Kia e-Niro - electric car long term review

Some time ago I wrote about a decision to get an electric car. We've now had that car for almost three years and covered about 27,000 miles. We even bought a second electric car, a Renault Zoe, replacing a Toyota hybrid that was awful.

Here, then, for what it's worth, are my thoughts after being an EV driver for some time.

There are two aspects to this; the car itself and driving electric with all the advantages, disadvantages and challenges that brings.

I'm not a car reviewer. I've owned plenty but I can't comment in detail about handling and dynamics... what I can say is the e-Niro has always been a pleasure to drive. It's comfortable, more than adequately powerful, sufficiently well equipped and an all round decent car.

We have had issues with it. Early on there was a problem with the PTC heater. This meant the heater stopped working accompanied by an alarming message. It took quite a while for the parts to become available and it was a dash out job to fix. We had a courtesy car, no huge deal, but it wasn't great. The dealer was poor at keeping us informed of progress. Still, it got fixed.

There has also been an issue with the parking brake, remedied by replacing the wiring loom for the rear brakes. Again there was a delay in getting the parts that was irritating. 

These issues are not enough to put me off the car or the brand. They could have been dealt with better and I believe car manufacturers need to do a better job of holding spare parts for the cars they sell, but I digress.

The acid test for me is: if this car were somehow destroyed would I be happy to spend the insurance payout on another one? Yes, yes I would.

The other, and probably more significant aspect of switching to electric is, well, the switch to electric. I think for most people that's where the concern lies rather than the car itself.

Firstly we've been fortunate that we had and continue to have (we've moved) off-road parking where we can install a 7kW charge point. Charging at home is one of the greatest advantages to driving an EV. You plug the car in and it charges overnight, in the morning you have a full battery and that's that. In reality we don't plug in every night and try to avoid leaving the car with a high or low state of charge for an extended period of time (this is, apparently, less good for the battery's long term health) but with the very minimum of planning we really hardly think about this.

I realise not everybody can charge at home and this can be an problem for some people, though it doesn't mean owning an EV is not possible or even desirable, it's just a consideration we didn't have to worry about.

Where the car does matter is its range. The e-Niro has a nominal WLTP rated range of 280 miles. What's hard to get across to people at first is what the actual range of the car will be. Plenty of folk will tell you that just as petrol cars don't tend to hit the rated MPG, EVs won't actually get the rated range... Only they do, at least ours has.

How you drive, especially how fast you drive and the conditions have a significant impact on how far an EV can go. 

What's hard to communicate in simple metrics is the effect of the cold. When an electric car is cold you'll use a bit more energy for heating. The air is denser so there's a bit more drag, which means high speeds will use more energy than in summer. The biggie though is that a cold battery provides less energy.

The capacity rating of an electric car battery will be lower in winter... sort of.... I think.

Anyway, what matters are the numbers. In summer our e-Niro has a range of between 270-320 miles. That's excellent, and... plenty. In winter, with a bit of safety margin, we might say 221 is the furthest we could go. Again, that's really quite a long way.

So range just hasn't been an issue. We've done long journeys, frequently driving between North Yorkshire and Northern Ireland via Scotland. On that run we stop to charge once, on one of the excellent Gridserve rapid chargers on the M6. Whilst it would be a little tight, I reckon the car can do that journey door to door without a charge, but we stop for a break anyway.

This is arguably one of the great sticking points of driving electric. Charging on long journeys. Can it be problematic? Yes, but it isn't always.

The e-Niro can charge at up to 77kW. Like many EV stats this is one to pay attention to. Our car can charge at 77kW but only on a charger capable of delivering that when the battery is the right temperature (in the UK this means it has to be warm enough) and only up to about 60% when the rate drops. 

In practice few of the rapid chargers I've ever used can exceed 50kW, often a bit less, so charging our car takes a bit longer than the spec sheet might suggest. 

Only once in almost three years has this been a problem... even thing it was just the case that I had to sit for 35 minutes when I'd rather have got on the road. Mostly it's planned around where we're stopping regardless.

