Kia launches the 2025 Ray EV starting under $21,000
Kia launches the 2025 Ray EV starting under $21,000
Kia officially launched the 2025 Ray EV in Korea with the same low starting price of under $21,000. However, the...
Kia officially launched the 2025 Ray EV in Korea with the same low starting price of under $21,000. However, the new model year gains additional features. With incentives, the entry-level electric car can be bought for as little as $15,000 (20 million won).
The “New Kia Ray” was reborn as an entry-level EV last year. After opening pre-orders last August, starting at around $20,500 (27.35 million won), the Kia Ray EV secured over 6,000 reservations in less than a month.
120ish miles range is more than enough for majority of us drivers despite what people think. Yes long trip will require recharge (which will be quick with tiny battery) or a second car.
This is the near term EV future we should strive for vs expensive, heavy, and environmentally painful 300+ mi SUV and truck.
Alternative is PHEV+range extender like that byd truck
As someone who drove an original fiat 500e with a similar range, I can assure you this is not enough battery for anywhere but the market it’s designed for (South Korea). You will eat through that “best estimate” of 120 miles in a day’s worth of driving, especially with additional passengers and the AC running.
The average US daily drive is less than 40 miles. Accounting for outliers and a margin, let's conservatively say 60 miles. That's still probably more than most average commutes.
That's half the best case rated mileage, which is for sure more than the "realistic" mileage with a full vehicle and A/C running. There's no way that would reduce it by half, even from the best case rating.
It's fine for some. I've been driving my Leaf with 90 miles range for eight years and haven't needed more. It's a daily commuter car.
But I'm lucky enough to have two cars in the family.
It was found recently that most trips were less than three miles, with only 2% of all trips made are more than 50 miles.
That number is a little misleading as it counts every stop as a "new trip." I could leave my house and drive 60 miles, stopping every 10 minutes, and they'd count that as 20 trips of 3 miles or less. Meanwhile a car with a 120 mile range probably wouldn't have enough juice to make it back home depending on how far away my last stop is from the house.
Multiple stays of longer than 10 minutes before returning home were counted as multiple trips
That's because people leave their house an insane number of times to go buy one thing at the store and come back. I swear my neighbors leave the house and come home again 10-15 times per day.
Obviously people often don't drive very far for work or shopping, but many do maybe every weekend or once or twice per month take a longer trip to visit family or for leisure.
The car needs to be able to handle that, without being a huge pain to have to charge all the time.The idea that 90% of trips are short is a moronic argument for selling EV with small batteries, unless people have multiple cars, which most people don't unless they need to, and even then short range can be a problem, because dependency on the cars, means that both cars need to be able to fulfill the required tasks.
Edit:
Funny how this is downvoted, when mostly everybody agree the FIAT 500 sell badly because it has too little range for the price.
Even if only a few percent are short trips, it's a pain to have to charge multiple times on a single trip occasionally, like once per week.
This is the near term EV future we should strive for vs expensive, heavy, and environmentally painful 300+ mi SUV and truck.
Even for the 300+mi vehicles we should be striving for sedans and wagons, not SUVs and trucks. Less weight and height means a better combination of handling and ride quality. There's a good reason Mercedes charges you more for the S-Class sedan than the bigger, heavier GLS-Class SUV. The former is optimized for luxury, the latter they market as the "S-Class of SUVs", but really, it's optimized for size. This is despite the fact that usually there's a "SUV tax". SUVs just cost more than their equivalent sedans and wagons.
@lurker8008 @MyOpinion a lot of people have 2 cars so there is definitely scope for a smaller vehicle for around town.
(which will be quick with tiny battery) <
This is where you're wrong.
Charging is not linear. EV's battery only fast charging to about 80%, after that it would halt to a crawl. It would take way less time to charge a 60kWh battery from 20% to 70% (50% = 30kWh) than it would take to charge a 30kWh battery from 0% to 100%.
That's not enough to make it to the next major city over in some parts of the US ; sure for a daily driver commute vehicle with a charger at each end that's great, but if you have to leave for any reason (such as say, a natural disaster like a hurricane that just hit), you're fucked. Having to own multiple vehicles isn't a solution, or an option for many.
@lurker8008 @MyOpinion Mazda offers a series hybrid PHEV+range extender just not ever in Canada. I had a hard time sourcing new winter tires for my Fit because there is no Canadian market for small tires anymore.
Old used truck and a BEV is just great.
Please bring to North America
"We hear you! Here is another hideous SUV with absolutely awful, wildly inefficient energy-to-range figures. Enjoy!"
It's made exclusively for the SK market.
It also likely wouldn't pass US safety ratings because it's lightweight and tiny.
The headline should specify Korea. I mean, I know it was too good to be true I guess.
Neat, how long till we find out they did something insane like all use the same key or are all running a web server that allows access to the gas and brakes directly without authentication?
Edit: to be clear, no issue with the goal of more electric vehicles. But Kia is having some real deep seated quality issues the last... 13 years according to my insurance agent. They won't even touch a Kia without factory installed push button ignition since 2011. Then there's the whole "we're leaking all your data and access to your car thing"
I'm still too broke for that. Can I just steal one with a stick with the end shaved to be approximately the same dimensions as a usb A connector?
You're a bit late to party
No, no no. They fixed opting not to put a cheap anti theft device in a decade of cars by "updating software" and installing "dont steal this" window stickers. Some lucky devils that couldn't get software got a new metal ring in their steering column, and then a sticker. You could even go to your local police department in some locations and get a free, ridiculously useless steering wheel lock, if you heard about it. Mail them to customers? Nah, that might cost money.
Dont worry, they only did this in the US. Every other nation has laws about having an immobilizer in cars, but not the good ol' USA. Kia even had them in the same models sold elsewhere, just not the US models.
It only affected about 1 million people so far though, who have at best had to go in and have a half ass fix applied at a dealership while being upsold. That just leaves 7 million unprotected cars out there.
At worst, whats a few thousand stolen cars and even more shattered windows among friends? Surely no fine or penalty should occur.
Ohh, also, the software update doesn't seem to be working.
Oh Christ why is it so ugly
I thought the box-shaped car fad died out 10 years ago
Not in Asia. Still very trendy in a lot of countries here. Might be ugly outside, but it sure optimizes size and comfort inside.
For that reason I'm annoyed at large SUVs losing their boxiness in recent years. Like, I get it for sedans and stuff, but if I'm driving a big SUV my main concern is utility (you know, the U in SUV) and a curved back side makes it that much harder to fit my grandma's kitchen table in the back when I give it to my cousin.
It's literally a miniature Kia Soul which is hilarious. I don't think it looks that bad and the boxy design is quite functional.
Utility never goes out of style
Functionality. Based on the built in bed in the picture I'd say they have a head start on the market.
Kia saves money by not having any designers in the company, they just steal other car shapes from years ago
That top picture made me think it was a camper bus (like EV.Buzz) but at a fraction of the price.
But, alas...
Nice design, but only goes about 100 miles to the charge. That’s unacceptable in today’s market. It will go even fewer miles with additional passengers and the air conditioning turned on. I’d imagine they put a small battery in it to hit that lower price point.
It's for the Korean market. It'll get you from Seoul to the east coast on a single charge and there's high-speed rail just about everywhere for your longer journeys. Perfectly fine for most people in such a small, densely-populated country.
why are stupid looking cars so fashionable now?
What's so dumb about a electric 'panel van' looking thing?
Got passed by a Toyota xD van today and was thinking about how well these would sell in the US with a decent battery in them. The rectangular design means you could double stack the battery capacity underneath the floorboard space.
It's not like it's a motherfucking Honda Odyssey.