We've owned a 2020 First Edition from new. There aren't many cars that can put a smile on your face every time you get behind the wheel... but this is one of them for sure! Some extra info not included... holding the left hand paddle brings you to a complete stop if you so wish... the Auto Regen mode is brilliant as it detects junctions / roundabouts, vehicles etc using the GPS and radar very effectively to increase the regen automatically as you get nearer to the situation (we use regen lev1 plus Auto all the time).The standard Nexen N'Fera SU1 tyres have no grip breaking or accelerating, change them out ASAP. Kia have 5 year service plans available on the new cars. The lane keep assist can be silenced by the press of a (real) button. Still loving the car after 2 1/2 years and 21k miles.. never needed to public charge yet... 200 miles range in winter and 300 miles plus in summer. We were worried about the Soul being quickly out classed by the new offerings... but there's still nothing out there yet to temp us elsewhere!
Started my ev journey with the 30 kw Soul excellent car.I currently drive a 2020 64 kw a very much improved car and amazingly for the shape of both cars very good kWh per mile. My Kia dealership has so far been very good. Once again a very good video keep them coming 👍
I too am on my second Soul EV, an EV Maxx purchased autumn of 2022, having owned a 30kW Soul EV purchased autumn 2017. Simply wanted a new car, considered the MG5, but loved our Soul too much so "upgraded". Biggest difference is the battery capacity & range, and some extra gadgets but no front parking sensors, but the video review is pretty comprehensive. Nicely presented.
I think you meant Type 2 to Type 1 cable should come with the car rather than Type 2 to Chademo. Also to tell whether the car is a 27kWh or a 30kWh vehicle you need to check the 10th digit of the VIN number to see whether it is F = 27kWh or J = 30kWh but it is only the 10th digit that will tell you that. Hence on the test I think you was driving a 27kWh version and not a 30kWh Soul due to the age. Fabulous in-depth review by the way, great work. We've had a 2018 30 kWh Soul since August, amazing car, lovely to drive and live with. Super efficient and easy to get 4.8 miles/kW.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment Paul. Yes, my error on the cable nomenclature. Apologies! And again, I missed out the fact it was the 10th digit. The car I had was a 30kWh from Kia’s own heritage fleet. Thanks for also popping your own thoughts on the car on here too. How have you found the maintenance on your car?
@@AutoEV Yet to have our first service as the owner of our used Soul but the fact that we bought a 2018 Soul and still have 3 years warranty remaining, provides a huge amount of reassurance. Paid £16,995 (end of August 2022) for ex-lease car, 34k miles, with some very mirror cosmetic imperfections from a independent dealer. For added piece of mind I bought a cheap Bluetooth dongle, paid for an app called Soul EV Spy for an old Android phone and during the test drive was able to check the battery state of health. Still 100% after 34k miles. I think the beauty of the 30kWh is you can fully charge at home on a 7kW charger. It takes under 5 hours and on Octopus Go Faster tariff (8.25p kW) it costs £2.48 to fully charge. That full charge gets us about 140 miles in summer. Factor in we don't pay road tax, that £165 you would given to the government translates to roughly 9,000 miles worth of home charging 😍 Currently running on Michelin Crossclimate all season tyres and dropped about 5 miles of range on a full charge. The grey cloth interior makes the cabin light and airy, so the grandchildren haven't complained of feeling sick when travelling in the back. I considered a Leaf due to the larger boot but the level of equipment as standard, especially the heat pump, Apple Carplay and just a better looking car IMO, made the Soul a better buy. Would have looked at an Ioniq of the same age but they were rarer and more expensive to buy. This was our first EV and absolutely love it. It has become our main car and our petrol Vitara has become the second car, so much so the last time I visited a forecourt was in August 🤣
@@AutoEV Someone said your reviews are too long. I disagree, there is zero waffle or padding, just very detailed and if you are looking to spend thousands on a car, taking 50 minutes out of your day to be well informed is a good investment of your time, IMO. Keep up the amazing work 👏
From an engineering point of view the first generation Soul is the Korean Leaf. Unfortunately, with the same drawbacks: Small battery, high rates of degradation, CHAdeMo connector. For a similar price, the Ioniq Classic is the much much better car. Granted, it is a fastback, the Ioniq is so much more versatile car, one can easily take long trips with. Way more efficient and charges at 65 KW. The old Ioniq still can be your only car for a small family of four. The second generation Soul is quite a different beast. Apart from slow charging, there is little to complain.
