2018 Kia Niro PHEV

Too bad you can't find even a 110 volt plugin at work. Would save you a whole lot of money.

 

Yes garage but it's not heated or insulated so this thing will regularly see sub-zero. That's a big reason no BEV. There's 3 months of the year where the AVERAGE high is sub-freezing and average low below zero. On tires I have finally in the last 2 years determined that snow tires are worth it. I intend on buying a complete second set of rims and mount snow tires on them and just swap out in winter.

 

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No kidding. It's a university no less and the electrical engineering building is next door.

 

Surely the electrical engr. bunch has a spare extension chord you can use.

 

Nobody is going to ever let you run an extension cord from a building across a sidewalk, into a parking lot. Lawsuit just waiting to happen.

 

Yea I was just kidding. But talk to the mtc. guys they might know of a place you could plug in. On a recent trip I stayed in 2 dif. motels that didn't think they had plug ins but they did. One was base of light pole and one was base of their outdoor sign. No extension cords needed or across sidewalks etc. Its just a new request and they didn't know they had them.

 

9 months later. Just crossed 30,000 miles. Love it. Like it more every day. Takes some adjusting to. Not a single public charger of any kind within 100 miles...a couple Tesla superchargers. BEV not even possible due to that and sucky weather. The 'oh but if it only had a heat pump' crowd have never driven in actual cold weather. You'll die. But I digress. The local utility is going to launch an EV program. I don't know the details but they have leased a Nissan Leaf and painted it up as advertising and they are having an open house info session for the public. When I bought my Kia, I worked with them and they put me on a new rate plan they were testing which is time of use rate. They also sold me a new hot water heater that's 'smart' that can give them more aggressive demand response controls than previous versions. Anyway.....they've invited me to their event to show off my car and help answer questions of customers. I believe I was EV #5 or so on their grid.

 

I don't see the point in owning this car unless you live in warm climate or can get an HOV sticker.

I plan to get rid of my Sonata PHEV as soon as the main warranty expires, as it's been a huge disappoint. Having an electric heater, preferably a heat pump, would make me feel better about the car, however, having two engine related repairs on a car with less than 12,000 miles doesn't help either.

 

Let me add a little more context.
1. What's an HOV lane? Harvester Only Lane?
2. Electric heater and/or heat pump are effectively useless. I would ask you to drive a two lane road 20 miles from the nearest stop sign with -20F temperature into a 30 mph North wind. Every day? No, but probably half a dozen times this winter. And generally speaking strong wind and temps below 0 F so -20 to -30 F wind chill any given week in a 3 month period. No heat pump on earth works in that environment...at all. Yes yes new technology in heat pumps...b.s. And I have yet to see any vehicle of any kind or any expense that has electric heater capable of handling that weather. It requires actual heat. The kind so far only available in vehicles as waste heat. For example look at Duluth, MN. They had to retrofit their new Proterra buses with diesel heaters. Literally just burning diesel for the flame.
3. In May though? Hey most miles on electric. And even in dead of winter then the PHEV burns 1/3 the gasoline of my previous vehicle. In fact I would argue it's greatest improvement is in winter because one must measure relative to regular vehicle not relative to perfect world BEV. BEV just plain isn't an option. It's not possible. After they find your corpse somewhere in spring, I'm sure you'll feel good about being in a BEV. But the PHEV is only half as efficient (if that) in winter for relative gallons burned, but still twice as good as a regular vehicle.

 

Although I agree with you about the efficacy of heat pumps in frigid weather, a normal high wattage heater and a BIG battery should be able to handle extreme winter temps.

A guy here reported driving a Kona BEV comfortably at -25C but with 25% range reduction; Kona has a heat pump but at that temperature I doubt that it was doing much. He used resistive seat and steering wheel heating as well as cabin temp set to 20C (as I recall). I presume the Kona has a backup resistive heating system for the cabin when the heat pump is ineffective??

Another drove a Tesla 3 from Montreal to Quebec City at -30C with the cabin set to 19C and prolly the resistive seat heaters on; the Model 3 somehow uses electric motor heat to heat the batteries (dunno about the cabin); his battery range dropped by 50% at those temperatures.

Some people heat their homes with electricity (resistive heating), so as long as you have a big enough battery and a powerful enough heater you should be good.

 

We bought a 2019 Niro Plug in May 1. I traded in our 2008 Toyota Prius which we had bought new.
The plug In is working wonderfully for our family. Our electric rates are .09 / Kwh. The Niro takes 8 kw to charge and we are averaging over 30 miles all electric driving per charge. So for us $.09/kwh x 8kw = $.72 per 30 miles. A very substantial savings over gas. Since installing our Level 2 charger in early May we have used $00 in gas. This vehicle gives us the ability to choose to run on gas or electric. We take small commutes and can easily charge between commutes. I appreciate being in charge and deciding if I will or will not buy gas. In our area gas would have to come down to $1.50/gal before I would consider purchasing it. Currently it is sitting at almost $3 per gallon.

 

When the niro’s ev miles are used up, how does the phev work? Does the ice propel the car or does it charge the battery and the electric motor propel the car? How is the performance after the ev miles are used up?


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Here is how our 2019 Niro PHEV works- It runs in EV until you run out of usable electric charge -usually about 30 to 35 miles for us. The gas engine then comes on and takes over. We average close to 50 mpg with the gas engine. The Niro has a 11.9 gal tank so you could go around 600 miles on one tank of gas+ 30 miles EV. The modes are not exclusive. For example if you were in EV mode and needed additional help accelerating the ICE will come on.

If you search Kia Niro the Kia websites on the web also explain how these vehicles work. Search Kia Niro Owners manual and it will take you to a site where the owners manuals are posted. In the first part of the manual it explains how a HEV Niro and a PHEV Niro work with accompanying illustrations. On you tube there are some nice video that Niro Phev testers and owners have posted.