Kia Soul EV (2015-2019) review | A rare but capable electric crossover
Kia Soul EV cars for sale
3.0
Expert review
Pros
Funky micro-SUV looks
Comfy to drive
More practical than some rivals
Cons
Interior plastics feel cheap
Relatively small boot
Others have a longer range
The CarGurus verdict
The Mk1 Kia Soul EV is a great option if you’re after a used EV that doesn’t need to do big journeys too often. It’s comfortable, quiet, well equipped, easy to see out of and manoeuvre in awkward car parks, and also has seemingly unimpeachable reliability. It’s even got the quirky, urban SUV styling that many want and appreciate, and there’s no doubt the style appeal is a big selling point next to the dowdy Nissan Leaf or Hyundai Ioniq.
Sure, the BMW i3 is even more ideal for about-town driving and has a much higher-quality interior, but with such low running costs, useful practicality and easy-going, SUV-like on-road manners, the Mk1 Kia Soul EV is one of the best lower-budget used electric vehicles you can buy.
What is the Kia Soul EV?
The Kia Soul EV is a distinctive, compact hatchback-SUV crossover that’s a little shorter than a VW Golf or its longer-range stablemate, the Kia e-Niro, but it is noticeably taller.
This generation of Soul was sold with petrol and diesel powertrains (click here for our review of the regular Soul), but this review deals with the pure electric model - the Soul EV, which made it to the UK in 2015. Today, it's likely to be bought by buyers looking for an affordable EV who don't mind a relatively short range, who might also be looking at a Nissan Leaf, BMW i3 or Volkswagen e-Golf.
How practical is it?
Surprisingly practical, actually. Despite being a fairly compact car, the boot is big enough to take a single, chunky ‘off-road’ buggy with relative ease, or a big dog will be happy thanks to the high roofline. There’s some really useful underfloor storage to keep your cables out of the way, too, despite the electric Kia Soul having a bit less underfloor boot space than the diesel or petrol equivalents.
Average-sized adult passengers in the back will be able to wear their top hats, such is the headroom, although a third passenger will find the middle seat really tight for elbow room. The rear seat backs fold down in the usual 60/40 split.
Up front, the dash is rather grey and uninspiring, and hasn’t dated brilliantly, but it does have a colour touchscreen and a digital driver’s readout that shows you all the information that you want at a glance.
The driving position is quite high, so you feel a little like you perch in the Kia Soul EV, but it’s still a comfortable place to be that encourages a rather likeable, almost mini-Range Rover driving position, with your elbow leaning on the windowsill. The big glass areas and good view out also reinforce the SUV-esque feel of the Mk1 Kia Soul EV, and helps to make the it easy to judge in a tight parking spot.
This is certainly a roomier car than the smaller BMW i3 or Renault Zoe, and is roughly on a par with alternatives like the Mk2 Nissan Leaf and VW e-Golf for everyday ease of use and practicality.
What's it like to drive?
When it was launched, the Soul EV came with a 27kWh lithium-ion battery pack and an official electric range of 132 miles. A 110hp electric motor powered the front wheels.
A 2018 facelift bought various updates including a larger 30kWh battery and an official range of 155 miles, before the car was replaced with the Mk2 Kia Soul EV in 2020. Bear in mind that the Mk1 Kia Soul EV would achieve lower official range figures under today’s WLTP test; the stated official range figures were achieved under NEDC testing, which was the official EU-mandated vehicle efficiency test routine at the time and is well known for being very optimistic and not really reflecting real-world range or mpg.
In practice, expect the 27kWh Kia Soul EV to manage something like 60 to 90 miles depending on where you’re driving it and what the temperature is (all EVs are less efficient in cold weather), while the 2018 update of the Kia Soul EV, with its slightly larger 30kWh battery, is likely to manage around 70 to 100 miles.
It’s not fast, then (the 0-62mph time is 11.0 seconds), but there’s plenty of urgency at town speeds, so the Soul EV actually feels more lively than the performance figures suggest, until you get up to country road or motorway speeds, when it can feel a bit gutless. Having said that, even on faster roads the Mk1 Kia Soul EV feels confident and surefooted, and while there is a bit of wind noise over the windscreen, it’s also a very quiet motorway cruiser.
Handling is adequate but far from sparkling. Despite the batteries being set low in the Kia’s floorpan, the high roof still makes the Soul EV feel top heavy and it leans noticeably in corners. It’s got enough grip and steering feedback to give you confidence and deliver a relaxing driving experience, which is all it needs to do since this is hardly a hot hatch. Even so, a BMW i3 will certainly be more fun to drive.
Ride comfort is good in the Soul EV. A bit lumpy over big bumps, but still soft enough to feel comfortable most of the time. The regenerative braking can feel a bit intrusive and will need some getting used to, but with a bit of familiarity, he Kia Soul EV is easy to drive.
