Kia Soul EV range, battery & charging

The Kia Soul EV is now offered with a choice of two batteries. The 39.2kWh unit is the same one that’s fitted in the Kona Electric, but in the Soul EV it’s good for a 171-mile range, or up to 252 miles on a charge is achievable if you only drive around town, according to Kia. Meanwhile, cars with the 64kWh battery offer 280 miles of range, or Kia says a huge 402 miles in town. Our test drives in a 64kWh model suggest you’ll get some 230 to 240 miles in varied real-world driving.

Kia Soul EV range

The Soul EV’s real-world performance is just as impressive as its claimed range. Our test drive in a 64kWh Soul EV over a mixture of motorway, rural and urban roads suggested it’ll do some 230-240 miles with ease in mild conditions. It betters the range of both the Nissan Leaf and Volkswagen e-Golf and easily surpasses the official claimed range of the Peugeot e-2008 and Mazda MX-30.

Charge time

The Soul EV can charge at up to 77kW through its CCS port (located in the nose), so if you can find a 100kW charging point, topping up either battery size from 0-80% takes around 54 minutes. It also comes an app that allows you to check charging status, adjust its charging parameters, set it to pre-heat and more.

The standard Type 2 charging cable provided with the car works with pretty much all the public AC chargers, as well as untethered home wallboxes and on-street charging points. At home, fully recharging the smaller battery model from a 7.4kW home wallbox takes just over six hours, compared to around nine-and-a-half hours for those fitted with the 64kWh unit.

Also provided is a three-pin cable that allows you to plug the car into the standard power sockets in your house. Using a domestic three-pin socket – an emergency option for most buyers – takes 18 hours and 29 hours respectively.