You guys keep on asking us to cover less expensive EVs,
so here it is, the new Keanuero EV, and it is, it's, it's, uh, it doesn't look too bad.
With the limited edition, you get this gray C-pillar here that has actual venting,
I don't know if it's functional, and I've had so many people coming up to me on the street
being like, is that the new R, right? Jokes aside though, I do think it looks good,
kind of like a rally car from the 80s that's just gotten a little bit bigger.
I particularly like the DRLs that they have here. It sort of looks like a little heartbeat.
Let's see if it has a little bit of a frunk here.
Oh, okay, that's not too bad. In here we have enough space to store like a couple valuables,
maybe your drugs, but not a whole lot. Coppers can't get my Advil now.
Down under the car, we have a 64.8 kilowatt hour battery
that Kia says is good for 407 kilometers of range,
and if you want to charge it up, you can do so right here.
Here we've got up to 350 kilowatt fast charging, which will take you from 10 to 80% in 43 minutes,
which I have no clue what the charging curve this looks like,
but you can go from 10 to 80% in 45 minutes
with 100 kilowatt charging. So the math doesn't really math.
That said though, I've had very little trouble. This is a much smaller battery than we see in a lot of EVs,
and it is just an efficient little car. So even with level two,
I have not had much trouble taking this all the way to 100% daily.
Around the side, we've got 17 inch aero rims that are diamond cut
that look like every single other diamond cut rim that you can buy in 2023,
as well as winter tires. Kia Canada, what were you thinking?
Like I know there's snow on the top of that mountain, but that doesn't mean that we're gonna go there.
These poor things, geez. This video was filmed back in July
when winter tires weren't necessary. We've also just got normal everyday door handles,
very nice. The design of this makes me just really think
that your cool gym teacher is the person that would want it, and the space back here
means they will want it even more. So many EVs and hybrids will just give you
so little trunk space as they try and just cram batteries wherever.
Here that is not a problem. You can throw your volleyball, your pylons,
your baseball bats, whatever you want back here. It is excellent for the segment.
Hopping into the rear seat, it's really quite good back here.
There's enough room for real adults, I'm six feet and can easily fit behind myself.
There's plenty of headroom. This armrest here feels excellent.
We've also got heated seats on this trim, USB-C charging, and a little spot to rest your other ARM too.
Hopping into the driver's seat, this is sadly where things start to fall apart.
The materials in here, like guys, Kia, what were you thinking?
There is piano black all up along the door, all along the front.
There's just so much piano black in here and all of it is in places that you're going to touch.
It's frankly unforgivable. Speaking of unforgivable, these seats,
they're, I don't like them at all.
I've had a couple of people try them out and they've rated them from fine to absolutely horrendous
and I'm sadly in the later of those. I have a lot of trouble getting comfortable
because it feels like they're made for kind of being up in that SUV sort of seating position
but then your arms don't hit the armrests so instead you kind of have to go down
and the lumbar support feels weird and there is adjustment for that
but even all the way in it feels like there's too much.
I just don't like them at all. I doesn't say that everything in here is bad.
There's lots that's great actually. These seats are heated and ventilated.
The armrests are nice and squishy and very comfortable
even if I wish this one did come out a bit. The steering wheel is really good
and even though the buttons are piano black, they're at least real buttons
and we have nice little toggle switches for volume and such.
There's also plenty of stuff that's pretty medium tier in here.
Like we do have actual climate controls. They're just hidden behind the media controls
so you can only see one at a time. This touchscreen's a little bit of a reach
but at the same time it's Kia and Hyundai's basic system
and it works well enough. You're not gonna complain and we do have Android Auto and Apple CarPlay
but you do need to plug in. No wireless available.
Rounding out the media mesh quality stuff in here is the storage and here's the only spot
that you can put your glasses. There's no like dedicated spot for them.
The cup holders are kind of weird, kind of fun.
They can fit a water bottle from lttstore.com. Only the little one.
