Kia Niro BEV

[GRA]

See https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic. ... 32#p613932 for some limited details and pics of the 2023 Niro.

[cwerdna]

Yeah, I only stumbled across some info and pics of '23 Niro BEV last night. I can't wait that long as my Bolt will be turned back in for buyback hopefully by 1/28/22 or earlier.

I'm moving some of my Niro EV hunting info here.

Spoke to 1 Kia sales creature that had base Niro EV's in stock. Even though their OWN dealer site advertises the $219/mo for 24 month lease w/$3499 due at signing (like kia.com), they said they aren't doing that. The guy also alluded to normally marking these up $2K but for some reason they'll do MSRP at this time. But, they put on $1797 of dealer installed crap (e.g. paint and fabric protection and web site says "R-plate"). Sales creature talked about "digital plate" (which I didn't ask about). Maybe it's https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3474 ... ming-2021/?

No dealers that close to me have base Niro EV's in stock. I'm leaning more towards using an auto broker that a guy at my work used (https://forum.leasehackr.com/t/californ ... ers/139118) to lease his Niro EV. Car would come from So Cal and need to be shipped up here.

[cwerdna]

From looking at Kia's inventory pages, it seems most of it the CA inventory is in So Cal, not Nor Cal. This might explain why auto brokers who deal w/Kia are in So Cal.

[cwerdna]

I finally heard back from https://forum.leasehackr.com/t/californ ... o-brokers/ via text about Niro EV (looking to lease an EX trim which is base instead of the pricier EX premium trim). He said he doesn't have an EX's right now, only EX Premium. I asked when he'd update his prices in his thread w/that. He got back to me saying it's going to be mid 4's (mid-400's a month). I asked if he think he'd have an EX a bit after 1/28/22 (when my tags on my Bolt expire so that'd be around when I'd surrender my Bolt). He wasn't sure if he'd get any EX in the next 2 weeks.

Am looking at other brokers at https://forum.leasehackr.com/tags/c/mar ... nia/14/kia to see if I can make heads/tails of their reputations and then ping them. I pinged at work to see if anyone has any CA Kia broker recommendations.

[LeftieBiker]

I know that dealers are terrible about keeping websites updated, but maybe you should try to find the two or three sites that show the most inventory in SoCal, then try to work with the dealers to lease and ship you a car to lease. You might also, if you haven't already, look for local dealers with no stock but who are affiliated (like a common owner) with the more distant dealers who have stock, as they can usually have cars transferred to them. That was how we leased the PIP back in 2013.

[cwerdna]

FWIW, I returned my Bolt under buyback on 1/28/22. On the morning of 1/29/22, I flew down to So Cal to drive a leased Niro EV EX (base trim, no cold weather package) back up ~450 miles. Lease is for 3 years.

I ended up using the broker at https://forum.leasehackr.com/t/kia-leas ... srp/222824 and overall had a good experience. There was no bait and switch nor dealer surprises in terms of the numbers (which was one of my my biggest fears). They lined up with what was I quoted (and asked for with sales tax for my zip code, license, fees, etc.) The dealer even covered my Lyft ride from the airport to the dealer (over 33 miles). They sent me a Lyft URL which had the destination as the dealer and the dealer paying for whatever the cost was.

I charged up a bit at Santa Clarita EA (before the climb up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tejon_Pass), then the next two were free (McFarland then Madera Caltrans Maintenance Station).

Some folks have been asking for for a comparison/review and it's a bit difficult to compare to gen 2 Leaf since I never owned/leased one. I can more easily compare to '19 Bolt Premier and '13 Leaf. I'll get around to it sometime here or chevybolt.org. I've been quite busy intermittently. The infotainment system is way more elaborate than what was on my '19 Bolt Premier. And, there are numerous features that '19 Bolt didn't have (e.g. adaptive cruise control). But, I do miss Around View Monitor/Surround Vision equivalent. It's n/a on Niro EV even as an option. I also miss the heated steering wheel (is part of an (IIRC) $1100 cold weather package I didn't want to pay for).

I will say that I liked the aspect ratio (4:3?) of Bolt's infotainment LCD much better. The Niro EV's touchscreen is wide and CarPlay looks much worse on it (not due to resolution which is fine but rather just how the UI ends up rendering). Niro EV's LCD also seems to have much better black levels/contrast than Bolt's.

[LeftieBiker]

There are possibly a couple of heated steering wheel covers, powered by batteries, that would be fine in your kind of cold weather. I had one in the PIP the last couple of years that plugged into the 12 volt power socket; it wasn't supposed to be run with the car moving, but if you installed it correctly you could do so. Let me know if you want the model.

[GRA]

cwerdna, I look forward to a fuller report once you've had more time with the car. I really liked the Niro, especially as it appeared to me you just might be able to fit a spare in the under floor well after you removed the foam insert. Lack of AWD, and relatively low range (a heat pump for winter helps) and FC rates compared to the current competition were my biggest issues, but I'm hoping the 2023 will take care of at least some of those.

ISTR I was also disappointed by the need to add a bunch of options I didn't want to get heated seats.

[cwerdna]

On '22 Niro EV EX (lowest of the two trims), front heated seats are standard.

Looks like if you go to EX Premium (the higher trim), you get ventilated & heated front seats + other stuff (e.g. sunroof, syntex instead of cloth seats).

For either trim, cold weather package is a $1100 option and seems to add:
Battery Heater
Heat Pump
Heated Steering Wheel

I'm just going by what's at https://www.kia.com/us/en/niro-ev. If you go to near the bottom, it lists what extra stuff EX Premium gets you.

I unfortunately wasn't watching charging speeds at EA Santa Clarita and the receipt/charging history has a doubtful (likely bogus) peak value of 92.6 kW. I did reach 60 kW on the 62.5 kW McFarland ChargePoint chargers. I wouldn't expect anything different than https://insideevs.com/reviews/351535/te ... e-station/ on a sufficiently powerful DC FC.

[jjeff]

On '22 Niro EV EX (lowest of the two trims), front heated seats are standard.

Looks like if you go to EX Premium (the higher trim), you get ventilated & heated front seats + other stuff (e.g. sunroof, syntex instead of cloth seats).

For either trim, cold weather package is a $1100 option and seems to add:
Battery Heater
Heat Pump
Heated Steering Wheel

I'm just going by what's at https://www.kia.com/us/en/niro-ev. If you go to near the bottom, it lists what extra stuff EX Premium gets you.

I unfortunately wasn't watching charging speeds at EA Santa Clarita and the receipt/charging history has a doubtful (likely bogus) peak value of 92.6 kW. I did reach 60 kW on the 62.5 kW McFarland ChargePoint chargers. I wouldn't expect anything different than https://insideevs.com/reviews/351535/te ... e-station/ on a sufficiently powerful DC FC.

Like the Rav4 Prime we have on order I'd probably order the base with the winter package for my climate besides I prefer cloth and no sun roof and ventilated seats are also low on my list. Interesting the battery heater isn't standard on all models, wonder how it would fare in my climate with the battery potentially getting sub zero temps......almost like it doesn't get cold in Korea I also find it odd my daughters Korean Ionic PHEV lacks an electric heater and with the cost of gas now days, she's driving it frequently without heat and a single digit cabin temp I really wanted her to get a Prius Prime but she really wanted anything but.....