I am in the USA so this might be a loss but, I have a 2015 Soul EV+ that I purchased in Nov of 2021 for $10K. It has been great! And, I just found out that I am getting a NEW Traction Battery due to the latest recall! I've been getting a max range of 70 - 74 miles for the past, nearly 2 years. I hope to get as much as 150 miles after the swap! They are a solid deal!
Brilliant review of both Souls nearly bought a MGZs ev but kept being put back so in the end replaced my Honda Jazz with an updated model. So maybe when the time comes it will be a 2nd hand Soul 64kw for me. Thanks again for the indents review.
My first ev was a 2016 soul ev. Also the infotainment system can be updated to android auto etc... so a great first EV ... in fact it was so good Mum bought it off me when I changed to a mg5
Very thorough appraisal , lacking in one area ,and you are not alone .Only Bjorn Nyland covers it and I feel it is important. Could you please include a drive at night to appraise the quality of the headlights. I have a Ioniq 38 with LED lights and find the main beam definitely , are not what I expect from LED's , they seem to blend into the background . .Having driven Volvo & Mercedes they are like daylight
I just got a 2017 Kia Soul EV with the white and blue trim. I love the two tone color of white with blue chrome. But it was advertised with 93 mile range on a full charge. Maybe when it was brand new. I did a full charge and it only went up to 63 mile range. That’s a HUGE degradation!!! I was thinking hopefully it would be at 75 to 80 but it’s 30% difference and it doesn’t even have many miles only at 37k miles on it . I got it with a 7 day return policy. And I love the look and the space and tech BUT I can’t see myself keeping it with that big of range loss. What’s it gonna be in another 5 years only 40 mile range!?!? So disappointed I was so exited 😩
Whereabouts are you from Mike? Are you experiencing cold weather where you are as that will have a massive affect on batteries at the moment. Most of the press cars I have don’t get anywhere near their stated 100% full range when it’s cold like it is now in the UK. The Nissan Ariya I had a couple of weeks ago was showing around 250 miles range at 100% when it should have been over 300 miles. Just a thought to consider before you take it back. Let us know how you get on. Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Bryan.
@@AutoEV Thanks for the feedback. I’m in Texas and we are currently in the 70s with no extreme cold weather. Today I did a full charge and it only gave me 59 miles 😩. I love the cars look with the blue and white but I can’t justify spending the amount of money for a car that gets 60 or less range. I would end up having to charge almost daily. I fell in love with the look but it’s gonna be a no go
@@AutoEV It's a well know fact that the earlier Souls have massive battery degradation. Check out Bjorn Nyland indepth reviews. As I mentioned in my comment there was no mention of this in your review.
Unfortunately there is massive difference in battery chemistry of 27kwh and 39kWh. 27kwh have high percent of cars had that had significant battery degradation. But not heard of any 30kwh with noticeable degradation. Sold mine 30kwh at 51k miles with 100% battery. The only exception to this 27kwh which had a battery replacement because they used same battery modules as 30kwh, just 96 modules instead of 100 on 30kwh. These do last well.
A very good in depth review, but as a "used car salesman" where is the real world information on how the older car charges. How difficult or easy was it to find Chademo charging stations. What was its true range and how much battery degredation there has been. These are the things that are most important when contemplating buying an older EV. Unfortunately you just don't get this information from UK reviewers.
