busybee fluffy rambles

Specification

So, my Niro is in the EX Premium trim, which gives it a sunroof, leather seats, and a bunch of safety and comfort features.

It’s “gravity blue,” which is an ultramarine near-black-but-not-quite. The color is nice, and just a little offbeat compared to the usual standard boring range of colors. I might eventually get a different color wrap for it, but probably not.

Features

It isn’t strictly an upgrade from the LEAF, as there’s two features that the LEAF had which the Niro doesn’t: automatic high-beams, and a surround view parking camera. I’ll probably miss the surround camera just because it gave me better peace of mind in tight parking spaces.

The LEAF’s one-pedal driving mode was a lot more useful, but I quickly found that I can live without it, and driving with standard accelerator and brake pedals is Fine. The Niro’s regen defaults actually feel pretty good, and I’m surprised that the paddle “shifters” actually are pretty nice for changing the acceleration and deceleration settings on the fly. I’ll probably end up using them more than I thought.

The Niro has lane-keeping assistance when city driving and without activating cruise control, which should give me a bit more peace of mind in some stressful driving situations. Or I might find it super annoying and turn it off! Who knows.

The keyless remote has a button for unlocking the hatchback so that someone else can open the door while standing there. It’d be nice if it could actually open the liftgate, but even having the ability to remote-unlock is better than the LEAF, which required having the fob on your person to open the hatchback at all.

Size-wise the Niro is pretty much the same on the outside as the LEAF, aside from being a little wider. The cargo space in back is way more open and versatile than the LEAF’s, even with the seats up, and with them down it’s just immense. Definitely enough room for whatever Home Depot and IKEA shopping trips I’m likely to do in the future. It’s also really nice that there’s a space to stash the privacy cover.

The cargo space also has proper tie-downs! I will probably never use them, but it’s nice that they’re there.

When the seats are stashed, the “floor” of the cargo volume is still fairly high up. I probably won’t be using it as a camper after all. Not that I was really expecting to.

The center console is a huge improvement over the LEAF. The cup holders are customizable and have extra space for stashing my anxiety mints, there’s a specific slot for putting phones (which also has a Qi charger), and there’s a little “nest” for keeping a purse. Unfortunately my purse is a bit too big for it. Maybe it’s time to find a smaller, cuter purse. :3

Oh, and one really nice creature-comfort feature: when you change the headlights and wiper settings, you get a little pop-up notification on the dashboard that tells you where it is now, which removes all uncertainty about where things are set. It’s surprisingly helpful.

The in-car UX is very different than on the LEAF and I’ll have to get used to it, but the controls at least on the surface make a lot more sense. Overcoming muscle memory is always a challenge.

Power

During my test drive and my drive home I was only getting 2.5mi/kWh, but I was also doing mostly freeway driving, which is a worst case for it. I never felt like it was short on actual power, even in Eco mode, while the LEAF often felt like it struggled outside of initial acceleration. I have not yet been silly enough to check the actual vroom-vroom on the Niro. I was always pretty pleased with the LEAF’s pickup and I’m guessing I’ll be even happier with the Niro, especially if I put it in sport mode.

When I plugged it in to my home L2 charger, it took way longer than the LEAF did to negotiate its charging rate with the EVSE. It looks like the Niro has negotiated a 40A charging rate, so, it charges faster at home, too. Neat.

Unfortunately, while my L2 charger logs power consumption, actually getting useful historical information out of it is really obnoxious, but the Internet says that the LEAF only requests 30A.

Included stuff

I had thought that the Niro came with a portable charger, but it turns out that it was just a NACS to J1772 adapter. I guess it’s useful to have that (for parking at places with a NACS destination charger, such as at many hotels or at random Tesla owners' houses), but I’ll probably want to get a spare EVSE to keep in the trunk for emergency charging purposes. Eventually. The official Kia one seems to be hard to come by, and aftermarket ones are

It also didn’t come with the “tire mobility kit” (tire patching kit + compressor, which most EVs and even many gas cars now provide in lieu of a spare tire), but I already had a spare which I’d bought for the Mazda3. Those and my emergency toolkit fit nicely into a nice little hidden storage spot in the trunk, as well as a couple other things that I normally kept in a little storage box that rattled around in the LEAF.

