KIA e-Niro | Fully Charged

Annyeonghaseyo! Welcome to South Korea. I've just landed here in Seoul because tomorrow morning really early I'm going to be going to Kia's headquarters and driving the e-Niro in UK right-hand drive spec. I can't wait but right now I need to recharge myself and go to bed. I'll see you in the morning. Bright and early in Seoul, the capital of South Korea and we're here at the Kia headquarters. Massive building. We're about to go into this boardroom to talk about the new e-Niro electric car and then we're going to go out and drive it. We're going to drive a right-hand drive UK version of the car but it's still here. It was made here and it's only just finished production so they've kindly flown us out here and we're going to be driving it around all day in the greater Seoul area up to the demilitarized zone hopefully if we've got the charge and see what this car is like. This is probably Kia's most important car of the last decade I would say. The Niro is a car that came out in 2016. It's available as a hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, FEV and this the full EV and it is Kia's first long-range electric vehicle. It's their second EV. The Seoul has been out for a number of years. The thing about this car that makes it different from the FEV and the hybrid, in fact internally at least, is mostly here the centre console. The centre console is a lot more open and floating. It's got more storage space and the reason for that is because it doesn't need a gear linkage, it doesn't need a gear stick because it's single speed electric. So you've got this lovely little rotary dial here on this floating kind of plinth with your heated seats and your heated steering wheel function and your drive modes because there's four drive modes, eco, eco plus, normal and sport. There's a little ledge just there which we have, you might see, we do have a smartphone sitting on it. Because this is a UK destined car it doesn't have a sat-nav that's compatible with Korea so we're using Apple CarPlay in this instance and there's Android compatibility on it as well. One thing to bear in mind is you cannot buy this car in a 39 amp hour spec, you can only buy it in the UK in 64 amp hour. Over here in other countries yes you can. Oh there's a Kona, okay so we're pulling alongside a Kona. Now really it comes down to what do you want out of your electric car because the Kona top ranking Kia e-Niro 64 amp hour are very very similar. One does 0-62 in 7.6, this does 0-62 in 7.5, this does 301 mile range, that does 300 mile range so it's much of a muchness. I think the Kona looks a little bit more funky, the Kona is a little bit more out there visually, this is much more trad kind of crossover looking so it really depends on what paddles your boat. The interior again it's quite traditional apart from this centre floating console. It's classy, piano black, you've got lane departure assist, you've got a lane keep, you've got autonomous emergency braking with cyclist and pedestrian awareness. You don't have heads up like you can have in the Kona which is a bit of a shame because I do like a heads up system but what you do have is you do have a charging status bar on the top of the dash which is visible from the outside so it tells you if your car's plugged in and it's charging and whether it's nearly charged or not. Now Seoul does get quite cold at this time of year, it's autumn you can see all the trees orange and brown and losing their leaves right now. It does get cold here, the e-Niro has got its own air source heat pump and it's liquid cooled battery pack so it can warm up and it can cool off its batteries so it can pre-warm itself which makes it that much more efficient. It's got McPherson strut suspension the same as the Kona, apparently it's got an independent rear suspension although I've read conflicting reports on that, I thought it was a torsion bar so I'm going to climb underneath it when I have a walk around and actually see with my own eyes whether it's independent or torsion bar. We are at a really exciting tipping point in the world of affordable electric cars right now with the Kona with this being 300 mile range cars that cost around 30 grand and this car will be £32,900 when it comes out in April 2019. I haven't had a chance to fiddle with the regen braking but we've got paddles here behind the steering wheel, chromed plastic paddles for extra regen so you can, oh that's it I've got it there on the little screen, so it looks like a three stage one two three yeah three stage regen to increase its aggression you tap it with the left paddle decrease with the right. It's actually a very quiet car all the noise I can hear are the trucks right next to me. Now I've checked and the Kona comes with a normal three-year warranty but the high voltage aspect of the car has an eight-year warranty so the batteries and the motors eight-year warranty rest of the car three years, Kia seven-year warranty across the board. A lot of people buy Kias because of that peace of mind. So this is heavier than the Kona, the Kona is 1685 kilos this is 1812 kilos this can do 0-62 in 0.1 of a second quicker apparently 7.5 seconds to 62 same top speed of 104 miles an hour same power though 204 ps 395 newton