Kia Soul EV will be available in the UK later this year
By Jamie White – Head of Communications
Kia Motors has begun volume production of its new all-electric Kia Soul EV for export sales.
A landmark in Kia’s history, the zero-emissions Soul EV is Kia’s first electric vehicle to be marketed by the company outside Korea.
The first vehicles off the production line are destined for select European countries and are scheduled to go on sale across the continent during the second half of the year. The Soul EV is manufactured at Kia’s Gwangju facility in Korea, where annual output of the electric car is initially planned to reach 5,000 units.
Thomas Oh, Executive Vice President and COO, Kia Motors Corporation, said: “Now that production of export models has begun, the new Soul EV is truly at the forefront of Kia’s ‘Clean Mobility’ program, providing environmentally-friendly transport to our customers around the world.”
Embodying the iconic design language of the second-generation Kia Soul, which went on sale in the UK in April, the Soul EV is a uniquely designed battery electric vehicle perfectly suited for city commuters.
Featuring a high-capacity 192-cell 27 kWh lithium-ion polymer battery pack, 212 km of the Soul EV’s drive range is now certified for Europe. The Soul EV also employs regenerative braking to capture and recycle into the battery the kinetic energy generated while the car is coasting and braking.
Ensuring that the Soul EV retains all the ‘fun-to-drive’ character of the regular Soul, rapid acceleration to 62mph is predicted to take 11.2 seconds, while top speed is in the region of 90mph.
Charging is accomplished by plugging the Soul EV into any standard household electricity supply. Recharging times are up to five hours for a fully depleted battery using a 6.6 kW AC slow charger. An 80 per cent charge can be achieved in as little as 25 minutes with a 100 kW charger (if available) or 33 minutes using a 50 kW DC charger.
The Soul EV will go on sale in the UK from late 2014.
Mystery shopping and performance improvement company, Douglas Stafford, works with Kia Motors UK, providing a bespoke mystery shopping and customer experience programme, to include telephone mystery shopping, electronic mystery shopping and video mystery shopping.
Follow mystery shopping and performance improvement company, Douglas Stafford:
on Twitter @DouglasStafford
on Facebook facebook.com/douglasstafforduk