There are parts of the UK still referred to as charging deserts. The North York Moors and out to Whitby is a good example... No rapid chargers to be found past Malton until you get to Scarborough. Whitby has nothing. That's not great.

We've also found ourselves having to queue for a charger. It hasn't happened often, but it has happened and meant a journey into Wales, another charging desert at the time, was much longer than we'd planned. That was annoying.

This situation has got better. I've seen a huge roll out of ever more rapid chargers over the last three years because I've been paying attention. There are simply loads of them around and few places where you can't find one within a stones throw, but those places still exist.

I took on this car knowing I'd be driving up and down the country, potentially having to go anywhere in the UK and having to deal with the public charging network. In reality there's been less of that than expected and journeys that exceed the range of the car are relatively rare.

Early on I pushed my luck, and the reliability of the e-Niro's range remaining, known as the Guess-O-Meter to many EV drivers. I'd been working in Flintshire and was returning to York. I'd planned to stop and charge but when I got in the car to head home it indicated I had enough range to make it. I didn't stop, got home with about 8% charge. It was fine.

I'll happily tell anyone who'll listen that our switch to electric has been overwhelmingly positive. I/We would not switch back to a petrol car by choice. The occasion of hiring a van to move house reminded me of the awful, slow, smelly, noisy engine that had a clutch and gear changes and needed stinking and expensive liquid pouring into it.... awful.

I recognise that it isn't an easy move for many people, for a whole host of reasons. I do believe that those who can it work should, and most will wholeheartedly enjoy the change. 

What's with hating the tories?

I was brought up by very left-wing parents. It was the 80s. I knew I was supposed to hate the tories because my parents did.

I think I understood some of it. I don't remember the miners strike in detail but I was aware of it. I remember school teachers being on strike but not really why. I knew Maggie was awful... certainly I didn't like the way she spoke, but of course I was a child... I didn't really get the politics.

As I got older I stayed pretty left-wing. No big tory voting rebellion here, though I did spend increasing amounts of time with people who undoubtedly did vote Conservative. They weren't awful people. They didn't seem to hate poor people. I didn't hate them.

Most people would consider me left-wing today, but I've moved to a place where I'm far more interested in what's the right strategy to make things better, rather than being driven by ideology. I don't care who owns the means of production - I just want the trains to run and be affordable and, if it isn't too much to ask, us not to scorch the earth.

But I do, now, in mid-life, hate the tories. This isn't a political or ideological inheritance from my parents. I hate this generation of tory politician on their own merits. The awful, libertarian vandalism. The ignorance and stupidity that somehow does nothing to dent the confidence with which stupid things are said and the UK's institutions are attacked.

Then there's the nastiness. I've heard it said about Priti Patel that her first instinct is to hurt someone. That seem a fair assessment.

I can't bring myself to mentioned the names of the others, or watch them on the news, or give a damn about their thoughts... because they'll just spew venom and lies.

They are hateful people. I do not wish them well.

The Unionist's crisis

In Northern Ireland most people, politically, fall into one of two camps... they're Unionists or they're not. Unionism has been in trouble for quite a while with the largest party, the DUP in decline. Ever since brexit reared its ugly head things have got a lot worse.

As I see it there are two fundamental problems right now. 

In the run up to the brexit referendum, what remain campaigners discovered is just how challenging is it to sell everything staying more or less the same. The best campaign tactic was to talk about how much worse everything could be, and this was easily dismissed as "project fear". Many unionists recognise they have the same dilemma. Ultimately their pro-union message is one of maintaining the status quo and so, perhaps inevitably, there's a reliance on fear of the 'other'. 

The other problem is unionism has come to mean conservative. I find this strange because, looking at the DUP policy document a few years ago I found lots of progressive social policy. It was a far cry from the rhetoric we see today and clear the DUP was, perhaps until very recently, much broader in policy approach than one might expect.

I subscribe to the idea that politics is not about left v right, whatever those terms even mean... it's about progressive vs regressive. 

The DUP have become very much a regressive party and as the largest mainstream unionist political party they've dragged the idea of unionism into a regressive position.

