2023 Kia Niro HEV S review

The Kia Niro is an undeniably confusing car. A brief look at a Seltos makes you wonder if they aren’t exactly the same car (they’re not) but in a way, they are.

Except the Niro is far more expensive, comes only in hybrid and electric versions and doesn’t seem to make any sense.

Why isn’t there an electric or hybrid Seltos? It’s more a case of why is there an electric and hybrid (and plug-in hybrid) Niro? The second question is easier to answer – the Niro is all about electrification and has been since its inception (this being the more attractive second-generation model).

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Australia doesn’t get the PHEV anymore, which is kind of ironic given the recent uptick of that kind of car in local showrooms.

The electric Niro is quite a good car and despite a small question mark over its price and spec, it’s thoroughly recommendable if inversely attainable due to production constraints. The hybrid makes a lot of sense for Australia given its love of Toyota hybrids.

However, the cheapest one is $44,380 before on-road costs and not nearly as well equipped as an equivalent Corolla Cross. So what’s going on here?

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JUMP AHEAD

• How much is it, and what do you get?
• How do rivals compare on value?
• Interior comfort, space and storage
• What is it like to drive?
• How much fuel does it use?
• How safe is it?
• Warranty and running costs
• VERDICT
• Specifications

How much is it, and what do you get?

At $44,380, you’re going up against the GT-Line version of the Niro’s Seltos stablemate and that is a mighty fine car with its new engine and transmission.

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Look, I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’s not a lot of stuff for a mid-$40K car. The safety features do go some way to improving its pricing position but hot damn, the GT-Line does look like better value even though it’s over $50,000. The spec just feels more in line with its price.

Part of the reason it doesn’t work at this price I’ll explain below, but you sit in it and look at an 8.0-inch screen swimming in a slab of grey plastic and you think, “This doesn’t feel like the money I’m spending.” It looks the business on the outside but it doesn’t deliver on the inside. And Kia has this habit of supplying wireless CarPlay and Android Auto without the wireless charger.

Also, halogen headlights are just stingy at this price point.

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How do rivals compare on value?

Twelve months ago the Niro’s price and spec would have looked okay, but the new Honda HR-V hybrid and Toyota Corolla Cross now exist.

While neither are incredible designs or packed to the rafters with features, they feel like better value than the Niro. The Niro is slightly quicker than the Honda and – I think – more fun to drive while being slightly cheaper, but the interior of the HR-V is really very nice indeed, which is probably where a lot of buyers will lean.

Toyota’s Corolla Cross GXL eFour is not only cheaper, but it’s also better equipped, is warm-hatch quick and rides exceptionally well on its multi-link rear end. And both of these rivals are much cheaper to service.

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Interior comfort, space and storage

The Niro is slightly smaller than the Seltos in nearly every direction and that plays out most obviously in the cabin.

Its front seats are great, though. Very comfortable and adjustable but only the driver gets electrification; the passenger has to row their own. The aforementioned slab-of-plastic dash is a bit of a shame because the touchscreen doesn’t fill it properly, so it looks cheap. The digital dash doesn’t really do much to justify being included, but it’s useful enough.

The T-bar auto and single-spoke steering wheel are hilariously retro but somehow work with the design of the interior, then trip up again because they’re plastic and not that nice to hold for very long. The whole car is like this, raising your hopes and then dashing them.

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You get a pair of cup holders up front, USB ports (A and C) in the centre console and bottle holders in the doors.

Moving to the rear, legroom and headroom is acceptable but not lavish. The lack of cup holders is a bit suspect – but, to be fair, not just a Kia habit in this segment – and the bottle holders in the doors are in name only as they’re quite slim. But it’s fairly comfortable and there’s plenty of glass to look through to the outside world.

The real drag of the Niro’s interior is that it looks really good – cool, even – but there’s a lot of scratchy plastic. And it’s very grey, a complaint I often level at Mazdas.

Its boot is a pretty reasonable 425 litres, which is among the best in the segment.

