The last days Björn Nyland (a.k.a. Teslabjörn) has been in Korea to test drive the Kia Niro EV. The videos I've seen so far made me believe that the Niro can become one of the best sold EVs in the coming years. I'll explain why (and mention one problem that has to be solved first).

Source

About Björn Nyland

Björn Nyland is a Norwegian Youtube creator/producer that is making a lot of videos about EVs (you can find his channel here). Björn is one of my favourite Youtube producers since he makes videos that are both entertaining and informative. He for instance makes videos about technical specs, he takes cars on long distance journeys to experience real-life efficiency and he does all kinds of races between different EVs (leading to epic videos like these two:

Kia Niro EV

The Kia Niro is a compact SUV that is already available as a hybrid an plug-in hybrid in Europe and the US. The Niro EV is scheduled to arrive late 2108 or early 2019 in these countries, but is already available in Korea.

Like the Kona, from sister company Hyundai, the Niro EV has a 64 kWh battery which is capable of reaching over 500 km on a single charge at moderate speed and nearly 400 km on highway speed. Later on a version with a smaller (39 kWh) battery will be introduced. The Niro is somewhat larger than the Kona, especially leading to more room for the back seats and in the trunk, and therefore is a little bit less efficient than the Hyundai.

The Niro EV can go from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 7.8 seconds, has a top speed of 167 km/h (104 mph) and a 150 kW (204 bhp) front motor. Charging an be done with a built-in 7,2 kW charger (empty to full in 10.5 hours) or 80 kW at a rapid charger (10% to 80% in 45 minutes).

Why the Niro can be the next big thing

Based on the experiences of Björn I see some aspects that might very well make the Niro EV (one of) the best sold (relatively) affordable EVs in the coming years. First aspect: the efficiency/real world range is quite impressive:

500 km should do for most people. It is more than enough for 99% of all commuting trips (back and forth) and well above the time at which you want to take a (charging) break when you do a road/holiday trip.

Than there is the good interior finish and, especially, the huge space the Niro has.

People looking for a spacious EV - without an I-Pace/Model X/EQC-budget - should really consider the Niro, since it offers more room than the Kona, Leaf and Ampera-E/Bolt.

Other positive aspects of the Niro EV are:

• It does have active battery cooling, which makes there won't be any "rapidgate" problems like with the Nissan Leaf;
• It is a lot more affordable than the VW e-Golf, the BMW i3 and the Tesla Model 3 (long range);
• It is available before the Tesla Model 3 short range (which is likely to be priced comparably);
• Kia offers 7 years of warranty on all their cars, more than most other car manufacturers.

All in all the Niro EV seems to be a very good buy, especially when you look at value for money.

The only weak spot

The Hyundai-Kia conglomerate is known to build very efficient and relatively affordable EVs. The only problem is that they haven't yet started to build them in large quantities. The Hyundai Ioniq and Kona for instance are both only produced at a rate of about 2,000 per month. The Kia Soul - which has a very distinct exterior which you either like or hate - is produced in even smaller quantities. This leads to the question whether the partnership is really serious about producing large (enough) quantities of EVs. Maybe this has to do with reports that a lot of established car manufacturers lose money on each sold EV. However, that mainly has to do with the fact that they produce them in low volumes (with little economies of scale).

Let's hope Hyundai-Kia is starting to ramp up production of the Niro (and their other EVs) to make them more available to the large number of potential buyers and to make the manufacturer start to make some (more) profit on them.