Your reviews are excellent but I would politely suggest they are sometimes over long. This is 2022 - 51 minutes on a YT video is more than most people's attention span will bear these days. Could you consider doing truncated versions of your videos - same content source but more heavily edited down? Many people will start a video, look at the timer and give up immediately, thinking "can't do that, haven't got an hour to spare". I had a Kia Soul First Edition. I sold it in August to change to the new Kia Niro EV but I have to say I loved that car. Remarkably competent and well specced car for the money. I got back almost what I paid for it. It was a brilliant introduction to EVs.
Hi Richard. First of all, thank you for watching and taking the time to comment. Every now and then we get similar comments about the length of our videos, and that’s fair. As you say, a lot of people won’t have the time, or maybe even the inclination to sit through a 50 minute video. RUclips is a very crowded market space, especially when it comes to automotive content, and being able to stand out isn’t very easy. We took the decision quite early on in AutoEV’s life to make our videos longer rather than the usual 10-15 minute reviews as we found our audience tended to be made up by people looking to actually buy cars, rather than just watch them. So given that, the way we can stand out is by being thorough with much more detail that you might need to see if you were considering buying a car. We know that it costs us views, and ultimately subscribers, but we feel that by giving these more in-depth reviews, it helps us stand apart from our contemporaries such as Electrifying.com and Driving Electric, both of which are excellent channels. But because they are bigger and have much more clout behind them, we felt we would simply get ignored by comparison. How we were able to forge our own audience is by going longer. We do split it into chapters if it gets a bit tedious after a while, but ultimately we think a more detailed approach works best for our target audience. I hope that goes some way to explain the rationale behind the length of our reviews, and please know that every single comment we get is read and suggestions such as yours are always taken into consideration when we discuss the future of the channel. Thank you once again for watching and supporting us. Bryan @ AutoEV
@@AutoEV Really comprehensive and fair response to a genuine question. Thanks for taking the time to explain in such detail. I will continue to watch when it's a car that interests me, even though I am not in the market for a new car right now as I have just got one, just because I enjoy watching car videos :)
Good guide, but I'd have mentioned a little more about the batteries, especially on the early cars. I've owned and loved the original 27kWh car, but there's no way you will be getting 110 miles from those early cars now. Mine was a 65 plate at was down to 87% SOH after 50k miles (quite a few have had replacement batteries under warranty) and would do 100 miles at a push in summer, I've seen quite a few of the early cars with higher degradation so I'd personally go for a 2018 (67) onwards which had a much better pack and show very little range loss, usually around 120-130 summer.
I recently got a 2018 model in Finland of all places, and I'm getting almost 5 miles per kWh and still have about 110-115 of range despite being already driven 80k. And the temperature still dips below 0 Celsius at night.
Luckily on the continent LHD cars of the current soul there are lots of colours and trims, thankfully with cloth trim, I hate leather, and values have dropped big time, 2/3 yo ones with little mileage are available for 20k EUR
One minor point - more than once you indicated that the third generation car was a First Edition. However, the car you were in appeared to be a Maxx spec not a First Edition spec. Differences that make that clear 1. The First Edition had a Heads up Display. It was removed from the Maxx and yours didn't have one. 2. The colour choices changed when the Maxx was introduced. The red option you had was not available on the FE. The only colour choices on the FE were white (red roof), black (red roof) or blue (black roof) - no red. 3. The FE never came with the new badge.
The main problem is finding an affordable used Soul. Guess we'll have to wait for the mystical wave of cheap Chinese cars to come and disrupt the market. Not seen much sign yet!
We've owned a 2020 First Edition from new. There aren't many cars that can put a smile on your face every time you get behind the wheel... but this is one of them for sure! Some extra info not included... holding the left hand paddle brings you to a complete stop if you so wish... the Auto Regen mode is brilliant as it detects junctions / roundabouts, vehicles etc using the GPS and radar very effectively to increase the regen automatically as you get nearer to the situation (we use regen lev1 plus Auto all the time).The standard Nexen N'Fera SU1 tyres have no grip breaking or accelerating, change them out ASAP. Kia have 5 year service plans available on the new cars. The lane keep assist can be silenced by the press of a (real) button. Still loving the car after 2 1/2 years and 21k miles.. never needed to public charge yet... 200 miles range in winter and 300 miles plus in summer. We were worried about the Soul being quickly out classed by the new offerings... but there's still nothing out there yet to temp us elsewhere!