Northern Ireland overall voted remain in the brexit referendum but the DUP campaigned for leave and got into bed with the tories to support leave.

Now we have the endless whinging about the consequences of the Northern Ireland Protocol from many unionist politicians, despite the fact it seemed obvious to everyone who paid any attention this was the only viable option.

I'm a fan of unions. I like trade unions. I like the European Union. I like the United Kingdom. No union is perfect; you can always move towards doing things better, but I do believe we're stronger together.... to quote some advert or other.

Unionists in Northern Ireland are failing to make the case for the political union. They're increasingly making a case against it. The more the bluster and noise aimed at the consequences of their own campaigning is matched only by their inability to offer any alternative, the less viable their arguments appear.

I don't think, for a moment, those who are unionists will suddenly vote for a republican party. However it's clear the DUP have alienated many of their voters. As a result the unionist vote will be fragmented, the DUP will lose the majority status they've enjoyed and Sinn Fein will become the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Unionism, if it's to have a viable political future, needs to progress. The old "Ulster says NO!" is very much still present in the current day DUP. The problem is "NO" is easy. You don't need to listen, engage, think, and you don't need to come up with any better options. You just stick your fingers in your ears, shout no and ruin everything for everyone else. 

I don't believe there's anything inherently conservative about the union. Until unionists can leave behind their increasingly far right, regressive and even hateful posturing, they run a very real risk of political irrelevance.

A pox on the house of Toyota

In late 2019 I bought a Toyota Yaris Hybrid. I needed a car, couldn't afford an EV at the time, and so I went for what I felt was the least bad option. At the time I wrote a post about how much I liked it. How times change.

The Yaris has gone, replaced by a Renault Zoe.

There were four fundamental problems with my Yaris. It was slow. It actually felt much slower than it really was. When it did run on electric power only it was great... quiet, smooth, but you could only do that at no more than 30mph with the lightest throttle and only for maybe as much as a mile but probably not that far. It wasn't actually all that fuel efficient. A real world 62mpg seems pretty good, but my old fiesta diesel bettered that. Then there's the biggie: my wife hated it. Specifically she hated the hybrid system and refused to drive it.

Recently it seems Toyota have been making a lot of noise about how rubbish EVs are and how hybrid tech has a future for at least the next 5000 years or something.

Toyota are in big, big trouble and they know it.

The company's fixation on hybrid tech being the answer means they've continued to invest in building petrol engines.

Toyota also have the Mirai, one of the only hydrogen fuel cell car on the market and they keep saying hydrogen is the future, supported by hybrids.

Here are the facts as I see them. Toyota put all their energy transition eggs into a hydrogen fuel cell basket and it's becoming very clear hydrogen is not going to be the future for transport.

The hybrid drive train pioneered in the Prius seemed futuristic and advanced 20 years ago, now it just feels like a dated tech cul-de-sac with no future.

Perhaps most betraying what Toyota themselves know to be true, that EVs are what they need to be building, they talk about how they've got amazing battery tech just around the corner with their "solid state batteries" which, so far, well... they don't appear to exist outside of the lab - but the inevitable world domination of Toyota's non-existent battery tech is still a line fed to customers by dealerships.

Toyota have proved they can build a really good EV because that's precisely what the Mirai is - an electric vehicle that gets its electricity from the fuel cell rather than having a large battery.

As a result of all this it appears Toyota have been lobbying to try and hold back any legislation that puts a stop to selling new hybrids. They're also actively lobbying for pro-hydrogen policies and I've commented before how problematic hydrogen is as a fuel.

I understand this from a business perspective. Toyota were mocked for the Prius with it's tree-hugging, fuel sipping, weirdness but they persevered. Now the tech is mainstream it's very much out of favour, and for good reason, but that hardly seems fair on the company that worked hard on cleaner cars.

But nothing stands still and Toyota's single minded focus on hydrogen & hybrid has left them heading down two different technological dead-ends. 

Whilst none of the car manufacturers have pivoted entirely to EVs Toyota are now well behind. They're not alone in this, Honda have made the same mistake, but they're still ahead of Toyota in dealing with this having brought at least one EV to market and ending production of their fuel cell powered Clarity.

