Wonderful, peppy driving experience; good driving range; practical body design. But this rig has some big and completely unnecessary flaws. The first you will experience is that when in reverse the car issues a VERY LOUD beep like a Home Depot forklift. It will turn all eyes your way and wake up your neighborhood. Really?
There are three more serious flaws that have to do with battery management — the lifeblood of an EV:
1) there is practically no information provided in the Niro User’s Guide on the proper care and feeding of EV batteries. It’s up to the owner to search the Web, hoping that Tesla batteries and Kia batteries should be treated the same;
2) the display that gives estimated mileage constantly re-calibrates itself based upon your recent drives, which means the driver can NEVER LEARN TO TRUST what the gauge is telling him. Tesla doesn’t try to be so stupidly smart. Instead they offer you 3 estimates – based upon past 15 minutes of driving style, past hour, past day (or something like that), giving you a much better sense of your expected range for your current trip.
3) EV batteries should not be charged to 100% unless you are planning to start your drive right away, which makes it important to be able to set the time of charging completion to match your intended departure time for a long trip. But the Niro EV delayed charging system is USELESS.
The algorithm it uses starts the charging at the start of the next cheap electric rate period, regardless of the intended departure. Really?
