[propatrea]

I am looking at both and assumed the 3 would be better featured, but saw some comments (not on this forum) that the 2 had a better spec. My mileage is very low, in London, just to shops really. This is my first post here, thank you.

 

[mr.macspot]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I can't comment specifically about e-Niro but Kia's model specification is usually the higher the number, the better the specification. Download the specification sheet from the Kia web site to compare them

 

[Mre15]

Surely if your in London a full EV would be much better.

 

[Ramonford]

From what you have said I think the car selected, any Niro version, is entirely unsuited for your use

ramonford

 

[RobinB]

Surely if your in London a full EV would be much better.

I tend to agree, as a west London resident, with no offstreet parking in my terraced street, I use the public charging on lamp posts. I sometimes drive to Devon (about monthly). The 280 WLTP range of the Soul EV or e-Niro makes that 160 mile journey easy. There's no convenient charging at my destination, so I know a few spots where I can charge whilst shopping or eating. Granted it isn't as cheap to re-fuel as on a domestic off-peak tariff, but it's cheaper than petrol or diesel. I know it was a bigger capital cost, but now I feel much more free to make a journey that I might previously have thought "that's going to be a £50 petrol bill, driving to the countryside or coast or N.T. property". The range of a BEV means you can get plenty of local runaround journeys before needing a charge and a BEV gives you the option of rapid charging as well as AC.
Take a look at Zap-Map around you and see where there are charge points. Ubitricity lamp posts are the cheapest, but only around 5.5kW, so it tends to be a park for a few hours for a top-up or best part of a night for a major charge.
My attitude is that the small inconvenience of the moment is compensated by the niceness of the driving experience... and thing are getting better - Just since purchase in May I've seen many more rapid chargers along main routes, with Starbucks, Costa and McDonalds "smelling the coffee" and installing chargers in their car parks and Gridserve have turned around the previously rubbish Ecotricity at many motorway services (by reputation rubbish - I never tried them, there were alternatives)

P.S. For a tenner you can register to drive a full electric into the congestion zone for a year, if that matters. I registered around New Year and have used the freedom a handful of times. Westminster borough also allows you to park for the minimum duration cost and stay for the full duration. I can park for 4 hours for 85p! (Just Westminster - I can't see it lasting)

 

[iooi]

Hi & Welcome.

Which spec is very much a personal choice. I would never get anything less that top spec in Kia, but I love my toys.

Not sure where they get a 2 is better than a 3 as clearly the 3 is better spec. But that might not be what these people are looking for 🤷‍♂️
If we are talking a New Hybrid, there is no 2 spec. Only Connect, 3 & 4. Till the new Niro comes out later? this year.

If it is a new one, then the dealer we use (no good to you in London) is offering over £2K off the Niro. Clearly they have old stock to shift.

 

[propatrea]

Thanks everyone - that's really helpful. I live in a terrace in London and so will have to use Ubitricity on a lampost in the street and Source London at the gym hear me. The Trust Pilot reviews of both are terrible - billing mistakes, many not working etc - what is your experience of both/ either? Thanks

I tend to agree, as a west London resident, with no offstreet parking in my terraced street, I use the public charging on lamp posts. I sometimes drive to Devon (about monthly). The 280 WLTP range of the Soul EV or e-Niro makes that 160 mile journey easy. There's no convenient charging at my destination, so I know a few spots where I can charge whilst shopping or eating. Granted it isn't as cheap to re-fuel as on a domestic off-peak tariff, but it's cheaper than petrol or diesel. I know it was a bigger capital cost, but now I feel much more free to make a journey that I might previously have thought "that's going to be a £50 petrol bill, driving to the countryside or coast or N.T. property". The range of a BEV means you can get plenty of local runaround journeys before needing a charge and a BEV gives you the option of rapid charging as well as AC.
Take a look at Zap-Map around you and see where there are charge points. Ubitricity lamp posts are the cheapest, but only around 5.5kW, so it tends to be a park for a few hours for a top-up or best part of a night for a major charge.
My attitude is that the small inconvenience of the moment is compensated by the niceness of the driving experience... and thing are getting better - Just since purchase in May I've seen many more rapid chargers along main routes, with Starbucks, Costa and McDonalds "smelling the coffee" and installing chargers in their car parks and Gridserve have turned around the previously rubbish Ecotricity at many motorway services (by reputation rubbish - I never tried them, there were alternatives)

P.S. For a tenner you can register to drive a full electric into the congestion zone for a year, if that matters. I registered around New Year and have used the freedom a handful of times. Westminster borough also allows you to park for the minimum duration cost and stay for the full duration. I can park for 4 hours for 85p! (Just Westminster - I can't see it lasting)

 

[iooi]

Well if you are getting the Hybrid (not PHEV or EV) then you are never going to use a charging point.

I take trustpilot reviews with a barge pole now. It has become a joke. To many complaints about non issues & fake reviews giving dodgy retailers 5 * reviews.

 

[grantp]

@propatrea

I think you may need to look at the specifications and comments about them very dispassionately to get a feel for what the underlying messages might be.

Based on the "2 or 3?" (a bit moot now as the 2 has been mainly unavailable for some months as I understand it) the main discussions were around value for money (i.e. were the additional features worth it for your personal needs) and, frequently, wheel sizes with people convinced that, for them, the smaller standard wheels of the 2 spec. meant higher-profile tyres and therefore better comfort over poor road surfaces. There may have been some aspect of slightly improved economy related to the same point but I would think that would be very difficult to prove in real, everyday usage.

