Kia Niro EV 2022 Long-Term Review

UPDATED 06/06/2022: Our Kia Niro EV Sport is yet to notch up 5000km, even though we’ve owned it since late September of 2021.

We took delivery of the car while Victoria was still in lockdown, so it didn’t travel very far for the first few months. Over the final couple of weeks working full-time at carsales I drove the Niro to Cremorne each day. After that it was used for the odd trip to catch up with friends and relatives over Christmas and into the new year.

But since February the family member who has been recording the most hours in the driver’s seat has been our son Stuart. He’s 19 and has completed year 12 in 2020 and a diploma last year.

With a busy workload over the past couple of years, plus travel constraints due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he hasn’t had much opportunity to accumulate the 120 hours of driving he needs as a pre-requisite to sit a test for his driving licence.

We decided that 2022 was to be the year he obtains his licence, come hell or high water. After a few sessions in an elderly Mitsubishi Lancer, it was clear to me that he was not learning as quickly as he should be, and part of the problem was the Lancer itself.

You forget how alien and unsettling the experience of driving a car can be when you’ve never tried your hand at it before. I remember reviewing this very car – the Lancer – back in 2007. To me it was an easy car to drive.

But I noted that Stuart was struggling with the steering and the power delivery with the Lancer. The steering was heavy, but lacking feel and precision, and the continually-variable transmission actually demands varying amounts of throttle from a standing start.

Stuart never adjusted to the lack of engine braking either, so we were occasionally forced to stop suddenly. Each hour-long session in the left seat of the Lancer was leaving me feeling queasy, so I decided we would switch to the Niro.

Stuart’s driving has improved a lot since then. The Kia’s steering is markedly lighter, but also more responsive. The combination of electric motor and a single reduction gear means that the Niro accelerates in a consistent and progressive way, between 40 and 60km/h or from standstill to 30km/h.

Left in ‘eco’ mode, it provides plenty of ‘engine braking’, so Stuart only needs to dab the brakes for a turn into a side street. Stepping off the accelerator does the rest. He’s aware of the variable brake energy recovery feature (with shift paddles), but stays with the level two/automatic setting.

Being fairly tall, he is able to set up the seat, mirrors and steering wheel to suit him in the Niro, whereas there was never enough seat travel in the Lancer. He felt hunched up behind the wheel and that was almost certainly contributing to his jerky application of accelerator and brake, being too close to the pedals.

Although he drives responsibly in the Niro, he does appreciate the torque and is willing to use it to keep up with traffic, sometimes staying ahead of slower cars too. The Sport setting offers a little more zest in the Niro’s acceleration too, he has noted.

He now looks forward to driving lessons, and asks me when we’re going driving next, rather than have me dragging him kicking and screaming out to the car.

UPDATED 24/05/2022: Now that our 2022 Kia Niro EV Sport is (lightly) battle-scarred, my wife Jenni is less reluctant to drive it.

For a long time – and particularly while it was absolutely pristine – she was very uncertain about taking any risks with a car that literally cost us $40,000 more than any previous new car purchase.

She’s teaching herself to back the Niro using the reversing camera, the acoustic guidance and the mirrors. It’s a long process for her, breaking with the habits of a lifetime, but she is making progress.

We took delivery of the Kia at the tail end of Victoria’s last pandemic lockdown, which partly explains why she has driven it relatively little. But her confidence is growing the more she gets behind the wheel.

That was one of the factors that pushed us to buy the Kia Niro over something like the Tesla Model 3.

There was no major re-education process involved with the Niro; it’s an easy car to drive for someone who has come straight out of a conventional car, although Jenni is yet to become fully conversant with the auto wipers and high beam assist – to use two examples – because she has done almost no driving at night or in the wet.

When people ask her what it’s like, she says that it’s much like any internal-combustion car. That’s largely true. Press the power button, turn the drive selector about 30 degrees clockwise, prod the accelerator pedal, the electronic parking brake automatically disengages and the car gets moving.

There are some aspects of ownership that are new to her, however. She has asked what a certain chime means, when the vehicle approaches a turn on the route or an intersection with a traffic camera.

There is still much to learn concerning the infotainment systems too. Jenni’s not alone in that.

I’m still grappling with Android Auto. Jenni has an iPhone, but I have a Samsung, so it’s just as well that the Niro comes with both Android Auto and Apple CarPlay.

I’ve set up a driving profile for each of us, but I’m still trying to work out whether it’s possible to mirror the phone’s streaming video display in the car’s infotainment screen – it doesn’t appear to be.

As much as I hate to admit this, I might have to read the manual.

Jenni has her own driving profile, which automatically connects her iPhone by Bluetooth, but she doesn’t seem to use it when driving. She also doesn’t use her phone very often, so pressing the icon on the infotainment screen to select her profile is not high on her list of things to remember when driving the Niro.

Jenni reports that the Niro is quite the conversation starter.

“Is that an electric car?” she’ll be asked by a complete random in the street. I’m rarely on hand to chat about the car and explain all its technical details, so she’s beginning to find the questions tedious.