Toyota don't get my ire for making mistakes about their technology direction, but to lobby against the energy transition that's oh so desperately needed is pretty vile. I'd much rather they put their energy into fixing the problem.

The electric car

I have a strong childhood memory of being on the footpath of Gillygate in York, struggling to breathe, gagging on the fumes from the stationary cars.

It's a fairly narrow street of two-four story buildings with a building across one end that restricts the through breeze and, coupled with the pretty much constant heavy traffic, the fumes hang around.

It was an awful feeling, and a vivid memory. Every so often I get the same sensation and it takes me straight back there.

Most recently this happened during in August, during the covid lockdown. With people staying home from work the number of cars on the road plummeted. The air quickly got cleaner. We all noticed.

I was waiting in a socially distanced queue outside the post office where I somehow also found myself involved in a funeral... but that's another story.

A single diesel van drove past. Unusual at the time given the absence of road traffic. I felt that same, awful, gagging sensation from the fumes. From one van. 

There are two reasons we've recently made a significant financial commitment and replaced one of our two cars with an EV: CO2 emissions and local air pollution. They're related of course, but actually different issues.

I'm fully aware the Kia e-Niro sets off from the factory with an underbelly of emissions in the shape of that 64kWh battery. However I also know that over its lifetime the car will result in far less CO2 emissions than even the super efficient petrol car it replaces.

Equally important to me, this car doesn't directly pollute the air as it's being driven. I can drive past a queue of people and they won't be left gagging from the smoke and nitrogen oxide emissions, because there aren't any.

I don't consider this a silver-bullet to solving climate change and all atmospheric pollution. 

I do consider EVs are better, and the direction of travel is what's important to me.

Hydrogen wash

When people discuss electric cars, and the need to decarbonize our economy, I've noticed how quickly the topic of hydrogen power comes up as the answer to all problems.

I suspect this is a continuation of the well worn tobacco companies tactic of spreading FUD to hold on to the financial advantage for as long as possible. This is no surprise when one considers many of the petrochemical firms are investing in hydrogen production. I don't criticize them for this, just that they should have done it decades ago instead of holding us back.

The trouble is I think they're still holding us back.

The problem with considering hydrogen fuel cell powered cars to be the future is essentially it's saying "I'm not going to do anything now, because I'm waiting for this wonderful new technology". Meanwhile we carry on buying and running petrol and diesel cars... while we wait.

It's important to acknowledge that, yes hydrogen works now as a fuel for vehicles where a fuel cell is partnered with a small battery and used to power the electric motor. It's clever stuff but there are problems.

Firstly, right now, most hydrogen comes from natural gas. It may not create harmful emissions when it's used in the fuel cell, but actually making the hydrogen is far from clean or renewable.

Let's say we solve that one and can use renewable electricity to make hydrogen through electrolysis. There's still the thorny issue of how inefficient this is.

Using electricity to produce hydrogen which then has to be transported before it can be converted back into electricity by a fuel cell is considerably less efficient than generating electricity and storing that in a battery. Sure there are transmission losses in getting electricity from a wind farm to a car battery, but much lower than with hydrogen and nothing new needs to be built.... we already have domestic electricity.

Maybe we'll end up with so much renewable, clean electricity that it doesn't matter. Right now we're a long way from that.

But there's more.

If we're talking about decarbonising the UK's energy requirements we need to think about heat. The vast majority of people I know heat their home with a gas boiler. As well as the inevitable CO2 released, these are also a source of nasty air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides. Not good. With some work, the gas network could be converted to hydrogen.**

There's lots of concern about the instability of renewables on the electricity grid, what happens when it stops being windy at night, for example. Energy storage is therefore a big part of the conversation. If we're able to make and store lots of hydrogen this can then be burned in a gas turbine to make electricity.

So I agree that using hydrogen as a fuel does seem to be a good idea. Burn it for heat, pass it through a fuel cell for electricity and in both cases the waste product is water. Lovely. Providing the electricity used to produce the hydrogen is generated cleanly, hydrogen can be a carbon neutral fuel. Effectively it's a storage method for the electricity and it does have advantages over batteries.