Technology, equipment & infotainment
There was only one version of the Kia Soul EV, which came well equipped with heated front seats and steering wheel, cruise control, keyless entry, front and rear parking sensors, reversing camera, colour driver’s display, auto lights and wipers, privacy glass on the rear windows, and even variable mood lighting around the front speakers. It was only available in two colour options, though – metallic ice blue with a white roof, or silver.
An 8.0-inch colour touchscreen provides the essentials, including digital radio, Bluetooth, sat-nav and USB charging, although there's no Apple CarPlay or Android Auto and the graphics are a bit grainy and dated by today's standards.
Safety standards are good, with six airbags and the basic safety assistance systems you’d expect, including hill start assist, emergency brake assist and traction control. You don’t get adaptive cruise control, though, or any of the advanced driver aids (such as lane-keep assist and autonomous emergency braking) that are common on more modern cars.
Kia Soul EV running costs
The Kia Soul EV cost £24,995 after the plug-in car grant, when it was first launched in late 2014, with sales starting in the UK in 2015. Used examples can now be had for less than £10,000, though values remain strong compared with similar EVs, especially for later Souls, which offer slightly more range than their contemporaries. Road tax is charged at the nominal flat rate on all models, as indeed it is with all EVs.
To fully charge the Mk1 Kia Soul EV will cost around £8 depending on which battery size you have, and what your electricity tariff costs. You can likely cut that cost by up to half if you use an electricity provider with a cheap off-peak tariff, but even if you don’t have that luxury the Kia Soul EV will cost around 6p per mile to run – roughly half what the average petrol or diesel car costs to fuel.
Servicing will be fairly inexpensive, and you only have to service the Mk1 Kia Soul EV at intervals of every 10,000 miles or 12 months.
Kia Soul EV reliability
Kia only sold a few hundred Mk1 Soul EVs in the UK each year, so it’s not a very common car and has rarely featured in owner surveys. However, what generic information and feedback there is suggests that it will be a very reliable car – as you’d expect of Kia, which has established an excellent reputation for reliability. The 2014 Kia Soul (non-EV versions) supported that, returning an impeccable 100 per cent reliability rating in the What Car? used car reliability survey, while Kia as a brand is routinely rated very highly for reliability and customer service.
Not only that, but the Soul EV came with Kia’s seven-year, 100,000-mile warranty, so it is possible to pick up a Mk1 Kia Soul EV that still has a useful amount of manufacturer warranty remaining.
If you’re worried about battery degradation, you are not the only one. But, there is data that suggests the Mk1 Kia Soul EV will perform well. Data from Geotab (a large American fleet company that has been tracking battery degradation of thousands of EVs for many years) suggests that the Kia will lose around 1.5 per cent of its potential range in the first three years. On average, most EVs with modern lithium-ion batteries, such as those in the Kia, tend to lose roughly 10-15 per cent of their potential driving range in the first ten years and 100,000 miles. You can help to protect battery life by running the car between 20-80 per cent battery charge in your routine day-to-day stuff, and only using rapid charging when you need to.
- Charging is via a Type 1 or CHAdeMO socket. Don’t panic if that means absolutely nothing to you – the Type 1 to Type 2 cable that you need to plug the Kia Soul EV into any home wallbox and most of the slower public chargers (that you find in town centres and the like), was provided with the car when new. A new cable can also be bought aftermarket very easily, albeit it’ll cost you around £200. Rapid charging at speeds of up to 50kW via the CHAdeMO socket is done using the cable that’ll be tethered directly to a DC public fast charger, so you don’t need your own cable. CHAdeMO-compatible chargers are widely available in the UK, but they’re becoming less well supported by the public charging network now that most EVs use CCS sockets instead. You may want to consider that if you expect to do long trips a lot; realistically, that’s unlikely to be your remit if you’re considering a used Kia Soul EV since its short potential range makes it unsuitable for high-mileage life.
- Plug the Kia Soul EV into a 7kW home wallbox and you’ll have a full charge from empty in around five hours. Plug into a normal three-pin domestic socket and the battery will be full in more like fourteen to fifteen hours. One downside to the Kia is that there’s no associated phone app for remote control of the charging times and cabin temperature, as there is with more modern EVs. However, you can control all of that via the car’s infotainment screen. Plug into a CHAdeMO-compatible DC rapid charger and you’ll have an 80 per cent battery in around 30 minutes.
- The Mk1 Kia Soul EV came with a heat pump as standard – a feature that helps to improve an EVs efficiency in cold weather, and which is an expensive option on many new EVs, and is one reason why owners report good efficiency from the Kia Soul EV even in cold weather. Owners have also reported that the range readout is generally very accurate.
- If you’re on a budget: There is only one version of the Kia Soul EV, which comes as described above – well equipped, but with a potentially limiting driving range and also very few colour choices. It’ll be a great choice for those after a short-hop commuter or school run car that’s quiet, comfortable, well equipped and spacious – not to mention cheap to run.
- If you do occasional long journeys: Try to go for the updated, 2018 car with its 30kWh battery as you’ll get better range from it, but only by a little. If you do long journeys sometimes, but want a used EV, you could be better off looking at longer-range alternatives such as the MG ZS EV.
