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2015 Kia Soul EV: Real World Review

What Is It? 2015 Kia Soul EV

Price: $36,625 before federal/state incentives

Competitors: Chevy Spark EV, Fiat 500E, Ford Focus Electric, Mitsubish i-MiEV,

Alternatives: Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf, BMW i3, Tesla Model S.

Pros: Zippy acceleration, high-caliber HVAC system, unlimited fuel economy.

Cons: Handling through turns, inconsistent charging time.

Would I buy it with my own money? Maybe, if such a thing were possible.

But it’s not possible, because you can only buy the Kia Soul EV, like most electric cars, in California, Washington and Oregon, where state law requires automakers to sell them. In the Golden State, the actual price after tax rebates comes out to about $24,000. That is a pretty damn good deal.

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But almost against my will, I live in Texas, where owning a large gas-hogging car almost counts as religious liberty. I see Teslas around Austin, because there are only rich people here now, but other than that, electric cars are as rare as barbecue sauce. Kia offered up this Soul EV to me because they were in the process of trucking it to California. Otherwise, it would never have appeared in this state. It was like a chance to pet the rarest animals at the zoo.

This is a Kia Soul, so unless you’re enthusiastic about a pleather-lined box on wheels, it’s not a car for enthusiasts. It needs to be babied through turns and is about as agile as a toaster oven. But while I wouldn’t want to burn it through the Hill Country, it works perfectly well for city, highway, and suburban driving. It only has a 109-hp electric motor, but electric cars accelerate fast, which means you can merge fast and then maintain at 65 to 75 MPH with little effort.

My favorite moment with the car came on a hot Sunday afternoon, with the air-conditioning on full blast and the seat cooler at its highest setting. I felt the full appeal. In fact, for a few traffic-free minutes, it was exactly what I wanted in a car. I briefly imagined a future where everyone sat cooling their butts in cars like this, cute little electric-blue Korean science experiments with white roofs, on clean, efficient, emission-free highways. In my fantasy, all the cars were also driving themselves. And then the clogged reality of urban Texas, where it’s still legal to text in your SUV, replaced my reverie.

Also, charging was a major issue, as always. Unless you live in California or some other fortunate place where it’s not still 1994 on the roads, you either charge your car at home or don’t charge it at all. Some workplaces in Austin have electric stations, as do some doctor’s offices and the Whole Foods downtown. I rarely go to any of those places. This created problems for me.

The Soul EV gets a 90-mile range. It came with a cord, easy enough to plug into my garage outlet. The car can fully charge in four hours with a 240-volt outlet, but I don’t have a 240-volt outlet and the charger only came with a regular plug. I plugged it in where I plug in my electric leafblower and my nondenominational holiday lights.

Some days it charged quickly, some days it didn’t. On a Saturday night, I pulled into the driveway at 12:30 am and plugged it in with 45 miles of range left. When I got back into the car, ten hours later, it had only charged up to 61 miles. Then I drove it a lot on Sunday, enough so that I started getting annoying but necessary warning signals when the range dropped below 25 percent. But I plugged it in Monday morning and it fully charged in about six and a half hours. Someday, when I am a billionaire villain, I will have a solar-powered electric car charging station in my garage. But that day isn’t now.

On Wednesday they came to take Kia Soul away, with all of 1,300 miles on the odometer. As its replacement, they brought a massive Kia Sorento as its replacement. It looked familiar. It gets 18 mpg in city driving. I see those around all the time.