2023 Kia Niro EV | Millennial Punishment

This is the electrified version of the Nero. This is a small, somewhat Sub Compact, hatchback CUV thing. The important things are, if you are looking at this as an actual family vehicle, youll, be happy to know. According to the JD Power surveys, this has best in class cargo capacity, second row capacity and general interior volume to be entirely honest. Despite the nauseating marketing for this car, which pushes every gimmick you can possibly imagine its a very usable cabin, despite being an independent rear suspension non premium car, you have a good size trunk area, you have good Headroom and theres lots and lots of glass. The one thing I will say about the interior space: in Marks words. This is a Cathedral of piano black, whether it be your entire center console bits on the dash. Everything is piano black, which means everything is easily scratched. Catchable and dirtyable Mark drove this car before me, and all of his biohazard is everywhere. The last thing Im going to bring up is the HVAC and infotainment controls and the infotainment screen. It has a class leading 10.5 or 10.25 inch display itll blow you away with its its color and accuracy, not really its easy to use its. What youve seen in everything at this point thats a Kia product? All the controls are corporate Kia controls, which means they are an easy to use, mix of touch and physical controls past. That, though, I think semper is ahead in the shop and put this thing up on the left marker underneath the Kia EV Nero.

This is the electrified variant of the Nero theres, a hybrid and traditional internal combustion version as well. This has slightly over a 200 mile range as front wheel drive only and most importantly, its not that expensive. It starts in the high 30s tops out in the mid 40s and with a tax rebate, youre back in the mid 30s, which makes this a surprisingly affordable, EV product walking through this platform and some of the technology. The pros and cons are this because it has to be a scalable architecture, meaning hybrid internal combustion and a pure EV. You have to have all the paneling. You also have to have enough space to potentially do all wheel drive on the internal combustion part and to put a battery pack here on the EV part since thats. What were looking at youre, stuck with a single motor front, wheel, drive setup at 150 kilowatts and the battery pack maxes out at 64.7 kilowatt hours and a 400 volt architecture, so that means DC fast. Charging is 10 to 80 percent in 40 minutes. So theres that the reason they cant fit a bigger battery pack is the size and the architecture of this car, its not a pure EV. This battery pack is made by robusto in Korea, German company and everything else is basic Kia stuff. Here almost everything else is steel, steel, subframes. All of that one thing or theres, two things that well bring up suspension wise the benefit of going EV is its a more rigid body.

The minus of that is because this chassis, I dont, think, was tuned around having all that extra rigidity has some weird handling characteristics and typical key a Hyundai fashion. It has a lot of torque and because it doesnt have a diff and its not a performance project. It cant put any of that down. Do one wheel, burnouts everywhere, so what they do to fix, that is, have a completely invasive prison style stability control, so that power as much as its an electric vehicle. It doesnt have all that torque and power that just rips you off the line it has to slowly engage all of it and anytime. You turn and guess that stability control is always coming in and were going to find that out in the drive last thing range. They claim over a 200 mile range, but this pulled out in our cold Midwestern weather was like 30 degrees. Today it went from slightly over 200 to immediately in the high 180s, and this does have the option of a battery heater and a heat pump. If youre in a cold weather state, so they they do, allow that op flexibility. So if youre in California, you dont need that clearly or hot weather, state or Arizona. But here you would need to option that and it does of course, increase the cost and complexity. So Mark lets go. Take a quick drive in this bad boy, all right, Music, Jaden, you and I are both Zoomers the year is 20 30.

. Our parents dont trust us. So they got us an EV with less than 200 mile range in the cold. Everythings off were in sport mode come on Brayden spill, my chai, oh man, look this future that Im experiencing right now in my wind Edition, EV Nero is just tantalizing, so I told Gage that we were getting this and he said: does it have vegan leather, interior And I said its available, he said well, how is the all weather, cold weather performance, I said, is an available heat pump. He said well. Is there range degradation? I said well theres an available battery heater too so everythings available incredible. My Millennial parents saw that we had conjoined 10.25 inch displays and they were, they were blown away because Millennials are much much like animals impressed by shiny lights. I wish there were more screens in here. Frankly, I was driving this to the cafe the other day and one of the girls that worked there. You know who I was not interested in. She was not wearing the right product for me, but shes like how many screens you have I said. Well, we have a conjoined screen and shes like whats the interest, and you know once I told her, the conversation went downhill. Look honestly, Im triggered that this has a steering wheel. I wanted this to have swipe to steer, particularly when I do one wheel, burnouts leaving. You could have been yoked right now, but no, you have to have something around.

