After 5 months with Kona, I rented an ICE last week on a trip...

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TheLight75

TheLight75

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Since early June, I've been driving my Kona as my sole vehicle (putting some 11,500 miles on it). Last week, I took a plane trip to rural PA for a few days where I needed to rent an ICE car: a 2019 Nissan Versa. Overall, I did not enjoy driving it because:
  • I was frustrated with the lack of slow acceleration
  • I was annoyed by how quickly its ACC gave up in the rain (within 10 minutes, the sensors had a malfunction)
  • The quality of the interior felt cheap
  • When I filled the tank before returning it, I noticed that the smell of gasoline seemed very intense. (Like how a non-smoker quickly notices cigarette odors)
It looks like the Kona has gotten under my skin and I could never drive an ICE car again :D

My only complaint about driving an EV is that road trips can take serious planning in order to coordinate EV stops with eating or shopping. For example, I'm planning a trip to Montreal in late December and most of the convenient DCFC's in NH & VT are NOT co-located anywhere near restaurants or shopping. It may not go over so well with my girlfriend when we have to take an Uber to get lunch while the Kona get's a solid hour of electrons. Lol.
 
Oh, I know what you've experienced. We had to do the same thing on a vacation. It's terrible driving an ice car again. I hated it so much.

We did a road trip last weekend to an EV event in AZ and the charging infrastructure on the route wasn't as good and it took a toll on my wife. I can't be shaken up that easily, though. [emoji12][emoji3]

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk
 
I rented a Versa about 2 years ago. Car is very underpowered.
That was the last time that I rented a boring car.
My last couple of rentals (when travelling without my family) were Camaro SS convertible, Dodge Challenger R/T and Mustang Convertible. With the family, we always get a Minivan
 
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I drive my wife's RAV4 Hybrid once a week to take trash to the dump (no trash pickup where I live, and the large garbage bins don't fit in the Kona). And every time I get in her car I have the same experience. It's so sluggish and I really miss the constant acceleration curve of the Kona.

That said, I do appreciate the slightly quieter cabin of the RAV4. ;) Still thinking that in a year or so I might seek out a shop that will install more sound deadening materials in the Kona (like inside the door panels, etc). I've done the trunk myself, which made a significant difference, but I'm not comfortable pulling panels off the doors myself (for fear of breaking something).
 
Your mention of a quieter cabin reminds me that I have read several topics about people doing things to deaden the sound in their kona.

What is odd to me is that I have yet to find my own kona ev to be noisy at all. I don't know if it is something they improved recently (my car was built in late August) or if I am simply lucky? Or deaf? :)

Or maybe I will feel the noise once I switch to my winter wheels. But so far so good.
 
Francois said:
Your mention of a quieter cabin reminds me that I have read several topics about people doing things to deaden the sound in their kona.

What is odd to me is that I have yet to find my own kona ev to be noisy at all. I don't know if it is something they improved recently (my car was built in late August) or if I am simply lucky? Or deaf? :)

Or maybe I will feel the noise once I switch to my winter wheels. But so far so good.
Click to expand...

There has been some discussion about why people find the Kona to be noisy or not. I think it all depends on where you "came from". I had a Toyota Avalon Hybrid before I switched to the Kona. The Avalon is (someone called it that on this forum) the cone of silence. It's super quiet. The Kona is perfectly quiet (in my opinion) below 45-50 MPH. Above that, I have to turn up the radio to hear it well. It seems that especially the back was noisy when I was driving it, until I put the sound deadening in there. That helped a lot. But it's still nowhere near as quiet as my previous car.

And before others on the forum commented -- I knew before I bought the Kona that it was noisier, and I'm fine with it. That's not to say that I don't look for (easy) ways to make it quieter..... :)

My car was built in Jan of 2019... Maybe they did change something later in the year?
 
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