Soul EV can weather chilly climate driving
Having commuted 28.1 kilometres to and from work for two consecutive days without recharging on a few occasions, it was time to find out what the Soul EV’s real-world driving range was on a colder day.
Kia lists the official driving range of the 2016 Soul EV we have had for a 60-day test as 149 km. It seemed reasonable, although on a balmy summer’s day I had managed to coax 162 km out of the Soul EV, with 21 km of driving range remaining in the battery. The question that needed to be answered was simple: How much would a cold day, with the heater in use, detract from the driving range? There was only one way to find out — drive my original test route again in more frigid temperatures.
The route was designed to include a mix of highway, suburban (with speed limits of 80 km/h) and city (60 km/h or less). While I would have liked colder temperatures, the day started at 5C and the range meter showed 127 km. The first section of the test was a highway run, followed by some suburban and in-town driving. This cycle was then repeated until the battery got as close to empty as I was prepared to push it. At the end of the test I had clocked 54.3 km on the highway with the cruise control set at 105 km/h. The rest of the route was run at the speed limit or in typical stop-and-go traffic.
Setting out, I was hoping to pull 120 km of driving out of the battery before being forced to call it quits. When I pulled back into my driveway at the end of the test, low charge warning lamp glowing brightly, I had driven 145.4 kilometres and still had 17 km showing as my distance to empty.
This was significantly better than I expected, given the temperature at the end of the test had dropped to 2C, the need to keep warm, the fact the headlights were on and the EV was wearing proper winter tires.
The tires have an unwanted side-effect. Yes, they shorten stopping distances and provide better traction on a cold or snowy road, but the special tread pattern reduces the driving range by up to five per cent when compared to the low-rolling resistance tires that come as standard equipment. In hindsight, the upside of the grip outweighed the reduction in driving range by a wide margin.
The difference between the 127-km starting figure and the real distance covered — a free ride totalling 18.4 km — was all thanks to the energy captured during regenerative braking.
I drove the route in Brake and with Eco mode activated; compared to Drive, Brake amps up the regenerative rate, which captures more energy and turns the Soul EV into a one-pedal drive, except when waiting at a stoplight. Anticipating the flow of traffic and changing signals as the road unfolded added to the distance potential. The Soul’s onboard driving coach told me how I had used the battery’s power on the drive.
At one point I scored the top mark of eight, which painted a tree in full bloom in the display; I had consumed an average of 17.2 kWh of power for every 100 km driven (my previous best score was 17.0 kWh/100 km).
Although I lacked the nerve to keep going beyond the 17-km threshold I set as close enough to empty to avoid trouble, the Soul EV demonstrated it has the potential to deliver 160 km at close to freezing temperatures.