Kona Electric Car Review | Is it Worth it

We are going to be interviewing jim to give us his thoughts. His opinions on the kona hyundai ultimate electric vehicle were going to try to go through some of the big major questions. People have before buying an electric vehicle to hopefully answer the ones that you might have. First and foremost, jim tell us a bit about the car uh, its 100 electric uh, not a hybrid. It gets about uh 250 to 260 average range uh. It uh. It runs at about five cents, a mile, as opposed to a gas car which is closer to 13 to 14 cents, a mile, so its cheaper, to operate its more expensive to buy, though this particular model costs about 45 000 brand new, its a 21.. The 22s are out and they eliminated one of the models, and they just have two models now, but they did lower the price of the upper end model. This is the upper end model of the 21s. It comes complete with gps, it has uh cruise control adaptive cruise control with stop and go. You can drive through a traffic jam without hitting a brake or gas pedal uh. There is virtually no learning curve. It drives. Just like a regular gas car. The difference is you get your best mileage with a gas car on the highway at faster speeds and stop and go is a gas cars worst enemy? While this car stop and go, you get the best mileage from it because of the regenerative braking and the um? The fact that higher speeds causes more wind resistance, which causes you to use more energy when youre running the car uh, depending on the weather batteries, do better in warm weather than they do in cold weather if uh, if its the dead of winter below freezing on A 100 charge ill get about 240 mile total range yeah in the summertime.

When the weather warms up, this will get closer to 280 to 290.. Almost all of our charging is done at home and its on a level two charger. If uh, if i plug it in at night, say you know around 10 oclock its on a schedule, its going to start charging so itll be ready to go when were ready to go, and so our set leaf time is like 8, 8, 30 and itll be Fully charged by then uh from 50 to 100, its probably going to take about four and a half hours five hours, but were sleeping while its charging. When i first got this vehicle, actually the um i first we first got an electric vehicle. It was a kona uh back in 2019 and we leased it the idea being that the technology is advancing so rapidly that, at the end of three years, youre about ready to trade it in and swap out for a newer vehicle. And we also, when we traded that vehicle and got this one at this. One is also released, however, im beginning to rethink that and im thinking, uh ive been told that the trade in values of these cars is much higher than expected and im thinking. Probably i will purchase the next vehicle because actually we do more miles than you might think. At 10 000 miles a year, we got 8 500 on it already and weve only had it for six months and so probably were going to be going over.

Our mileage limit, but yeah when this gets traded in were going for another electric maintenance at 15 000 miles. We will rotate the tires theres no oil to change theres, no transmission. So therefore, no transmission fluid theres, no coolant system, theres, no muffler, i theres just nothing to maintain on it, basically its an electric motor and four wheels driving with regenerative driving uh its. If you, you can pick the level of regeneration you want, i picked the highest one, its called one pedal driving you let up on the gas pedal the car slows down. You dont need the brakes. It has a another paddle which increases the regeneration to bring you to a complete stop. You still use the brakes at an emergency stop, but the regeneration wont bring you to a complete stop very fast, but overall, i would say we use the brakes, maybe 10, that you would in a gas car. Well, when we got this car there, werent that many available uh there was the chevy bolt uh the kona electric, and that was pretty much your only well the the uh, the the leaf nissan leaf um, but we wanted a fully electric and this was available at The dealership we went to test drive it at and we watched several youtube videos comparing the tube the bulb and the kona and the kona seemed to get more points. So we chose this one and youre happy with it. Youre happy with your decision im very happy with it.

There are a couple drawbacks that ill go over with you, but overall its been the perfect car. We have 8 500 miles on it. Its been trouble free, its quiet, its quick, its fast uh, zero to 60. In six seconds well, i think some of the common negatives that people consider uh with an electric car is first of all your range anxiety. Can you get to a a charger on the road uh before you run out of electricity? Weve never had an issue with that, its a little different way of thinking. When you drive an electric car you there are several apps you can download on your phone. You can go online on your computer. You can scope out several charging stations along your route. You pick one where you might have a good reason to stop. You youve been driving for two two and a half hours youre, ready to stretch your legs. You get out you plug in you go have a cup of coffee. When you come back, your car is charged on a fast charger uh on a public charger. This one will go from 10 to 80 in about 45 minutes uh with us that works just fine, because thats just about enough time, you know to plug in, go to starbucks sit, have a nice leisurely coffee and when you come back youre just about done uh There is an initial investment if youve never owned an electric car before you have to uh, consider the cost of installing an electrical outlet suitable for the 220 volt charger that youre going to be using.