meters which is like 291 pounds of torque so the motor is the same the drivetrain is the same as the Hyundai. I'm really enjoying the the Niro I have to say I think it's an extremely accomplished car. Things you see in the demilitarized zone there is a prototype Kia Soul. Look at that all in its cladding that is yeah that is the next generation of Soul. Blatantly. It is bizarre that you can come to a fairly bleak part like this a demilitarized zone where there's a four kilometer stretch just behind me which is the most heavily armed place in the world and you've got a children's funfair there. Yeah very strange contrast. The thing about the e-Niro is the range is there to quell any reservations people have about range anxiety because it's just such a good range you frequently forget you're in an EV or I have done. I'm looking down I've still got 310 kilometers left I've been driving for you know an hour and a half or something so it's you know there's tons and tons of battery range so it's 150 kilowatts 256 cells 180 amp hours 356 volts weighs some 450 kilos and it's fantastic. That thing that lives under the floor here is absolutely the key to making this car good. As soon as you're in sport mode the throttle is much much much more sensitive the steering has got a little bit more weight in it. Like all these things the more eco you go the softer the pedal it backs off the torque and the top performance of the motor and it makes the steering a little lighter and the dial changes to red when you're in sport makes you feel like you're being a bit racy and daring. The fact that cars of this price point have now got heated steering wheels is brilliant especially good in I think in EVs because you can set the heated seat and set the heated steering wheel in winter and conserve a little bit of heating power or you can do what I've seen on other Kias and Hyundais you've got driver only fans cooling or heating so it just cools or heats this portion of the car not the rest of the cabin. It does seem to work. I like this car it's sensible it's mature it's very very practical but the thing about it is it's a well-judged car you've got that amazing amount of range from that battery pack that sits down there and it differentiates only really mildly from the normal Niro the normal flavoured Niro which is you know a hybrid or whatever you've got these slightly flatter 17 inch alloys which are more aero you know they're more closed for ultimate aerodynamics and this car is slightly more aero efficient than its hybrid brother and then you've got these little accents again really subtle bluey green accents here and then they've got some more of those on the front it's not a proper SUV it's front wheel drive it's front motored I'm going to have a look at the motor actually just in the same way that when I drove the Kona after about you know 15 miles or so you realize how how well put together this car is especially given it's got such an amazing range for the money. I'm a little bit disappointed with Kia for only supplying it with halogen headlights you can't even order it you can't even option it with LED headlights and you can see they've got traditional old-fashioned bulbs which seems a little bit backward for a car that's so forward in so many other ways so AC synchronous motor I'm pretty sure this is all identical if I just pull this sort of fake engine cover off it'll you'll see yeah here we go there look that's what it really looks like even has the word Hyundai written on it so it's heavier than the Kona it's longer than the Kona it's got a bigger boot than the Kona it's got a longer wheelbase so it's roomier than the Kona but it's shorter than a Leaf but yet it's got more boot space than a Leaf so that's the kind of proportions that it's at it looks like a load of black plastic and carpet but that's 451 litres of boot space bearing in mind the Kona has 332 litres so it's a lot more you've got a subwoofer hidden on the left there behind this panel from this eight speaker JBL audio system which is actually really good but underneath here you've got another little cubby for your charging gear and stuff like that your umbrella so that's really neat you can hide all this clutter away good bit of boot space and that's the thing which a lot of EVs seem to be lacking imagine if they do a seven seater version there's a slightly stretched wheelbase version again that would be cool oh while I'm at the back I want to look underneath it because I want to see if it is independent rear suspension or if it is torsion bar because right now I don't know who to believe that does look like independent back end that is independent back end come and have a look come under here while I'm under here you can see that battery box can you see the aluminium completely flat battery box there that houses all of the cells nice and low flat floor for better aerodynamics yes it is it is independent suspension so it's the same as the Kona independent McPherson strut front multi-link independent rear so that's pretty good it's a nice place to be the cabin of the e-Niro the thing that differentiates this from the normal Niro the the plug-in hybrid and the normal hybrid it's mostly centered around the console here electric the e-Niro has this