Potential Soul EV owner, couple questions

[interloc]

Hi folks! I have been researching EVs for a few months now and have more or less decided on the soul. I live in Kitchener Ontario Canada and the local Kia is getting these cars in a month or so and I am anxiously awaiting them. I just have a couple questions that need to be answered by owners.

1) Do any of you charge Level 1 using extension cords? It seems to be not advised on websites and what not but I don't really see an issue. I would only do it when I travel to close by relatives houses and stuff like that when a local Level 2 is not available.

2) Do any of you charge exclusively level 1? I live in an apartment at the moment and that is really the cheapest and most likly way my building will let me get an EV. What are your charging times from flat? There seems to be conflicting info on this out there. Anything from 15-24+ hours I have seen. So just looking for real world examples.

3) Do any of you live in apartments and have had to convince your landlord/property management that EVs are not the end of the world and wont cost an arm and a leg? Any tips? So far I have calculated the average monthly journeys for my wife and I and found what that will cost in electricity. I have offered to pay more than that per month to cover me and a little extra to make the building happy. They are taking their sweet time getting back to me so I was wondering if anyone else has been through this before and has tips.

Thanks fellas!
Kyle

 

[wrickcook]

I have had mine about 5 months.
I live in an house, but before I had the L2 installed, I used the L1 for 2 months.

My wife drives the EV to work. A 45mi (72km) round-trip commute.
Using the L1, we could not quite keep up. She would drive for 2 days, then I would drive it on wednesday for my very short commute, and she takes the Camry, to catch up. Then she could drive it the next 2 days until the weekend.

She could have stopped at the Kia dealer on the way home to use their L3 everyday, but who wants to do that?
Now, with the L2, we never worry about if there is enough of a charge.

I think the issue with the extension cord is using it over a long period of time. If you use an extension cord for 3-5 hours, it's going to get hot. Make sure you get a 12g cord if you do decide to do this.

 

[tls1]

Hi interloc,

With the 120v charging, you will need to plug in very frequently simply because charge times will be very long. I don't have the numbers, but these different times are posted everywhere online. You will quickly tire of this and want to use a 240v system.

On another note, what type of deal were you able to negotiate? Seems in Canada we are not lucky with lease rates. In the states they can be had for about 300-350$ with $0 down. While we are looking at $450-500.

Cheers!
Terry

 

[interloc]

I haven't nailed down a deal yet. Trying to cross my T's and dot my I's about plugging into my building yet. Also we intend to purchase. We have our reasons for doing that and not leasing. But I'll make a post when I figure it all out.

 

[tls1]

Hi,

I was thinking of buying as well. But I am very hesitant. I keep my cars a long time. Currently I have a 2002 CRV. I worry that the battery will lose it's ability to hold a charge. We hear all those stories about the leaf and how it loses bars. Well, all rechargeable devices have that issue...whether it be cars or toothbrushes...or cel phones. What then? Will you pay thousands to replace the battery? Also, what if there is a breakthru in technology? The current crop of vehicles will lose a lot of value. The car manufacturers are in business to new sell cars, not retrofit your EV so you can drive it longer. They'll want you to get a new one (just like the cel phone companies)...

Sorry for the rant... just my opinion.

The buy backs at the end of 4 years are very low. I believe that the car manufacturers believe there is a risk that new technology will make it that peeps will not want to buyback. Or maybe peeps killed their battery (overcharging, etc). Or other things we can't even think of today. But given that the buyback is so low, maybe it's worth taking a chance with leasing. In 4 years if there's nothing better and your vehicle is in great condition and your battery is still good and ??? then buy it.

What is your reason for buying that could out-way all my rant?

Regards,
Terry

 

[notfred]

I'd say either do the lease thing for 4 years and then pick it up cheap or walk away for whatever is better at that time.

I've not seen any reports of any battery degradation on a Soul EV and they've been around for about 18 months now. There are people looking at internal values reporting that those say there is some battery degradation, but nobody has reported any decrease in range with age. The battery warranty is 8 years so I'm looking towards that.