During a recent holiday stay, the motel owner raved about the car’s colour and he liked the style, which mate and former colleague Bruce Newton has described as “frumpy” in the past. It’s not ultra-modern, I’ll admit, but I prefer it to the looks of the previous generation of Sportage.

– Ken Gratton

ORIGINAL REVIEW PUBLISHED 19/05/2022: My wife Jenni and I began looking for a new family car a couple of years ago. It had to be appropriately sized to accommodate the 185cm-tall junior member of the family, as well as his sister, but it also had to offer a suitable hip point for older owners and be compact enough to fit in urban parking spots with ease.

I wanted high levels of safety, comfort and convenience features, as well as strong performance, reasonable energy efficiency, and over 400km range on one battery charge.

The car also had to be easy and enjoyable to drive, offering dependability and a long-ish warranty.

With climate change in the news over the past several years, I convinced Jenni that the car should be an electric vehicle as well. She baulked at the price tag of around $70,000, but accepted that even affordable cars had risen in price since 2005, the last time we bought a new car.

The Kia Niro arrived here in May last year and offered all the amenities we wanted or needed at a price that was under $70,000 on the road with the Victorian government’s $3000 rebate applied.

Sitting at the top of the range, the 2022 Kia Niro EV Sport is currently priced at $65,990 plus on-road costs.

As standard, the Niro EV Sport rides on 17-inch alloy wheels and Michelin 215/55R17 tyres.

Headline interior features include a 10.25-inch touch-screen rather than the 8.0-inch unit of the Niro S, and the flagship model also comes equipped with satellite navigation, upgraded seats, auto-up/down front windows and an eight-speaker JBL audio system.

Unfortunately, the Niro EV misses out on the dual-zone climate control of the hybrid and plug-in hybrid models.

One of the reasons we chose the 2022 Kia Niro EV Sport over the cheaper Niro EV S (from $62,590 plus ORCs) was the inclusion of LED headlights and the automatic high beam assist.

We really appreciate the headlights, but the auto high beam assist has to be manually activated at the outset of each journey.

The LED lights on low beam are usually good enough anyway, even in the countryside at night.

Other safety features include seven airbags, autonomous emergency braking (and adaptive cruise control) with pedestrian and cyclist detection, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, driver fatigue monitoring, blind spot detection, tyre pressure monitoring and – for the Niro Sport only – auto-dimming rear-view mirrors.

While the lane keep assist system of the Niro EV will steer the car away from the centre line of the road, as it’s designed to do, it threatens to veer off the road if there’s no painted line on the shoulder.

Furthermore, sometimes it’s slower to respond to tighter bends than other systems in cars designed more recently. The system can be disabled if it becomes too annoying.

Jenni loves the rear cross traffic alert, which warns the driver of pedestrians, vehicles, bikes and motorcycles when backing out from a parking spot.

The reversing camera provides a wide-angle view displayed in the big touch-screen, which is much safer than just turning the head and trying to peer around the vehicle parked next to yours.

The ultra-quiet Niro also has a ‘bell’ for pedestrians to hear when the car is reversing. Whenever Jenni comes home from shopping and reverses the car into the drive, I think to myself: “Hullo, school’s out”, because that’s what it sounds like.

The blind spot monitoring system (yellow LEDs in the exterior mirrors) works well, and has been invaluable to me in the left seat, teaching my son to drive. In the event that you change lanes leaving too little space to the car behind, an audible alarm sounds to inform you of that fact.

The satellite navigation system warns drivers of red-light and speed cameras at intersections, and we’ve had the driver fatigue monitoring system trigger on one trip back from the country, but it’s generally unobtrusive.

I’ve learned from this system that I’m a frequent offender, muscling my way into tight spaces at road-going speeds. Or at least that’s what Kia engineers would have me believe.

There’s no ANCAP rating for the Niro EV, although the hybrid (including PHEV) models score five stars based on testing conducted overseas back in 2016.

Our Niro has already earned itself a ‘purple heart’ after deflecting a fast-moving kangaroo, which stupidly charged headfirst into the side of the car as we travelled along one country road at 80km/h. I suspect that at this speed, even on a coarse-chip bitumen surface, the Niro is so quiet that animals don’t hear it coming.

The roo retreated with a bad headache and the Niro now has a neat indentation in the rear driver-side door, just about where the anti-intrusion beam would be. It didn’t even scratch the paint, but did leave some fur under the side protection moulding.

My daughter and I drove an old microwave oven to the nearest recycling centre in the Niro. As it passed across a weighbridge I read the displayed weight – 1.9 tonnes. That’s a lot for a vehicle with a footprint of a small passenger car. Welcome to the future… and lithium-ion batteries.

At any rate, all indications are that this is a pretty solid car.

Stumping up 395Nm of torque, the 2022 Kia Niro EV Sport is effortless to drive in a straight line, and it can keep plenty of other cars honest away from the lights.

My son has recently learned of the delights afforded by pressing the drive mode button twice for the Sport setting, which makes the Niro feel lively indeed.

The Niro also has performance to spare for overtaking on country roads – with four adults on board too.

Yet the Niro’s energy efficiency has been a pleasant surprise. Officially, the Niro consumes power at the rate of 15.9kWh/100km, but it has averaged around 14kWh/100km for us. It’s the first car I’ve ever owned that’s more energy-efficient than the ADR sticker indicates.

