We had a Kia Soul EV on our long-term test fleet in 2015, but I gave it a swerve because I assumed it wouldn’t fit well with my travelling needs.
My journey is a 43-mile drive from Teddington down the M3 to Basingstoke. So although Kia claims a potential range of 132 miles for the Soul EV, and we saw a ‘real world’ 110 miles or so during urban driving, I wasn’t so confident I’d experience that during constant 70mph motorway trips.
I admit it – I was anxious about range. This is because I have no way of charging at home. My parking space is inconveniently placed; although the Soul EV can be slowly recharged via a household plug, I would have had to park in a flower bed and crush my cyclamen to get close enough to the socket.
Just before the Soul EV left Autocar, however, I needed to satisfy my curiosity and find out whether it could handle a dreary motorway commute with the same zeal that made it our go-to car for short urban trips.
I was confident I could make it home, but the question is whether the constant motorway pace would rob me of more than half the battery’s charge. I had a failsafe:Fleet Services on the M3 has Ecotricity charging points, so I chose those as my emergency stopping-off point, if needed.
When I set off from Autocar Towers on a mild evening, the fully charged Soul was showing an indicated range of 106 miles. Curiously, though, as I drifted quietly out of the car park, the range jumped up to 111 miles.
I was quietly confident because of the surfeit of roadworks and 50mph zones along the M3. At 70mph, the battery range ticks down at a predictable rate, but dropping the pace by 20mph appears to slow down the charge consumption significantly.
I was determined to make this a ‘real world’ test, so at the end of the speed restriction there was no dawdling behind freight vehicles in lane one. Approaching Basingstoke, however, I lost my nerve and ducked off the motorway one junction early, figuring that cutting through the town centre would give me more opportunity to use the regenerative braking and conserve battery life.
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Life on the limit
I am not sure my nerves would hold out too well to be using an electric car near the limits of its range as Matt has done here. I would be in fear of the dreaded road closure and diversion. A rare occurrence perhaps, but you never know when it may hit.
An idea to test nerve more than anything else might be to use a conventional ICE car for a month, but never have more than 2 gallons of petrol/diesel in the tank, not to have a spare can of fuel in the boot either, and only refuel it at (nearest) home filling station or nearest destination filling station.
@Adrian987
The relationship between power and energy consumption