Kia Soul EV vs Renault 5

The Kia Soul EV costs £14,300 more than the Renault 5. For that premium it adds 89 miles more WLTP range and 60 kW more power. On EVcarsguide's combined category scores, the Renault 5 comes out ahead overall.

The Renault 5 is £14,300 cheaper to buy. Running costs are almost identical - about £144 a year either way, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the Renault 5 comes out roughly £14,380 cheaper overall. These figures cover list price and home charging only - insurance, servicing, tyres and depreciation will move the real total.

EVcarsguide estimates a real-world motorway range of about 234 miles for the Kia Soul EV and 160 miles for the Renault 5 - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Kia Soul EV goes roughly 75 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 47 minutes in the Kia Soul EV and 31 in the Renault 5, so the Renault 5 loses less time at each stop. So the Kia Soul EV stops less often while the Renault 5 stops for less time - pick on which you would rather do.

The two are within 8 mm on width, so neither is meaningfully easier to thread into a tight space. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 600 mm of total clearance for the Kia Soul EV and about 592 mm of total clearance for the Renault 5.

Over a 8-year ownership window EVcarsguide's degradation model projects roughly 84% battery health for the Kia Soul EV and 84% for the Renault 5. That is close enough that capacity loss should not decide between them. Both use NMC-type cells, so for daily use keep the charge limit near 80% to slow degradation. The Renault 5 has the longer battery warranty at 8 years, versus 7 for the Kia Soul EV.