Started my ev journey with the 30 kw Soul excellent car.I currently drive a 2020 64 kw a very much improved car and amazingly for the shape of both cars very good kWh per mile. My Kia dealership has so far been very good.
Once again a very good video keep them coming 👍
I too am on my second Soul EV, an EV Maxx purchased autumn of 2022, having owned a 30kW Soul EV purchased autumn 2017. Simply wanted a new car, considered the MG5, but loved our Soul too much so "upgraded". Biggest difference is the battery capacity & range, and some extra gadgets but no front parking sensors, but the video review is pretty comprehensive. Nicely presented.
Kia really should just stick with the EV platform. The gdi engines are a dumpster fire 😅
Once again an excellent review and comparison. Hope you do more like this with used EV,s.I actually like your long reviews.
I think you meant Type 2 to Type 1 cable should come with the car rather than Type 2 to Chademo. Also to tell whether the car is a 27kWh or a 30kWh vehicle you need to check the 10th digit of the VIN number to see whether it is F = 27kWh or J = 30kWh but it is only the 10th digit that will tell you that. Hence on the test I think you was driving a 27kWh version and not a 30kWh Soul due to the age. Fabulous in-depth review by the way, great work.
We've had a 2018 30 kWh Soul since August, amazing car, lovely to drive and live with. Super efficient and easy to get 4.8 miles/kW.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment Paul. Yes, my error on the cable nomenclature. Apologies! And again, I missed out the fact it was the 10th digit. The car I had was a 30kWh from Kia’s own heritage fleet.
Thanks for also popping your own thoughts on the car on here too. How have you found the maintenance on your car?
@@AutoEV Yet to have our first service as the owner of our used Soul but the fact that we bought a 2018 Soul and still have 3 years warranty remaining, provides a huge amount of reassurance. Paid £16,995 (end of August 2022) for ex-lease car, 34k miles, with some very mirror cosmetic imperfections from a independent dealer. For added piece of mind I bought a cheap Bluetooth dongle, paid for an app called Soul EV Spy for an old Android phone and during the test drive was able to check the battery state of health. Still 100% after 34k miles.
I think the beauty of the 30kWh is you can fully charge at home on a 7kW charger. It takes under 5 hours and on Octopus Go Faster tariff (8.25p kW) it costs £2.48 to fully charge. That full charge gets us about 140 miles in summer. Factor in we don't pay road tax, that £165 you would given to the government translates to roughly 9,000 miles worth of home charging 😍
Currently running on Michelin Crossclimate all season tyres and dropped about 5 miles of range on a full charge.
The grey cloth interior makes the cabin light and airy, so the grandchildren haven't complained of feeling sick when travelling in the back. I considered a Leaf due to the larger boot but the level of equipment as standard, especially the heat pump, Apple Carplay and just a better looking car IMO, made the Soul a better buy. Would have looked at an Ioniq of the same age but they were rarer and more expensive to buy.
This was our first EV and absolutely love it. It has become our main car and our petrol Vitara has become the second car, so much so the last time I visited a forecourt was in August 🤣
@@AutoEV Someone said your reviews are too long. I disagree, there is zero waffle or padding, just very detailed and if you are looking to spend thousands on a car, taking 50 minutes out of your day to be well informed is a good investment of your time, IMO. Keep up the amazing work 👏
From an engineering point of view the first generation Soul is the Korean Leaf. Unfortunately, with the same drawbacks: Small battery, high rates of degradation, CHAdeMo connector.
