After 18 years and ~212000 miles, today we said goodbye to Steve (named after a mishearing of "steed"), our beloved 2005 black gen 2 Prius. We did some fixup to make sure the new owner can have more good miles and years with Steve: New headlights and bulbs - original 2005 ballasts still going strong. New OEM fog lights, with yellow LED bulbs. LED marker bulbs. New (used) head unit -- old one was flakey and booting "Lexus". New clockspring -- some steering wheel buttons had stopped working. New speakers (4x) -- one was blown. New coolant (engine and electronic). New brakes (first time), new brake fluid. Spark plugs, oil change, etc. New 12v battery Still running the original traction battery. Engine uses a little oil. A bit more noise than when it was new. Our new ride? A Kia (!) EV-6, appropriately named stEV-6 (rhymes with Stevie Nicks):
You don't know if it's new? Congrats on Steve's retirement. As I said in another thread just yesterday - stick around! There are a lot of ex-pats in the forum and it would be interesting to hear about the new (?) Kia.
It is new The Kia kinda blew us out of the water. MsBaxsie liked the looks and the color. I liked the driver assistance and HUD. There is essentially no cost for fuel at home. If I charge from 0% to 100% it would cost ~$5. Typical nightly charge after running a few errands is10% ~ 20% -- so $0.50 to $1.00 cost. On the road, fast chargers are more expensive. The worst case we saw, the cost was about equivalent to gas -- typically about 1/2 the cost of gas. There are fewer charging stations than gas stations, so you need to plan your charging a bit. The Kia EV-6 is fast (my video shows 5.1 seconds 0-60) and very nice inside. Car and Driver agrees: 2023 EV-6 gets 10/10 As a long-time Toyota fan, if someone would have told me a month before that I'd be driving a Kia in a month, I would have thought "Maybe I crash the Toyota and the Kia is a rental?" We just took the Kia in for it's "8000 mile service" - grand total of $0. There just is not much that gets consumed in an EV.
The Kia-6 (same car as the Hyundai EV-6 which you can get if you prefer more adult styling) is a solid choice. The Koreans have been building a fairly stellar reputation (minus the USB hack) for the last few years and if their electro-cars scale up they're going to be a force to be reckoned with. One of the major drawbacks with Tesla has always been hit and miss quality. Kia/Hyundai appears to have been working HARD on this. Keep the reports flowing in! Good Luck!
"The Kia-6 (same platform as the Hyundai Ioniq 5 . . . " FTFY Also Genesis GV60: Kia EV6 Vs Hyundai Ioniq 5 Vs Genesis GV60: Which Tesla Rival Is Best? They all share the same EGMP base. The EGMP is pretty cool. 800v architecture, but with a 100KW 400v to 800v charger built in that allows reasonably quick charging at older 400v fast chargers. I was "meh" on the Ioniq 5 styling. MsBaxsie was a solid "no". On the other hand she loved the EV-6 and I am fine with it's looks -- if they are a bit "swoopy". (image from: Kia EV6 Vs Hyundai Ioniq 5: Who Wins The On-Paper Battle? | Carscoops ) We test drove an EV-6 GT. Truly head snapping performance with 576BHP. Oh, and drift mode. But my hot-rod days are far behind and I liked the higher trim of the limited GT-Line.
congrats on a great upgrade! i traded my prius for a chevy bolt last year. loving all electric driving, even though our kwh's cost 40 cents a piece. all the best!
