Kia Soul EV vs Renault Scenic

The Renault Scenic is £300 cheaper to buy. Running costs are almost identical - about £160 a year either way, at 8,000 miles on an off-peak home tariff. Add 5 years of charging and the two land within £180 of each other - effectively the same to own. 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 274 miles for the Renault Scenic - both below their WLTP figures, because sustained high speed is the hardest case for an EV. The Renault Scenic goes roughly 40 miles further between charging stops. A rapid charge to 80% takes around 47 minutes in the Kia Soul EV and 37 in the Renault Scenic, so the Renault Scenic loses less time at each stop. That makes the Renault Scenic the stronger long-distance car.

The Kia Soul EV is the easier car for tight UK car parks: it is 64 mm narrower than the Renault Scenic. In a standard 2,400 mm bay that leaves about 600 mm of total clearance for the Kia Soul EV and about 536 mm of total clearance for the Renault Scenic. The Kia Soul EV also turns in a 0.3 m tighter circle, which helps with U-turns and multi-storey ramps.

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 Scenic. 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 Scenic has the longer battery warranty at 8 years, versus 7 for the Kia Soul EV.