What kind of what kind of trash did you put me in Braden? Well, Jaden Im: Im, sorry that this highly affordable Kia product, doesnt tickle your fancy from a Dynamics perspective. The one thing I will say youre actually going to be serious. Now, no, no Im a Im, a Zoomer. I can only talk about things for about 30 seconds. Okay, so in 30 seconds, what I will tell you about the handling is the engineers who designed this. I dont think Design This chassis with so much rigidity in mind, because the dampers dont seem to match the body rigidity of this vehicle. So, as you go over big bumps it jostles me around, my man, bun gets shifted on my head. Unwantingly, have you tried beard oil on it? I have not. I dont have anything else to say I mean its its a updated Kia, Nero its kind of like their last generation like eco car, this wasnt, designed from the ground up to be a Nev. No, no, it was designed to be flexible in terms of having internal combustion option, uh hybrid option and a plug in option and an EV option, an EV option in a moment of seriousness. The marketing for this car is nauseating its the worst. I mean all. It appeals to a demographic of human being that doesnt actually exist on this planet, but you can get this car to be fair. You can go to a dealership and they are at MSRP or below theyre, not moving particularly fast compared to some of the other products, and why? Why would that be mark because buyers, you know theyre, not always the most Savvy.

I mean honestly theres theres, really, if youre just looking at this as a straight up NPC and you wanted like a low range EV theres, nothing wrong with it to the untrained dive. Theres. The tech works good. The Interior Electronics work good. It has a decent audio system, it rides average. It drives pretty quiet. It does mostly everything that you need. I think this rides worse than the regular neros Im, not saying that its great, but I mean it does everything adequately, theres, nothing that it does thats horrible. Other than the range yeah – I, I guess, thats a fair point and its cheap and you can make the argument that the range is good enough for most people because thats the endless argument we see. Most people only drive five miles a day. So we only need a you know, a five kilowatt hour and if you drive responsibly blah blah blah anyway, its the current, like last generation car. If you want this for the price, you could probably get it for what 40 yeah and then you, probably depending on your state and your income level, get a tax rebate. But again I pulled this out of our shop. I pulled this out of our shop and then immediately in our Midwestern weather, which to be fair, apparently you shouldnt buy EVS in the midwest. It went from 200 and its just sitting for literally half an hour went from 200 to 184.

. So lets just say: you pulled this out of the garage anywhere in California, where everybody could buy zbs. You would have pulled it out of the garage at 200. You want to end it with up 600 miles because you add range in better climates. I hear I hear that too, but Jaden. I also hear that you didnt complete math class. Oh well, we dont need colleges, you know it doesnt really get us anything anymore, theres, so many people in debt. I went to college I dropped out and now I work at a coffee shop because I get free chai. I save a lot of money that way technically youre. Quite the businessman Jaden lets head into the final thoughts, Music foreign thoughts on the Kia Niro EV. Yes, there was a lot of joking around in this video its hard to take this seriously, as most transitional products are very very here and now. This is no different, its on an architecture that is easily surpassed by its new pure EVS, like the ionic and the ev6. So, who is this for well its probably for somebody that just needs a very small CUV, SUV thing and youre in a good climate where you dont, have to worry about getting a heat pump and a battery warmer, and you dont need a lot of range. Thats. Really it from a body interior looks its typical Hyundai and Kia stuff. It actually is really good the where they get their money to do these small cars.

The way that they do, I dont know they do a great job. The Interior Space aside from the piano black nonsense, is really well laid out. Its super unique, the exterior, looks pretty unique and I think, if youre in that market for a car that you dont just want, like this box, thats just very boring, like CRV RAV4. This does tend to offer you something I just cant really get behind the EV part of this thing I think youre way better off with an internal combustion car or a hybrid version of this in the Modern Age of where were at in 2023.