If ride quality is an issue than all I can observe is that the 4 spec with 18" wheels seems fine to me. It's not at Rolls Royce levels of when traversing the worst road surfaces and bumps but most of the time it's pretty good and sometimes exceptional. Also rather quiet to the point where in our HEV version I'm not always sure whether or not the engine is running.

I'm with iooi on this. I looked at the specs and concluded that to get what my wife thought she wanted and taking into account that we plan to keep it a while and it may well become our only car, going all the way to the 4 spec. was the way to go. There are some things I could easily live without (the sunroof for example, though my wife seems to be keen to make use of it, surprisingly) but the electric memory driver's seat and the full parking sensor and cross-traffic warning system is certainly more useful than I was expecting. If I lived in a town and had to use on-street parking I would want these systems. (Or drive an old banger!).

These are not things I have previously been concerned about but as time passes and the roads become less and less usable with more and more often rather absurd constraints and laws applied, the more help one can get the better.

Tesla's all-around camera system seems quite attractive in that regard - but only in that regard. It's one thing that I think will become vital for city dwellers until the authorities make it impossible to own or use a private car in a city.

 

[RobinB]

...The Trust Pilot reviews of both are terrible - billing mistakes, many not working etc - what is your experience of both/ either? Thanks

I've not really had any problems with Ubitricity for payment/billing/activation....
...the main problem is being able to park. Too often the innocuous-looking lamp-post is ICEed!
Zap-Map or the Ubitricity app can only show if the charger is in use or not, but nothing about whether you can actually park to use it. It has been a failure around here, but some more are being installed and apparently they are going to have marked bays making them exclusively for charging EVs. I was speaking to someone who lives by one of the few I have used regularly and he has received a consultative letter from the council about retrospectively introducing the same EV-only parking (he's an EV driver, so I think he will be more understanding than some).

The first few times I used Ubitricity I used the QR code on the lamppost to pay via their website, I've since installed the Ubitricity app on my phone and it has a built-in QR scan. They seem to retain your details (if you tick a box, if I recall) so repeat use is relatively painless. So I simply plug-up, run the app, select to scan the code, confirm payment on the same card and then I hear a clack from inside the post. The LED changes colour and the car starts charging. I can monitor my charge progress via the Kia Connect app (I think I recall that you don't get that with the '2' spec). The car shows the current charge rate, for the posts near me that is around 5.5kW, and estimates the time to reach the target SOC. It is only when I disconnect that it triggers the billing from Ubitricity. I get an email showing the start time, end time, kWh used, and the price charged to my card. All quite neat. It also means that on a wintery day I could remotely start heating and use a few more Watts before getting to the car.

I've used a Source London post only once. What can I say? I charged as a guest. I forget the details of the process. Access is rarely a problem because their bays are for exclusive use. Their pricing probably ensures availability. They used to price per minute which made it less obvious how high their prices were. They now charge like everyone should, by how much charge they have provided (with a fee for overstay at a very slow charge rate). Currently Ubitricity is 24p/kWh and Source London would be 69p or 80p (depending on borough) for the equivalent PAYG (no membership nonsense) price. If you pay £4/month membership to Source London the price can be dropped to 39p or 47p (depending on borough) if you are a resident of that borough and already pay for a parking permit.
I avoid Source London out of principle: they are price gouging beyond the rates of highway rapid chargers and they only offer residents' discounted rates if you pay a monthly recurring membership - This is the sort of nonsense that needs to be driven out of the public EV charging experience. [And one of their locations near me, with 3 pillars has had one showing a red light error status since before Christmas]
Source London PAYG
Source London 'Resident' with permit and paying £4 per month
In fairness, I think SL have raised their prices at some point in the last weeks or months and Ubitricity are still using the same rate as when we started using them last June, so the gap may close.
Nevertheless AC charging shouldn't be as expensive as rapid charging.

The following is a bit of a digression on reaching 100% charge and "battery balancing":-
I also like that I can be on Ubitricity and the charging can run full course (allowing "battery balancing") without me being charged 4p/minute of "idle charge" once the car charge rate has dropped below 1.2kW.
Being a bit of a nerd, I once went to sit in the car as it neared full charge:
At 98% the rate had dropped to 3.6kW, then 2.4kW
At 99% the rate had dropped to 1.3kW
The estimated time ceased to be reliable in the last few percent, unfortunately I don't have the details, but the dash (I think) showed -- for the time remaining and the Kia Connect app showed 2 minutes, but carried on showing 2 minutes for possibly tens of minutes, until there was an eventual click of the car being full.

The business of charging to full isn't necessary very often, urban myth says about monthly. Because the last percent or so is slower it might surprise people.

If I were you @propatrea I would do all of my charging on Ubitricity where possible. Don't waste money on Source London, they are too expensive to follow the "always be charging" mantra when you are at the gym.
The only circumstance I can see myself using SL is if I've got a 90% full battery and I really want the charge up to 100% for an imminent long journey and all the Ubitricity are ICEed.
Before you have got the car I recommend taking a walk by each of the Ubitricity sockets in your area to note how accessible they are in terms of being ICEed (on a number of views) or what the drive/walk is like in terms of route. I have never used the nearest socket to my home, it is often ICEed and that part of that street is a bit "rough".
I have also been known to take the car to Lidl for use of their rapid Pod-Point which costs about 26p/kWh. I've done this sometimes after returning from a journey to get the car from something like 10-20% up to 75%, then I know I've got plenty of range again, and if I really want I can complete on an AC Ubitricity.