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What is it like to drive?

The first time I drove the Niro, I thought it was alright. I’d nabbed it on a group test and drove it from our rendezvous up the Bells Line of Road in the Blue Mountains.

In itself, that is a nice drive in just about anything and I thought the Niro was good. I maintain that much of it is good on this second chance to appreciate its charms. The hybrid powertrain is smooth and predictable. It’s constructed from a bunch of various bits from the Hyundai-Kia firmament, many of them familiar, including the 77kW/144Nm 1.6-litre petrol engine and the six-speed dual-clutch transmission.

Neither of those elements is particularly inspiring and the six-speed in particular is not my favourite of the genre. But as with some of its competitors, when you whack in an electric motor with a small battery, everything smooths out and makes the whole more convincing than the parts.

The engine is still on the vocal side when revved, but that doesn’t happen very often with the torque fill you get from the electric motor. You can play the “How far can I get in EV mode?” game in the Niro which makes heavy traffic quite bearable and keeps the concentration up. It’s not as good as the updated system in the Corolla Cross, but it’s a close second.

Around town, the Niro is really comfortable and an easy place to be. It gets going on electrons and the engine slides in when required without fuss.

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The ride is very much tuned towards comfort rather than speed, so it’s excellent across all but the worst Sydney roads can throw at you. A big bump will result in some noise in the cabin, but nothing dramatic.

As speeds rise the cabin remains fairly quiet. While off-the-mark performance won’t rattle your teeth, it’s pretty good for overtaking. The Niro performs really well in the gears, extracting more performance than you might expect from its lower-down lethargy. As a result, the claimed 0-100km/h figure of 10.4 seconds is a little pessimistic based on my seat-of-the-pants assessment.

In Eco mode, you can use the paddle-shifters to up the amount of regeneration you get when you lift off, but it’s not that strong even at its highest level, so no one-pedal driving for you.

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How is it on fuel?

Where the Niro really stands out is in fuel economy. Like its BEV brother, it’s remarkably efficient, coming quite close to the figures Kia managed in its ADR testing.

My week with the Niro was heavily biased towards suburban running and I still got a 4.5L/100km indicated result. This holds up well against the testing we did at the pump in the four-way megatest last year, during which the Niro was driven rather more enthusiastically with a 4.8L/100km result at the pump, which incidentally matched the trip computer.

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How safe is it?

The Niro scored a five-star ANCAP safety rating in 2022, which is much easier said than done these days.

The airbag count includes a front-centre airbag to help prevent head clashes in a side impact as well as a driver’s knee airbag. The forward auto emergency braking tech features pedestrian and cyclist detection and the only thing really missing is reverse AEB.

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Warranty and running costs

Kia offers a seven-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty with roadside assistance for the duration thrown into the bargain.

Servicing comes every 12 months or 15,000km which is, hmm, okay but what isn’t is the cost of the seven services included in the capped-price program. You’ll be paying a gnat’s butt off $4000 over the seven years, with one service demanding over a thousand dollars.

That’s Euro performance car money for a service and I’m not sure the Niro is quite good or complex enough to demand that kind of cost. I mean, you know it’s there so no surprises but that puts a solid obstacle in the way of a cost-of-ownership argument.

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VERDICT

The Kia Niro EV is a very likeable car. It does everything it’s supposed to do as a hybrid, which is to deliver excellent fuel economy while not sacrificing usability.

Problem is, this entry-level car isn’t nearly as convincing as the fully electric one and it’s hard to justify the price when viewed next to its immediate competitors.

The interior looks great but misses out on features and some of the materials are so-so. The servicing is really expensive and makes a huge dent in the total cost-of-ownership calculations.

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It’s rare that I will suggest you go up to the top-spec version of a car but in this case, the Niro GT-Line does seem to be a better deal. But there are better Kias and better hybrids than the Niro, which is a real shame because the purchase of a hybrid is generally ruled by the head.

And I don’t think the head will win this one.

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