You say it will not have value down the road, but then how much value does an 8-10 year old car have? I keep my cars about 10 years and around here that's the point all the rubber bits start to deteriorate and the corrosion really starts to take hold.

 

[interloc]

Hi,

I was thinking of buying as well. But I am very hesitant. I keep my cars a long time. Currently I have a 2002 CRV. I worry that the battery will lose it's ability to hold a charge. We hear all those stories about the leaf and how it loses bars. Well, all rechargeable devices have that issue...whether it be cars or toothbrushes...or cel phones. What then? Will you pay thousands to replace the battery? Also, what if there is a breakthru in technology? The current crop of vehicles will lose a lot of value. The car manufacturers are in business to new sell cars, not retrofit your EV so you can drive it longer. They'll want you to get a new one (just like the cel phone companies)...

Sorry for the rant... just my opinion.

The buy backs at the end of 4 years are very low. I believe that the car manufacturers believe there is a risk that new technology will make it that peeps will not want to buyback. Or maybe peeps killed their battery (overcharging, etc). Or other things we can't even think of today. But given that the buyback is so low, maybe it's worth taking a chance with leasing. In 4 years if there's nothing better and your vehicle is in great condition and your battery is still good and ??? then buy it.

What is your reason for buying that could out-way all my rant?

Regards,
Terry

The buyout of the lease is something I did not consider and now I will lol.

Couple reasons for buying are, I prefer to own stuff (bit of a control freak that way), I am not so nice to cars so the condition of the car mat not be ideal if I do end up returning it, and down the road I want to get a second car and the soul will be the second car for runabouts and city shinanigans so range loss wouldn't be a huge deal.

Battery range loss is definitely a thing. It is just something that happens to all batteries. The tech will improve to fix it over time and what I hope will happen is in the future, being able to replace batteries with bigger better ones will be more abundant. People right now keep old cars and classic cars for a long time and replace the parts as needed. Sure in our "throw it out if its broken" society that doesn't seem to be the case but if we are truely trying to help the planet, we need to get away from that.

There are a lot of what ifs in the world of EV right now and as people on the forefront, we are pioneers and must be willing to take chances for the good of everyone to come.

 

[wrickcook]

For me, after incentives, my car was going to be 26k either way.
Currently, I am paying 11k to lease it for 3 years (technically 13k, cuz I added warranty, more mileage, etc after the fact), and it will cost 15k to buy it.

Since the cost was about the same, I decided to lease. It gives me options to return it in 3 years if there are better things, or I keep it.
I doubt I will return it, because that means I will be paying 11k to rent a car for 3 years and I have nothing to show for it, but I have that option.

Lease meant less $$ down, etc. It got me in an EV sooner.

Some people are banking on the price dropping. The idea being, lease it for 11k, with a payoff of 15k. In 3 years if the value is only 10k (like the Leaf), return yours and buy a different used Soul for 10k, and you walk away with a Soul for 21k. But I want to keep my car. I take good care of it and am making many improvements.

 

[tls1]

Hi all,

So we all agree that at a very minimum review the lease options and think about the future... the technology is so new and changing so fast... and I do agree that we live in a throw away society. My CRV is a 2002, i live in Montreal Canada and the winters are brutal on the cars. Makes them rust very quickly. And the extreme cold winter and extreme hot summer does not help. And on top the roads are very very bad... pot holes galore. Makes all the screws come loose and the stuff falls apart

am making many improvements.

Whatcha doing?
(Putting a sail, fan, and extra long extension cord like the coyote? lol... :idea: )

 

[wrickcook]

I added roof rack this past weekend. Not sure if I should have drilled in the roof of a leased car :/ But Kia didn't give me any other options. (I had the tracks installed by a pro just in case they have issues)

I want to wrap the rims in vinyl to hide those awful white panels. The wife just wants new rims.
Will probably add a hitch.

After all that, I would not want to return it and start from scratch again.