What I don't think we should be doing is using hydrogen for cars. There are other things that we also need, that hydrogen is better for than batteries while batteries work really well for cars.

If we get to the stage there's so much cheap, clean electricity available.... I still don't think it makes sense to use hydrogen, but then... maybe, whatever.... the market will decide that.

So back to my initial accusation that oil companies are essentially using hydrogen as means to hold things back. I'm not sure this is even a deliberate strategy, more a 'happy' accident. What's clear is switching to electric transport threatens the existing business model of people who find, extract and refine oil in order to sell you petrol and diesel. 

If they can switch to making hydrogen, quite a lot of the business model looks really similar doesn't it. 

That's a huge part of the appeal for hydrogen cars. People understand driving to a place where they pay money to fill the tank. 

The difference with battery electric vehicles, once you've lived with one, is you realise that's something you don't need to do any more, and it really isn't something I miss.

** Hydrogen, being smaller than natural gas molecules will likely just leak out everywhere without an enormous and therefore costly effort to upgrade the network. However experiments to mix hydrogen with natural gas show promise. Whilst this doesn't lead to the possibility of carbon neutral domestic heating, it could significantly reduce emissions on the road to better heating technologies.

The getaway car

You can learn a lot about my dad's approach to car maintenance from the time it was found the car wouldn't start because the starter motor had fallen off. It was hammered back on with a mallet.

Job done.

Never particularly flush with cash my parents would buy crap cars, to be honest they were probably borderline scrap, and then spend a small fortune adding seat belts - these were 70s cars and they were knackered. I remember a blue Peugeot 504 with an engine so noisy when my dad started filling it with petrol a guy ran across the forecourt shouting "NOoooooooo" because he was convinced it was one of those exotic French diesels.

But the car that looms largest in my childhood memory was a Ford Cortina Mk4. I recall it as being a bright metallic green with a tan interior. KVY 550S was born the same year as me and given my memories I was probably about eight when we got it - I could check... I haven't. Apart from the dutifully installed rear seat belts it was the typical late 70s Ford and on anything other than the perfect day it contributed to the unmistakable suburban sound of engines turning over and failing to start.

We used to call it "the getaway car" on account of the bloody thing never starting.

With me and my brothers in the car, and my parents arguing about whether they'd flooded the engine again, we'd sit in uneasy silence before commencing further attempts in the desperate hope the battery would hold out. We'd threaten the it with the scrap yard and then it would start. A car with proper personality. 

I remember alternators and exhausts being annual consumables. A trip to a tiny auto parts shop that stocked, clearly badly, reconditioned alternators was a delight.... so filled with fascinating oily things. Early on my dad had bought a new exhaust from Charlie Brown's that came with a lifetime warranty. That warranty did for the next few years when, without fail, part of it would drop off.

Once, with everyone strapped in, my mum went to start the car but the key wouldn't fit the ignition barrel... because it was the front door key for the house. Yet she was sure this is what had unlocked the car. Later, for science, I tried a few other implements such as a discarded lolly stick. Yep, that would unlock the drivers door. In fact anything strong enough to turn what Ford referred to as a "lock" would open the door. We didn't bother fixing that.

Eventually rust ate through the scuttle panel and front bulkhead. This was structural and difficult to fix so spelled the end of the car. 

Before the final drive of doom to the scrappy, my dad stuck a for sale sign in the window. A chap came along and offered £150. Not bad... scrap was about £25. Done.

It was a few weeks later we were sat round the dinner table when the doorbell rang. A policeman. "About your car sir, KVY 550S". In the days when the DVLA was notified by the new owner of the car they hadn't bothered which, it turns out, wasn't a great surprise.

The car that would never start had been used, as the getaway car, in an armed robbery in Leeds. 

A week later, the same again. Same officer even.... Our old Cortina had been used for ram raiding in Halifax.

This family car, which can't have been more than 11 years old when terminal rust dealt it a death blow went out in a blaze of criminal glory

I was so proud.