In my case, i had to have our whole service replaced because it was aging and it wasnt quite enough to handle what i needed, but so that initial cost was about 850 to a thousand dollars. You know for the electrician and so forth. The charger itself uh its a portable charger. We got it for about 250 bucks on amazon, so the initial investment uh is as considerable as 1200 to 1300. In addition to the cost of the vehicle, this vehicle brand new costs about 45 000., its gas counterpart kona, is about 25 000, so theres a significant difference there. On the other hand, maintenance wise and operational wise its much cheaper to operate, like i say, five cents, a mile compared to the 12 to 13 cents, a mile uh on a gas car. So it does have some ups and downs. You also have a government incentive program um, they applied the 7 500 federal government credit toward the lease which brought our payments way down. Another negative uh part about the car that a lot of people have doubts about is the time it takes to charge. Well, if, on a fast charger on the road, a level three charger, like i say, takes about 45 minutes to charge this car from 10 to 20 percent up to 80, 85 percent, uh thats quite a bit of time, and you have to kind of plan your Stops so that you might have something else to do like grab a bite to eat or whatever a gas station.

Stop is five minutes but thats on the road. And how often are you doing a long road trip? Ultimately, 99 of our driving is done at home or near home, and we charge at night in our garage picks up like this, and you have more storage underneath this little thing. Pops out here, if you dont, want it, i usually dont use this because it its pretty shallow and now you can see where theres, more storage underneath theres the uh portable charger that comes with the car thats a level one charger thats. What takes the longest uh from 10 to 80 percent? I would say it takes about two and a half days on the level one charger. So almost no one ever uses that uh one of the negative parts of the car that i dont particularly like is the back seat leg room and i would demonstrate to show you what its like to get in there. But i cant okay, im six foot two and my legs just dont fit back there. A small person can but not very comfortably for very long. If you have a short driver and he pulls the seat up, then youre gon na have more leg space. But when you compare it to other electric vehicles like the maki or the ionic, 5 theres, less than half of that legroom in those other cars, this is a nema 1450 plug. It is the standard plug that comes with many portable chargers.

This is a must start. Its a very popular charger, i got it off of amazon for about 250. It has a couple of adapters. This one has the nema 1450 plug attached and you just when youre ready to charge your vehicle, you just plug it in the display shows uh. When you start charging the rate of charge per kilowatt hour and the number of amps its using – and it will also show you the total kilowatt hours that it used charging the vehicle at the end. Here are the other two adapters that i have this one might be of interest to people its perfectly legal to plug in to your dryer outlet – and this is your typical dryer plug and thats, a perfectly legal adapter that you can buy extra with this charger. The level one charger which plugs into your regular 110 outlet is this adapter and its this exact same adapter that comes with the car, so ive never used it its too slow, but once youve plugged it in youre ready to go theres the plug. That goes into the car and right now its got the cover on it, thats. What it looks like and well bring it out to the car and ill show you how the charge is done comes with a 20 foot cord, so its a very generous length, and i can reach the charging port of this car when the cars in the garage Heres the charge port door, you just push it, pull it out its got a cover.

Take the cap off and theres a receptacle now im going to plug it in now. This thing is on a if i want to start charging immediately im going to press this override button. Now you can see the flashing light means its in its charging now and if i just left it plugged in its about half charge, right now would probably be fully charged in about three or four hours. I dont set this up to charge specifically at night right. Thats why i had to push the override button, because, anytime, during the day when i plug it in it, will acknowledge the connection and then it will shut down and it wont start charging again until it reaches the calculated time that it would take from start of Charge to end of charge, in my case, i set the time for 8 30 in the morning, so its done charging by then now another plus to this, even when its in the garage with the door closed. Obviously, theres no emissions involved here so its perfectly safe, but the the plus is about 15 minutes. Before we leave the house in cold weather, i can through an app on my phone, get it to start conditioning and it will heat up to 75 degrees in the interior, compartment being nice and toasty warm when we get in and i dont have to pull it Out to start it or anything now another thing id like to show you, so i can disconnect this just by pulling the switch like this and then pulling it out, because i just wanted to show you the other cap here.

This is what you have to do. If you want to do the fast charge on the road, the level 3 charge the plug that comes with it, takes both of these receptacles a little different than your typical gas engine compartment. Just a couple of things, i want to point out that the electric motor is under here. This is the coolant for the battery batteries, do get hot when theyre running, so they to lower the stress on them. Uh. There is a coolant that runs through it. This is the brake, fluid and thats the windshield wash and thats it for fluids. Theres, no oil, transmission, fluid radiator, fluid or anything like that must be a lighter cars without without a lot of that is it is it its actually a heavier car because of the battery because of the battery yeah, the batterys very heavy. I would say this car weighs about a thousand pounds more than its gas counterpart. Okay uh. One of the things that gives it better mileage is the lack of heat production in a gas car. Eighty percent of your energy from the gas is waste heat and so 20 percent is basically used for propulsion. These cars are closer to 95 percent efficient. Now, if a gas car were 95 efficient would be much cheaper to drive than an electric car but uh its actually, when i say five cents per mile to operate, our rates are 22 and a half cents per kilowatt hour.

I believe in massachusetts is even higher. Some states, like georgia, alabama uh arkansas theyre closer to five cents per kilowatt hour, so their operating rate is closer to two cents, a mile. Hopefully, you found todays discussion with jim regarding the kona hyundai ev electric vehicle ultimate uh, informative. Hopefully it helped push you in one direction or another regarding an electric vehicle and picking up the kona. If you have any questions, do me a favor drop it in the comments below and ill get jim to answer them as quickly as he can.