club events. You did remind me, however, that I would regularly see a self-built Porsche 914 back then.

 

[Yogi62]

Thanks for being an early adopter (again). Your experiences helped make all 2015 EVs better than the 2011s. I'll be in the market again in ~2017 and I'm sure I'll benefit from your experiences (good or bad) with the 2015 Kia Soul.

 

[TimLee]

I do wish Kia used the Leaf shifter or something similar. That was one progressive move. I used it a lot sitting in Park at the red lights.

And in three years you never encountered the confused LEAF that won't shift out of Park without first turning it off problem :?: :?: :?:

I have only had it happen twice in 41 months .
But because of that weird infrequent quirk of the LEAF, I don't think it is a good idea to put a LEAF in Park at a traffic light.

Problematic to take five seconds to restart the LEAF when the light turns green :? :?

 

[surfingslovak]

Love that car. It's exactly what Leaf '11 was not.

I think somebody else mentioned this, but Kia spent a LOT of time with LEAF owners, both in paid focus groups and at club gatherings. They clearly put the best suggestions into their product.

Yes, I was part of such a focus group. I recognized several other LEAF drivers from the area there, and some of them are here on MNL as well. From what I can tell, KIA definitely took the planning and design phase very seriously.