Kia creates eco-karma with electric Soul

Update: We were able to spend more time with the 2015 Kia Soul EV+ for more extensive testing of its range and performance. The review has been updated to reflect our impressions.

The first things that you notice about any electric vehicle is just how quietly it moves as well as the seemingly effortless acceleration. The Kia Soul EV is no exception. With a zero-to-60 time of about 12 seconds and a top speed of 90 mph, the Kia isn’t mind-bogglingly fast, but something about the lack of powertrain noise or vibration and the delivery of torque without interruptions for gear changes makes the EV feel more nimble than the numbers imply.

Silent, but torquey

So how about those numbers? The 2015 Kia Soul is powered by an 81.4kW AC synchronous permanent magnet motor that outputs a stated 109 horsepower and 210 pound-feet of torque. Like all full-electrics, the Soul EV’s party trick is that it is able to deliver all 210 pound-feet of that torque from a dead stop, which makes it feel more responsive than a gasoline-powered engine of similar spec, simply because you never have to wait for it to build engine revs and power.

Kia tells me that the Soul’s motor uses multilayer magnets to boost efficiency and reduce the engine whine, but it would probably take back-to-back rides to tell if the electric Kia was actually any quieter than the Ford Focus Electric or the Nissan Leaf. Suffice it to say that the Soul EV was extremely quiet during my testing at both city and highway speeds. At speeds below 12 mph or when reversing, the Soul gets a bit artificially noisy, thanks to an audible Pedestrian Warning System that softly beeps to announce the vehicle’s presence.

Despite weighing in at 302 pounds more than the gasoline-powered variant, the electric Soul surprisingly felt more planted. This is possibly due to the lack of weight transfer that comes with the interruption of power between gear changes — because the Soul EV uses a single-speed transmission between the motor and the front wheels — and possibly due to the 620-pound battery pack mounted under the floor, lowering the tall, compact crossover’s center of gravity.

The Soul EV’s suspension has been updated to compensate for the increased weight and altered weight distribution of the EV powertrain. The electric power-steering system features three different settings that adjust the amount of assistance offered by the servos. Comfort offers the lightest touch and the most assistance, Normal is the baseline, and Sport has a weighty feel, thanks to slightly reduced assistance. Steering feel is pretty good in the sport mode, but this is no sports car. Low-rolling-resistance tires are probably the weakest link to the EV’s handling, but also potentially a boon to its highway cruising range.

93 miles of real-world range

The flat 27kWh battery pack is composed of lithium polymer cells and affords the Soul EV a stated range of about 93 miles from a full charge. During my initial testing over an approximately 40-mile trip supervised by Kia, I was pretty spot-on with the automaker’s estimate, finishing up with 56 percent of the battery’s reserve remaining and the trip computer estimating a range of 56 miles more.

The 40 miles of that test took me through the suburbs of Palo Alto, up to highway speeds, and onto a nice and twisty bit of road as we made our way across the San Francisco peninsula to the coast. I tested the Soul’s top speed of 90 mph and I hustled the EV up a steep and twisty road through the Santa Cruz mountains — I basically drove like an auto journalist. This wasn’t 40 miles of hyper-miling, so the Soul’s ability to deliver on its advertised range was even more impressive.

Knowing full well that 40 miles isn’t nearly enough testing to get a full picture of the Soul’s range, we recently revisited the EV for extended testing. I personally added over 160 additional miles to the EV’s odometer during my testing, running the battery down to about a quarter of its capacity twice.

My first day behind the wheel was a long one, packed with 81.1 miles of running errands and commuting. The computer was indicating 27 percent battery remaining and about 28 miles of range when I plugged in for the night and turned the keys over to CNET’s video crew for a few days. Doing the math, that put me about 3 miles above the EPA’s estimate for the day.

Later, I rejoined with the Soul EV and, over the course of an entire weekend without charging, put in an additional 79.1 miles of mostly highway driving in moderate traffic. When I plugged the Soul in at CNET’s offices on Sunday night, the battery sat at 19 percent capacity and the dashboard indicated 14 miles of range. That’s about 4 miles below the budgeted range — possibly due to a few stoplight zero-to-60 test runs I did just before testing — but balances out with the 3-mile surplus of the previous trip to land me pretty spot-on with Kia’s estimate.

2015 Kia Soul EV+ (pictures)
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And although 93 miles of range is an acceptable number for an EV, the range limitation, well, limits its appeal mainly to city drivers that don’t venture too far from the range of a network of easily accessible charging stations. (To be fair, this is the case with all of the Soul EV’s competitors, so the range is not so much a knock against the Kia as a reality of current EV technology.) Kia knows this too, which is why it’s limiting the Soul EV’s availability to certain California markets at launch.