Running On Empty: Adventures in a Kia Niro EV

When a recent flight to Maine to see my family was cancelled due to weather and replacement flights were significantly more expensive, I decided to do the reasonable thing and rent a late-model plug-in electric car and drive something like 1000 miles round-trip.

The Kia Niro EV that I rented.

The figures available online led me to believe that I would need 2-3 recharging stops of about an hour each. With highway speeds comparable to those of a gasoline car, this would mean 2-3 extra hours. So my 8-9 hour trip would turn into a 10-12 hour one. No big deal, I thought.

The trip got off to a dubious start right away, since although the website said the fuel policy was full-to-full, it started off at 57%. I then found out that this meant that I’d be lucky to get 100 miles before needing to recharge. Sure enough, I wasn’t even out of NJ before I was looking for a charger. And then (maybe due to cold weather) the 10%-80% charging time was closer to two hours than the 57 minutes quoted online for a Level 3 charger.

I eventually found a charger station, waited long enough for an available charger to remind me of the 1970s gasoline shortages, waited another two hours or so for the 80% recharge, and continued on my way. Five or six long charging stops later, I eventually made it to my destination. 500 miles took some seventeen hours; I finally arrived just after 5AM, having picked the car up at noon, driving and charging/napping continuously since then.

The charging situation really points out internal-combustion vehicles’ superpower — fuel energy density. One liter of gasoline stores 31.54 megajoules (MJ) of energy, or about 9kWh. This is about 1/7 of the Niro’s total energy capacity; the equivalent amount of energy to charge the Niro completely (0% to 100%) would take maybe a minute or so for a gas pump to dispense. Gas pumps can transfer an astonishing amount of energy per minute.

Many (most?) of the chargers I encountered along the way were “350kW” chargers, apparently capable of charging certain vehicles at something like 8x the speed I was getting from them, since charging rate is limited by both the charger and car capabilities. Admittedly, charging on a cold winter day didn’t help, but this is one of the places where higher-end brands like Tesla distinguish themselves. Decreased charging time would 100% be my top suggestion for improving the Niro EV.

Most EVs are (technically) capable of charging from a 15A wall outlet, but naturally my rental didn’t have the proper adapter cable. Two days later, Amazon came through with the correct charging cable, and I could start recharging. Since the outlet is limited to ~1.5kW, a full charge from a wall outlet can take some forty hours(!) I left it plugged in for a day and a half.

The J1772 / CCS charging port, located on the front of the Niro EV.
The top connector is for control and (slower) AC charging; the bottom pins handle fast(er) DC charging.
A J1772 Type 1 charging cable for the Niro EV (and others).
It charges at ~15A / 120V — and can take some forty hours to charge!

In terms of driving, the Niro EV is a fun little car. Even in Eco mode (which I used for nearly the whole trip), it’s responsive enough to be driven safely — and in Sport mode, it’s actually fairly zippy (if you’re expecting normal-car performance and not Tesla’s Plaid Mode.) Visibility is good, steering, acceleration, and brake pedal respond predictably, and the car feels stable. Comfort is good enough, especially for a small car. There is plenty of cargo space, too; I’m a pack rat but didn’t even have to put the rear seats down in order to bring home several boxes’ worth of flea market finds. There’s at least one 12V power outlet, and several USB-A and USB-C outlets. Keeping the car charged was a challenge, but my phone stayed on 100%.

For drivers not used to modern conveniences, though, the driving-assistance functions steal the show. I was expecting some form of cruise control, since that’s been available since at least the 50s, and should be standard by now. The Niro turns out to not only have cruise control, but adaptive cruise control that can maintain a set speed and/or a set following distance to the car in front of you, slowing down and speeding up as needed. This greatly reduces driving fatigue.

There’s also a lane-keeping feature, which will actively steer the car to keep it in its lane (as long as you keep a hand on the wheel). Naturally, there’s a nice rear-view camera, too, as well as modern GNSS navigation and Bluetooth audio/phone connectivity. It will even help you find EV charging stations, although apps like PlugShare are far more up-to-date.

The driver’s display on the Niro EV, in its natural habitat (hooked up to a charger).

Living in the city, I usually don’t really have need for a car, and actually hadn’t driven to speak of since the Before Time. At one point, I had more miles driven backwards than forwards in the past two years’ time, and more miles piloting a boat under sail than both driving directions put together. In terms of familiarity with modern cars, my previous daily driver was a 1997 Ford Escort, which is probably less sophisticated than some 2024-model mopeds out there — gas pedal, brake pedal, speedometer and gas gauge, and not a whole lot more. Crank windows!

Lane-keeping seems to use video (probably mounted in the rearview mirror assembly), while adaptive cruise and the “front safety features” rely on a radar transceiver hidden behind a black plastic plate mounted underneath the front license plate. Coming back home through a snowstorm, I learned that this radar panel is prone to collecting snow and slush, and with enough snow built up, the radar stops working.

When this happens, the Niro throws a bunch of errors, disables the “smart cruise” features — and unfortunately, it doesn’t let you fall back to an old-school (“stupid?”) cruise mode, where the car simply maintains a set speed. Lane-keeping still works, but until you stop and clear off the snow, you’re stuck controlling the car’s speed manually with the pedal like it’s still the 1900s. (I’m guessing the lawyers didn’t let them run the cruise control in degraded mode since this might be confusing to drivers.)

Fortunately, on a long road trip, your next charging stop is never very far away, and once the radar plate is once again clear of snow, you’re back in 2024 flying your short-range spaceship. And at least you can run the heated seats and climate control while charging.

I love living in the future. I just wish it would charge a little more quickly.

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