rotary knob here which you can change from reverse to neutral to park and all that stuff which is quite neat it sort of floats and it means that because you don't have a gear shifter and linkage you've got a much deeper box in which to store stuff so we've got a nice cubby here a couple of drinks holders and some space you lift up here this is nice and deep in here I've got a USB plugging socket which illuminates as I said before we've got Apple CarPlay functioning on this car because what I'm driving is a British spec right hand drive vehicle this car will be in Britain in the next fortnight and it doesn't have Korean nav so we've used the Apple CarPlay from the phone to mirror that otherwise you you wouldn't need to then the the nav and and this eight inch infotainment screen is really really good simple good to navigate not too many buttons you've got a fair amount of buttons on the steering wheel here and this digital dash binnacle here with the two cylindrical readouts it's all pretty straightforward to be honest so there's some good oh and there's forgot to say this is all rubberized in here there's another storage component so you've got it's like a sort of tiered waterfall you've got big deep storage here you've got medium depth storage here which you can cover up with two drinks holders you've got your floating uh drive kind of console uh rotary button and then you've got this lovely area here basically for a hoarder it's perfect let's have a look in the back the back now like i said before this is a hundred mil longer and wheelbase than the Kona um and that hundred mil of wheelbase usually is is best benefited from people in the back in the back we've got a decent amount of leg room there's obviously five seats you've got the middle belt there and you know you pull down armrest really generous amount of head space like i said i'm fairly tall i'm like six foot three it's not laden with stuff but there's no look there's no center console there's no uh transmission tunnel sorry which is great for person people that sit in the middle you haven't got that stupid hump because all the batteries are really nice and low i love seeing stuff like that really what your money is going on on this car is a decent comfortable ride good connectivity and just one hell of a drive train i think it's just a stunning drive train in terms of the balance of performance and the range for the money it's just brilliant when you look at other vehicles when you look at other manufacturers trying to get that sort of magic 300 mile range so many of them fall short and we've tested the in the real world and we've got well over 270 miles consistently and that was mostly motorway driving and faster driving so that means that this car is probably going to be the same you look at a car this size that delivers five comfortable seats half decent boot for 33 000 quid with 300 mile range electric car and 100 kilowatt rapid charge capability it's hard not to be impressed i have to say so it's got these led back lights which i do like actually because you've got the um this sort of surround d shapes whatever you want to call it and i like that it's a good feature i don't love the shape of this car i think it is a bit plain and if you come around here to the front end on the on the regular engine versions of the nero this is the you know and that's a hole where the air goes in of course we don't need that for the ev this does have a water-cooled battery pack and also it has an air source heat pump which can preheat your battery pack if it's a really cold day maybe like today my hands are freezing this is the charge port here where the little plug logo is press that open that whereas the kona had a little surround light like a halo light this just has a very simple but effective can you see my finger there you see it's illuminating on my finger that is critical i really wish other cars other evs had that like my e-golf for example in the dark you can't see what you're doing i frequently have to get my phone out and use the torch on the phone to see what the hell i'm doing get in here you've got your electronically um adjusting seat obviously heated seat i'm going heated steering wheel oh man bliss i like the steering wheel it's leather rear leather trimmed and you can see the stitching just around here it's a comfortable wheel not particularly the center looks a little cheap but the rim is really good it's good size nice thickness the dash here the layout is very good you can fiddle around with the display using these thumb buttons to your consumption info your energy flow your driving style your efficiency and your adaptive cruise control and all those shenanigans i have no doubt that e-niro will be a desirable and popular car and it should be it's a hell of a package the biggest problem this car's got is that the kona is already out and that this isn't going to go on sale until april and i suspect it will be over subscribed and you'll have to wait for about a year for it we'll see thank you very much for watching if you've already subscribed to fully charged that's great thank you very much have a look at the patreon link and if you are already a patreon thank you so much guys because we couldn't make these shows without you bye