Inexperienced Automotive Stories Greatest Automotive To Purchase 2025 finalist

• Base worth of $34,270 secures a 200-mile EPA vary from lower than 50 kwh
• Quick-charging occasions lag Hyundai’s E-GMP (Ioniq) EVs, however V2L provides usefulness
• Sensible inside design, newest infotainment system quantity to a contemporary feel and look 

The Hyundai Kona Electrical is one in every of Inexperienced Automotive Stories’ Greatest Automotive To Purchase 2025 finalists, and it exemplifies a method that’s in brief provide in immediately’s U.S. electrical automobile market: that of the roomy, reasonably priced small automotive that makes good driving vary from a comparatively modest battery pack.

The Kona Electrical isn’t constructed on a devoted electric-vehicle platform, but it surely is perhaps mistaken for it. Regardless of its 171.5-inch size, the Kona Electrical can match 4 adults comfortably—or 5 in a pinch. Packaging is wise, permitting a roomy 25.5 cubic toes behind the second row and 63.7 cubic toes when folded ahead. 

This time round, the Kona Electrical outshines gasoline variations of this small-car household in efficiency, trip, and refinement, with all however the base SE getting a perky 201-hp electrical motor on the entrance wheels. It drives with a lean, responsive really feel, and its crisp, trendy shows and switchgear really feel immediately inherited from Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 6 EVs. All fashions get a big 12.3-inch touchscreen, wi-fi Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a built-in wifi hotspot, over-the-air replace functionality, and V2L (vehicle-to-load) compatibility in all variations presents as much as 3.6 kw of AC energy for worksite instruments, tenting equipment, and extra. 

2024 Hyundai Kona Electrical

2024 Hyundai Kona Electrical

2024 Hyundai Kona Electrical

The Kona Electrical runs on 400 volts, not like these 800-volt Ioniq fashions and their E-GMP platform, however its DC fast-charging time of 43 minutes from 10-80% is respectable for city commuters who take the occasional freeway journey. 

With the Chevrolet Bolt EV on hiatus till at the very least late calendar-year 2025 and the 2026 mannequin 12 months, the Kona Electrical is the closest modern-EV different, touchdown in a nook of the market—excessive worth, small dimension—that’s in any other case not properly represented within the American market. The Kona Electrical begins at $34,270, together with the $1,395 vacation spot price. That’s for the SE, with the 48.6-kwh battery pack and 200-mile EPA vary score. SEL fashions, which step as much as the 64.8-kwh battery pack and 261-mile vary score, price $38,270, get heated entrance seats and an influence driver seat, and are in all probability the candy spot of the lineup for many contemplating this mannequin. 

Sporty N Line variations begin at $40,270, and get varied sporty beauty upgrades plus Bose premium audio, whereas prime $42,445 Restricted variations have a hands-free tailgate, a surround-view digicam system, and several other extra active-safety techniques. At that worth, nonetheless, you run into among the identical value-for-money hurdles we’ve identified for the Kia Niro EV.

2024 Hyundai Kona Electrical

Competitors is sparse—solely the dated Nissan Leaf; the Fiat 500e, which is a two-door mannequin; and the Mini Countryman SE ALL4, which begins at $46,195 and is now a bigger automobile than the Kona. The overdue-and-delayed Volvo EX30, which was on account of begin at $36,245 will make an particularly sturdy rival to the Kona Electrical, when it does arrive. 

Does the Hyundai Kona Electrical make a large enough influence on the EV market to prime the opposite 4 Greatest Automotive To Purchase 2025 Finalists? Examine again Jan. 6.