CHEVY VOLT RANGE IN COLD WEATHER FULL

Where the Bolt is a hatchback, the Niro is determined to be a five-door SUV. The larger, taller Niro offers no such temptation. The smaller Bolt is the more eager animal with zero-60 acceleration in 6.5 secs and tighter handling that will tempt you to take it to an autocross course (I did). The perky Bolt, of course, beat even Tesla in 2016 as the first car with a range over 200 miles per charge. But the Kia has caught up fast. Make the effort to bring a Niro to Michigan, however, and you have an interesting competitor to the hometown favorite Chevy Bolt. That is, they are government compliance vehicles. Which is why Kia - even with its battery-warmer package - and Hyundai only make their cars available in the heavily regulated, zero-emission, tree-hugger kingdoms of California, New York, Rhode Island, et al. So at least the Niro EV’s range numbers are honest year-round.īut it’s still a tough sell.

CHEVY VOLT RANGE IN COLD WEATHER FULL

Then tell someone in the Midwest the EV’s range is even worse in winter and they’ll look at you like you’re one brick short of a full load. It’s hard enough to sell a 239-mile range $46,500 Kia EV (estimated cost Kia has yet to release pricing for the U.S.) against a comparable, gas-engine Niro costing $15,000 less with a whopping 550 miles of range. The Niro EV, by contrast, sat bone-cold in my driveway without any preheating ability - yet overperformed on range. On a 30-degree jaunt to Kalamazoo this winter I got just 50 percent of battery range. I can preheat my Tesla Model 3 cabin in my garage, but that doesn’t do the battery any good. But the most dramatic difference in my tester appears to be that the Niro has an electric coolant-heater to warm the battery (Hyundai says it has something similar - but elected to import its Kona without one). While they share a 201-horse electric motor, the Hyundai and Kia source their batteries with different battery manufacturers - LG Chem for Kona and SK Innovation for Kia.

Chevy volt range in cold weather