For a similar price, the Ioniq Classic is the much much better car. Granted, it is a fastback, the Ioniq is so much more versatile car, one can easily take long trips with. Way more efficient and charges at 65 KW. The old Ioniq still can be your only car for a small family of four.
The second generation Soul is quite a different beast. Apart from slow charging, there is little to complain.
I am in the USA so this might be a loss but, I have a 2015 Soul EV+ that I purchased in Nov of 2021 for $10K. It has been great! And, I just found out that I am getting a NEW Traction Battery due to the latest recall! I've been getting a max range of 70 - 74 miles for the past, nearly 2 years. I hope to get as much as 150 miles after the swap! They are a solid deal!
my 2016 has the 30kw battery it get about 125 in the summertime.
Brilliant review of both Souls nearly bought a MGZs ev but kept being put back so in the end replaced my Honda Jazz with an updated model. So maybe when the time comes it will be a 2nd hand Soul 64kw for me.
Thanks again for the indents review.
Great review. I have always liked the Kia Soul and would happily by the version 2 or 3. I wish you continued success
My first ev was a 2016 soul ev. Also the infotainment system can be updated to android auto etc... so a great first EV ... in fact it was so good Mum bought it off me when I changed to a mg5
Very thorough appraisal , lacking in one area ,and you are not alone .Only Bjorn Nyland covers it and I feel it is important. Could you please include a drive at night to appraise the quality of the headlights. I have a Ioniq 38 with LED lights and find the main beam definitely , are not what I expect from LED's , they seem to blend into the background . .Having driven Volvo & Mercedes they are like daylight
Most knowledgeable review, thanks.
Great review as usual.
Great review!
Looking at secondhand Souls as a possible first EV. Thanks for the reviews!
Great review, been looking into a second hand Kia Soul and this has really helped
Glad it was helpful!
They have a problem with brakes, they tend to stop working, and can be lethal.
I just got a 2017 Kia Soul EV with the white and blue trim. I love the two tone color of white with blue chrome. But it was advertised with 93 mile range on a full charge. Maybe when it was brand new. I did a full charge and it only went up to 63 mile range. That’s a HUGE degradation!!! I was thinking hopefully it would be at 75 to 80 but it’s 30% difference and it doesn’t even have many miles only at 37k miles on it . I got it with a 7 day return policy. And I love the look and the space and tech BUT I can’t see myself keeping it with that big of range loss. What’s it gonna be in another 5 years only 40 mile range!?!? So disappointed I was so exited 😩
Whereabouts are you from Mike? Are you experiencing cold weather where you are as that will have a massive affect on batteries at the moment. Most of the press cars I have don’t get anywhere near their stated 100% full range when it’s cold like it is now in the UK. The Nissan Ariya I had a couple of weeks ago was showing around 250 miles range at 100% when it should have been over 300 miles.
Just a thought to consider before you take it back. Let us know how you get on.
Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. Bryan.
@@AutoEV Thanks for the feedback. I’m in Texas and we are currently in the 70s with no extreme cold weather. Today I did a full charge and it only gave me 59 miles 😩. I love the cars look with the blue and white but I can’t justify spending the amount of money for a car that gets 60 or less range. I would end up having to charge almost daily. I fell in love with the look but it’s gonna be a no go
@@AutoEV It's a well know fact that the earlier Souls have massive battery degradation. Check out Bjorn Nyland indepth reviews. As I mentioned in my comment there was no mention of this in your review.
Unfortunately there is massive difference in battery chemistry of 27kwh and 39kWh. 27kwh have high percent of cars had that had significant battery degradation. But not heard of any 30kwh with noticeable degradation. Sold mine 30kwh at 51k miles with 100% battery.
The only exception to this 27kwh which had a battery replacement because they used same battery modules as 30kwh, just 96 modules instead of 100 on 30kwh. These do last well.
