Dundee to Arran road trip in the Kia Niro plug-in hybrid
I write this shortly after returning from driving my test Niro from Dundee to Arran for a four-day family holiday, during which I developed a lot of affection for Kia's little SUV.
One great thing about it is there's a Niro for everybody. You can go for a hybrid petrol model on one end of the scale to a fully electric version at the other.
I tested the middle-ground model. The plug-in hybrid Kia Niro has a 1.6 litre petrol engine that's paired with a 11.1kWh battery and electric motor.
The result is a car that can cover up to 38 miles on battery power alone but has a petrol engine so there's no range anxiety or concern about finding a charger.
I plugged the Niro into the Ohme home charger I had installed a few months ago and topped it up ahead of our trip. A few hours later the battery was reading 100%.
A button allows you to set the car's mode to 'save' which preserves the battery charge until you want to use it.
This meant I didn't empty the battery blatting along the M77, where it wouldn't have added much efficiency. Instead I was able to drive through Troon, onto the Ferry, and halfway around Arran on pure electric power.
I could have filled up the battery at the charging station in Brodick but I didn't. Public charging costs three times more than I pay at home (and can be up to 10 times more if you're on an EV tariff at home). This made it at least as expensive as filling with petrol.
It's an efficient car, however. Ignore the official fuel economy figure of 314mpg – that's ludicrous. Over our Dundee-Arran trip we averaged 57mpg, which I was more than happy with.
After plugging in again back at home, where electricity it more affordable, I was able to pootle around Dundee using fully electric power.
This is where the car really can be run for pennies. If you have a cheap overnight tariff you'll pay 5-7p per unit, compared to 55-85p at public chargers. You can top up the Niro's modest battery for around 60p and enjoy 30-35 miles of real-world electric driving.
This is the second generation Niro and it has been redesigned from the ground up to have more interior space and better technology.
The new interior mimics that of the excellent Kia EV6. The materials are softer touch and higher quality than the previous version, and there are more gloss black and chrome details to enhance the upmarket feeling. A pair of screens swoop round from the centre of the dashboard to behind the steering wheel.
You get a mixture of dials and haptic buttons for the heating and media/navigation controls.
Frustratingly you can't have both at once – you need to toggle between the two systems using a little icon. It makes the dash less cluttered but I can't believe it's the most user-friendly system Kia could come up with. Still, it's better than dumping everything onto a touchscreen.
Although it has a modest footprint the Niro is a practical car. Leg and headroom are good in the front and back and the boot is a decent size. We were able to fit our baby daughter and our luggage on the back seats and our two golden retrievers in the boot.
As long as you're not expecting a hot hatch, the Niro drives well. A 9.8 second 0-62mph time doesn't endow it with blistering pace but it pulls strongly enough even when fully laden.
Ride and refinement are above average for the class and it's particularly quiet when in fully electric mode.
Prices for the Kia Niro start at around £30,000. There are three trim levels, which, inexplicably, are labelled 2, 3, and 4. My plug-in hybrid in 3 spec cost a very reasonable £37,865.
It came with plenty of kit, including heated seats, an electric driver's seat, and wireless smartphone charging.
Even entry level models get adaptive cruise control, a reversing camera, keyless entry and a 10.3in touchscreen. My only real gripe is Apple CarPlay only works if you connect your phone with a cable – virtually all the Niro's rivals can connect wirelessly.
All Niros come with Kia's industry leading seven-year, 100,000 mile warranty.
Apart from a couple of very minor niggles the only thing to criticise the Niro for is that it's not terribly exciting. But it isn't meant to be. It's affordable, practical, cheap to run, well equipped, and should be reliable.
It is, in short, everything most people look for in a car.
Price: £37,865
0-62mph: 9.8 seconds
Top speed: 100mph
Economy: 313.9mpg
CO2 emissions: 21g/km
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