The Chevrolet Bolt EV has a new rival in the ever-growing affordable electric-car segment. This week, range estimates revealed the 2020 Kia Soul EV will go 243 miles on a single charge.
For those keeping score at home, that’s five miles more than the Chevrolet Bolt EV. Though, in the grand scheme of things, it likely won’t make much of a real-world difference. Still, the Soul EV earns the bragging rights fair and square.
The Soul EV features a 64-kilowatt-hour battery pack and is closely related to the Hyundai Kona EV. However, it shares its battery pack with the Kia Niro EV. It’s a major leap forward from the previous car’s 30-kwh battery pack, which gave the car just 111 miles of range. The boxy EV will also sport 100-kw DC fast charging, which will charge the battery to 80 percent in about an hour.
On a more common Level 2 charger, charging a dead battery will take around nine hours. Those who decide a standard wall outlet is the way to go, they’ll have to wait 59 hours for a full charge.
The Bolt EV has seen few updates since the first cars were delivered at the end of 2016. It’s unclear what kind of lifecycle the model has as General Motors plans to make Cadillac its electric-car spearhead. The luxury division will receive the first EV built on the automaker’s BEV3 platform, a scalable architecture for electric cars. GM also promises the platform will help it sell profitable EVs for the first time.
As for the Soul EV, Kia plans to start shipping the boxy EV out to dealers this spring. It’ll also have a whopping 291 pound-feet of torque on tap to spin the front tires with ease.
Comments
Hyundai/Kia are doing the entry level EV onslaught proper – Niro EV, Kona EV, Soul EV, IONiQ EV. All basically the same but providing variety and body types to reach more appeal.
The Bolt (and Volt for that matter) should have other body styles and under other brands by now.
Chevy Bolt hatchback – as we currently know it
Chevy Bolt 4 door ‘fast back’
Chevy Bolt compact CUV
Buick compact CUV
Buick 2 door coupe
The Volt should’ve gotten similar treatments, not just the over priced but beautiful ELR
The new issue of Car & Driver pitted the Chevrolet against the Hyundai. Chevrolet really needs to step up it’s game.
They really had the opportunity to make Chevrolet the leader in this field starting with the Volt and blew it…
4 kWh larger battery and 3 years of development time and it only goes 5 miles more?
Meh.
Bolt got Old real Quickly. Another Lackluster effort by current General Motors.
how does gm and telsa compete with automakers who can tap into the $7500 tax credit?
“59 hours to a full charge” Your source for that information….please