In terms of appearance, it is a pretty car with a rational look. It looks basically good, but not showy, characterised by the usual Kia design. It could be a practical, quality family or fleet car.
- Year of manufacturing: 2020
- Petrol engine: 1580 cm3 77 kW 105 LE
- Electric engine: 44.5 kW 60 LE
- Battery: 8.9 kWh
- Fuel tank: 37 litre
- Own weight: 1564 kg
- Allowed total weight: 2030 kg
From the inside, the overall quality of the car's interior creates a pleasant feeling, no unnecessary exhibitionism can be seen. Once sitting in the driver's seat and looking at the dashboard, the interface is easy to overview and the user can quickly navigate. The seat has good ergonomics, it is comfortable and good to use.
On the steering wheel the controls are positioned well, so you do not have to take your eyes off the road while driving in order to fiddle with the radio. The combination of toggle switches and push buttons on the steering wheel provides the driver with the appropriate control. After some practice, navigation is easy.
The centrally positioned large and modern touch screen is of high quality, easy to use and fast. From here you can easily access various functions such as the on-board computer, telephone speaker and radio. We agree with the decision that not everything is squeezed into the very large touch screen, so things related to temperature, safety and driving electronics are still to be operated with physical buttons.
The passenger compartment of the car is sufficiently sized, kind of average. If the driver is taller, the passenger behind can easily run out of legroom and there will be little space in the back seat. If a driver is about 170-175 cm tall, there is plenty of space for those sitting in the back. The boot of this wagon can be packed well, there is plenty of space for luggage. There are several hidden compartments in the boot where we can pack smaller things, although one compartment is occupied by the charging cables. Thanks to the foldable rear seats, the size of the luggage compartment can be significantly increased and we can deliver larger things with the car if necessary.
While driving, the lane departure warning system makes sure you stay in the lane, and as you approach the guideline or the edge of the road, the steering wheel steers the car back into its lane with small movements. These car-controlled steering movements are a little distracting in everyday driving because the car makes corrections even when you are in control of the situation, but you happen to get closer the halfway line in a turn or to the edge of the road. On a not-so-perfect, winding country road, the car often starts unnecessarily whistling, freaking out the driver.
Parking is assisted with reverse radar and rear view camera, which help us parking precisely. When reversing a warning sound indicates to our surrounding that we are reversing the car, which is a very practical solution.
When starting from a stationary position, the car starts off a little slowly. As the shift takes place via a gearbox, the acceleration is not as smooth as in the fully electric cars, where there is no shift at all. Anyway, you can nicely sweep with the electric motor, but the petrol engine kicks in when you press the gas pedal completely, and it has a pretty ugly, roaring sound. There is a sport gear available, however, the 1.6 engine has such an unpleasant sound at high revolution that you do not feel like pushing the gas pedal and will prefer to drive nicely in Eco mode. This latter allows a pleasant drive. If you want to achieve greater acceleration with the gas pedal, the petrol engine starts completely automatically and assists the car's movement.
With charged batteries, in the city the car drives by electricity whenever possible, but on a highway it changes. It is actually the car deciding which drive method (petrol, electricity) it picks.
With a fully charged battery, according to the system the car can cover 60 km with an electric motor, but approx. after 45 km the battery was down and the petrol engine started charging. At a battery charge of 15%, the range of the electric motor is already 0 km, as the system does not allow the battery to become completely discharged. The petrol engine kicked in and started to charge when the car was not moving, with the engine running, at 8% charge level. In such situation you have options to choose from, the car maintains the hybrid system.
According to the computer, the full tank of petrol covers 680 km distance. If we add the 60 km range of the electric motor when fully charged, in principle with a full charge we can cover approx. 740 km distance. With normal use, I managed to achieve the average consumption of 5.5 litres, 2/3 of which was in the city and 1/3 on the highway.
You can charge the battery with Type 2 socket at the public charging stations. Since DC charging is not possible with the plug-in Ceed, it takes more than 2 hours to charge from zero to 100%. Fast charge means 3.4 kW, so it requires at least 2.5 hours to charge the 8.9 KWh battery. 2.2 kW from the home 220 V mains is the maximum charge, so it takes 4 hours to fully charge. If you charge your car at home and set the charging current to the minimum in the car menu, it will charge at 1.1 kW and requires 8 hours to fully charge. Choose this option if you get home in the evening and plan to leave only in the morning, as the battery will be charged nicely by the morning.
Zsolt Albók – ALD Insurance Referent