And that's about it. You have a glove box, I guess.
Can't take it off or granted. All right, let's torture some winter tires.
We have traction control all the way off and it is clearly still intervening
because good God, this thing drags ass.
Like I realized that it will be improved if you have actual summer tires on this
instead of the winters that we have for some reason.
But God, it is slow. We have 200 horsepower, 188 foot-pounds of torque
which should be pretty reasonable in a 3,800 pound car
but it can just not put any of that down whatsoever.
It is disgusting.
Now I wasn't able to find an official zero to 60 time from Kia.
It seems to range from about six and a half to 7.8 seconds
but what I do know is that I was at a red light yesterday beside a last gen Kona EV
and that thing destroyed me. I could not keep up at all.
Also getting destroyed. These poor tires in any corner.
Oh! There is no limited slip differential in this thing
and you go into a corner, you hit the gas
and that inside tire is just getting punished.
Oh my God, this thing does not handle very well.
There are three versions of this car, gas, hybrid and electric
and it really feels like that the suspension was tuned around the gas version.
The electric one, you're gonna have those batteries going all the way back, adding weight
to the rear of the car and it kind of just bounces around.
Like you go over bumps and you can feel the rear of the car bouncing up and down
sort of like the rear dampers are shot. It's strange and disconcerting.
Actually the steering overall is just kind of disconcerting. You don't really get a whole lot of feel
through the steering wheel, even though like if you go over some sort of like uneven spots in the road
it'll sort of want to pull to one side or the other.
Once you're about about 80 kilometers per hour if there's any sort of large undulations or bumps
it sort of just does whatever it wants and the suspension cannot handle the weight at all.
It is not a satisfying car to drive. All of that said though, this is not intended
to be a driver's car and it is if nothing else
pretty quiet in here and relatively simple to drive
even if, yeah, it kind of sucks.
Of course, this being a Korean car we do have Hyundai slash Kia's safety systems
and they are fantastic. This is some of the best adaptive cruise on the market
and the lane centering is okay-ish but really quite good if you're into that sort of a thing.
Also, you're able to fully disable the safety systems
that you don't want to be there so if any of them start annoying you
just give them the chomp. Play Crab Rave.
Crab Rave by NoiseStore, sure. One thing they did get right though is the sound system.
In here we have the seven speaker system from Harman Kardon, so woof for tweeter center
and two in the back and it is really quite good.
It goes down to about 30 firsts which is really quite good for a system
that doesn't have a subwoofer and there isn't really anything
that is exceptionally strange about it. Like there's a bit of a peak around 40, 50, that's fine.
Bit of a dip around 100, who cares? Overall, I think it's really quite great.
Well, that was fun but this final bit will not be for you at least Kia.
Oh, Kia, why did you give us winter tires in the summer?
And why did you not think through who actually wants to buy this thing?
Like this is an excellent car for someone that just wants a not very expensive EV
that they can cheaply take to and from work
that just simply gets the job done. But what it seems like Kia's gone for here
is just trying to make it cool
in the same sort of way as when your band teacher's like,
today we can play Beverly Hills and you're like, this is cringe.
If they had just very simply pulled it back a bit made the materials in here less fancy looking
and more so just kid resistant and taken the time to have these seats
be actually comfortable then I think this could be a real winner
compared to like the Bolt EUV or the Toyota Prius.
It has way more room in the back and the boot.
Just, it's not comfortable.
With a starting price that's a bit below 50 grand Canadian
and with the heat pump a bit above 50 grand Canadian
it's a pretty tough sell. Depending on your province or state
you will have EV rebates that will bring that down
but it is getting dangerously close to the Tesla Model 3
especially this 55 grand limited trim that we have
and like I just want the Prius. That really achieves what this car is going for
but just so much better. And this right here, I don't know guys
it needs better seats. Oh, huge thanks for watching.
Hit like, get subscribed and just have a great old day
and maybe treat yourself to a little bit of a stretch.