Most of our driving is in urban environments, and at speeds up to 80km/h the Niro rarely posts figures higher than 13.2kWh/100km.

The numbers have likely been unusually low during our ‘La Nina’ summer, the climate control not working as hard in the cooler maximum temperatures.

On open-road runs, with two to four people on board, plus luggage for an overnight stay, the Niro is posting a figure of around 20-21kWh/100km, which I still regard as reasonable.

From a full charge the Niro will officially travel 455km, but we’re seeing estimated range figures of up to 490km or more, due to driving the car in favourable conditions. Those ‘favourable’ conditions are what most drivers will encounter in their daily travel.

As winter approaches, I anticipate the Niro’s energy consumption will increase, but the driver-only isolation for the climate control makes a difference to the range, adding about 15km from a full charge.

And keeping it garaged will reduce the demisting load for the climate-control system.

We’ve recharged from three public chargers during the seven months since taking delivery of the Niro. Total cost has been less than $35.

The rest of the time the Niro has been recharged from a 10-Amp outlet in the garage at home, at a rate of 24.09 cents per kilowatt. That equates to a total cost – including public charging – of around $170 to cover more than 4000km.

At a typical price of $1.80 a litre of petrol, an internal-combustion SUV of similar size, posting real-world consumption of roughly 10L/100km, would cost $720 to run.

Unlike that hypothetical vehicle, the Niro doesn’t have to warm up to deliver peak efficiency. It’s as cost-effective to run on short trips as longer ones.

If I were to grizzle about one particular aspect of the 2022 Kia Niro EV Sport, it’s the European chassis tune.

While it improves steering response and provides flat, safe handling, it’s not a very compliant ride on gnarly country roads.

One family member – who shall remain nameless – even blames the bladder-pounding suspension settings for an urgent pitstop on the way home from a country sojourn.

You don’t notice the uncompromising ride as much around town, however – on smoother roads.

The Niro drives through the front wheels, unlike the slightly larger Kia EV6 and its cousin the Hyundai IONIQ 5.

While it was tempting to purchase a rear-drive EV instead of the Niro, the front-wheel drive SUV is dynamically wieldy in its own way, apart from a little torque steer under hard acceleration.

Much has been thrown at the Niro during its time with us. It has waded through 15cm-deep water during summer rains and it has carried the family in comfort from Melbourne to the Otways, to Phillip Island and to central Victoria – around Bendigo, Castlemaine and Maldon.

And, of course, it has been subjected to over 50 hours of driving instruction. Nor should we forget the Niro being T-boned by a kangaroo. It has passed every test with flying colours.

In terms of cabin comfort, the hip point is fine for a couple of oldies in their 60s, the driving position can be adjusted to suit all three of the drivers in the family, the seating is comfortable for longer journeys and the instruments are easy to read (as well as being restful on the eye).

Being a Kia design from a few years ago, the Niro doesn’t trick anyone with its ergonomics – although the indicator is on the left side of the steering column.

A minor gripe is the speedo error. At 60km/h indicated, the Niro is actually travelling at 55km/h, which is still within the permitted margin of error, but only just.

People may wonder why we chose the Niro when there is a slew of new EVs on the way, or already here, such as the EV6. We also knew that a new-generation Niro was in the pipeline and not all that far away.

The fact is this: the Niro’s footprint is ideal for us. There’s more rear seat legroom for our adult kids than any family car we’ve previously owned, yet the Niro is also short enough to fit in our 6m-long garage.

And that’s with room to spare for opening the doors of the cabinets at the rear of the garage and raising the tailgate of the car, while also leaving the adapter plugged in at the front to charge the battery, all with the roller door closed.

The boot is deeper than that of the Hyundai Kona Electric and the rear seats fold down to transport larger items, like bicycles.

All there is to fault with the Niro’s load-carrying ability is the step up from the boot floor to the rear of the seat when folded. No flat floor…

I was knocked out by this car from the moment I reviewed it. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a ‘95 per cent’ car for us.

I liked the way it drove, and its range on one charge promised to be as much as we needed most of the time.

The seven-year battery warranty for the 2022 Kia Niro EV is not class-leading, but I trust we’ll get a fairly long operating life out of the battery anyway, beyond the eight years of cover that other brands offer for their respective battery warranties.

We’ve just arranged the installation of a 6kW solar panel system at home, with a 10kWh battery and whole-home back-up, which means that our running costs for the Niro can be lowered even further, if we program the car to recharge automatically from the home solar array.

So owning the Niro EV is better for the environment, and it’s also the optimal all-round family car that’s affordable to run in a world of petrol prices beyond $2 a litre.

How much does the 2022 Kia Niro EV Sport cost?
Price: $65,990 (plus on-road costs)
Available: Now
Powertrain: Single permanent magnet synchronous motor
Output: 150kW/395Nm
Transmission: Single-speed reduction gear
Battery: 64kWh lithium-ion polymer
Range: 455km (ADR)
Energy consumption: 15.9kWh/100km (ADR)
Safety rating: Not tested