That said, it did come with the owner’s manual, which apparently is not standard and is usually just kept online. So that’s nice. Too bad it’s incredibly poorly-written. Oh well.

Customizations

I need to figure out the best way to install my dashcam. There’s a few different ways to go about doing it; on my Mazda3 I used a long USB cable that I hid in the headliner and went to the center console, which was Okay but not great. On the LEAF I used a fuse bypass cord, but the Niro’s fusebox location is a bit awkward for that. What I’ll probably do is end up getting a rear-view mirror power tap.

Also, something that CarMax was able to do was save me a bit of money by transferring my license plates to my new car instead of having to get new plates made. However, I still need to use dealer plates until my updated registration gets to me (which should be in a month or so). I’ll still be using my cute plaid license plate surrounds, of course.

Based on commentary on reddit I went ahead and ordered the Korean-style Kia badges which should help ward off Kia Boys idiots. Plus it looks neat. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anyone selling the steering wheel badge on its own, and the combination pack I found was ridiculously expensive. But I’m going to be the only one who sees the steering wheel badge anyway.

Finance stuff

CarMax’s offer on my LEAF was $5600, compared to the $5500 that Nissan offered, and since I was using the money as part of a trade-in I also got a credit off the sales tax, making it an even better deal… sort of. If I hadn’t done the trade-in for it, then I’d have gotten a sales tax credit for it being a used EV, instead. I think I still came out ahead though.

Theoretically I’m also getting a federal tax credit thanks to the used clean vehicle credit, to the tune of $4000. In theory. In practice I’ll probably get way less because I’m not expecting to make a lot of income this year and I’ll also probably have a carryover credit from my solar panels.

The insurance on my LEAF was $550 per 6 months, or $1100 per year. The insurance on the Niro, however, is $277 per 6 months, or $554 per year, for an annual savings of $546.

On the other hand, my registration is now more expensive, due to the higher RTA tax; the LEAF’s was $204, whereas the Niro’s is $484, so that’s $280 more. But that’s still more than made up for by the lower insurance.

The more yikes-tastic thing is just how much money I lost on the LEAF. I bought the LEAF exactly 2 years ago and it cost me around $21,000, and even with the sales tax credit I basically only got $6200 back for it. I also had to pay a bunch of money to get a couple of dumb things fixed on it. So that means the LEAF basically cost me $620/month.

On the other hand, I think the 2019 Niro EV would have lost much more value over the same period; it looks like in January 2022 this exact one would have gone for around $39K, and given that my purchase price was $20K, my resale price over the same time period would have meant at least as much of a depreciation per month. But the Niro continues to be a much much better car over the same time period.

It’s hard to second-guess history here though. I can’t imagine that I’d have been willing to pay $39K for a car back then, and I went with the LEAF specifically because it was pretty much a straight-across trade for the Mazda3. I’d have definitely been better off by sticking with the Mazda3 and then trading it for a Niro now, but I also didn’t know nearly as much about EVs back then, and if I had waited until today I’d have probably still thought that the LEAF would have been a good choice.

Oh, also, I ended up buying the Carmax extended warranty, due to some warnings I got from existing Niro owners about some potential things to watch out for. $2000 for 5 years of peace of mind was worth it to me, given the prevalence of the 2019 Niro EV’s reduction bearing failure, especially with how many random stupid expensive repairs I needed on the LEAF. And even with the extended warranty, this Niro still cost way less than a lower-mileage one which still wouldn’t have had its manufacturer’s warranty.

So yeah, I think this was a reasonably okay sequence of events to happen.

Also, this is by far the most comfortable car I’ve ever driven. I’m happy with my purchase so far.