A very good in depth review, but as a "used car salesman" where is the real world information on how the older car charges. How difficult or easy was it to find Chademo charging stations. What was its true range and how much battery degredation there has been. These are the things that are most important when contemplating buying an older EV. Unfortunately you just don't get this information from UK reviewers.
Thanks for all information. Volvo Laplander Camper
No mention of the HUD - isn't this on the 2020 cars?
Your reviews are excellent but I would politely suggest they are sometimes over long. This is 2022 - 51 minutes on a YT video is more than most people's attention span will bear these days. Could you consider doing truncated versions of your videos - same content source but more heavily edited down? Many people will start a video, look at the timer and give up immediately, thinking "can't do that, haven't got an hour to spare".
I had a Kia Soul First Edition. I sold it in August to change to the new Kia Niro EV but I have to say I loved that car. Remarkably competent and well specced car for the money. I got back almost what I paid for it. It was a brilliant introduction to EVs.
Hi Richard. First of all, thank you for watching and taking the time to comment. Every now and then we get similar comments about the length of our videos, and that’s fair. As you say, a lot of people won’t have the time, or maybe even the inclination to sit through a 50 minute video. RUclips is a very crowded market space, especially when it comes to automotive content, and being able to stand out isn’t very easy. We took the decision quite early on in AutoEV’s life to make our videos longer rather than the usual 10-15 minute reviews as we found our audience tended to be made up by people looking to actually buy cars, rather than just watch them. So given that, the way we can stand out is by being thorough with much more detail that you might need to see if you were considering buying a car. We know that it costs us views, and ultimately subscribers, but we feel that by giving these more in-depth reviews, it helps us stand apart from our contemporaries such as Electrifying.com and Driving Electric, both of which are excellent channels. But because they are bigger and have much more clout behind them, we felt we would simply get ignored by comparison. How we were able to forge our own audience is by going longer. We do split it into chapters if it gets a bit tedious after a while, but ultimately we think a more detailed approach works best for our target audience.
I hope that goes some way to explain the rationale behind the length of our reviews, and please know that every single comment we get is read and suggestions such as yours are always taken into consideration when we discuss the future of the channel. Thank you once again for watching and supporting us. Bryan @ AutoEV
@@AutoEV Really comprehensive and fair response to a genuine question. Thanks for taking the time to explain in such detail.
I will continue to watch when it's a car that interests me, even though I am not in the market for a new car right now as I have just got one, just because I enjoy watching car videos :)
Good guide, but I'd have mentioned a little more about the batteries, especially on the early cars. I've owned and loved the original 27kWh car, but there's no way you will be getting 110 miles from those early cars now. Mine was a 65 plate at was down to 87% SOH after 50k miles (quite a few have had replacement batteries under warranty) and would do 100 miles at a push in summer, I've seen quite a few of the early cars with higher degradation so I'd personally go for a 2018 (67) onwards which had a much better pack and show very little range loss, usually around 120-130 summer.
I recently got a 2018 model in Finland of all places, and I'm getting almost 5 miles per kWh and still have about 110-115 of range despite being already driven 80k. And the temperature still dips below 0 Celsius at night.
Luckily on the continent LHD cars of the current soul there are lots of colours and trims, thankfully with cloth trim, I hate leather, and values have dropped big time, 2/3 yo ones with little mileage are available for 20k EUR
One minor point - more than once you indicated that the third generation car was a First Edition. However, the car you were in appeared to be a Maxx spec not a First Edition spec. Differences that make that clear
1. The First Edition had a Heads up Display. It was removed from the Maxx and yours didn't have one.
2. The colour choices changed when the Maxx was introduced. The red option you had was not available on the FE. The only colour choices on the FE were white (red roof), black (red roof) or blue (black roof) - no red.
3. The FE never came with the new badge.
The main problem is finding an affordable used Soul. Guess we'll have to wait for the mystical wave of cheap Chinese cars to come and disrupt the market. Not seen much sign yet!
The buyers guide for Kia EVs is NOT to by MK1 Soul. The cells and thermo management system are totally crap.
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