Kia EV2 is the best EV in FREEZING temperatures – but still loses 25% of its range

Norway’s Automotive Federation’s El Prix winter range test pitted 25 EVs against -24 °C temperatures, and the Kia EV2 did the best.

We all know that very cold weather has a detrimental effect on range and performance in ICE cars, but in EVs, it’s a much bigger problem.

With EVs a small part of the UK park and, by Scandinavian levels, quite mild in the winter, the loss of range is an issue for most but not a deal breaker, but in Scandinavia it’s a big deal, particularly in Norway, where almost all new cars are EVs.

So every year, Norway’s Automotive Federation’s El Prix winter range test pits new EVs against properly freezing conditions (this year, -24 °C) to see how they fare, and the results aren’t pretty.

The Lucid Air, with its WLTP range of 596 miles, managed to lose 46% of its range, followed by the Mercedes CLA, which lost 41% of its range and the Audi A6 e-tron where 38% of its official range went on the missing list.

The best of the EVs tested was the budget Hyundai Inster and MG 6S, which lost ‘only’ 29% of range, followed by the MG IM6 on 30%.

Not on the official list, because it was a prototype, was the recently revealed Kia EV2, which did better than all the rest with a range loss of a comparatively modest 24.8%, a big improvement on the Kia EV4 (which was officially on test), which lost 126 of its 369-mile range.