- Three electric subcompact hatchbacks go on a 330-mile road trip.
- The Kia EV3, Skoda Elroq and Mini Aceman SE go head to head.
- One of these EVs stands out for the wrong reasons.
Everyone is waiting for electric cars to become cheaper and have longer driving ranges. But the truth is, they’re already here–you just have to know where to look.
The Kia EV3 is one of those cars. As are the Skoda Elroq and Mini Aceman. They’re all part of the subcompact crossover segment, one of the most crowded markets where names like the Volvo EX30 and Toyota Urban Cruiser also want to make names for themselves.
And while neither of these are currently available in the United States, the Kia EV3 will likely come stateside soon. But how does it compare to some of its main competitors in Europe? Rather well, as the good people from What Car found out.
You can watch their United Kingdom-to-Belgium road trip video embedded below, but I’ll give you a quick summary here.
The Kia EV3 has the longest official range rating when compared to the Skoda Elroq and Mini Aceman–367 miles on the WLTP testing procedure. Meanwhile, the Elroq’s maximum rated range is 360 miles and the Mini Aceman SE’s is 251 miles.
The Aceman is also the smallest of the group in terms of size, while the Elroq is the largest. When it comes to pricing, they all start under $35,000 in the UK, but it’s a different story once you reach for the top trims where the price tags can reach $45,000.
Both the Kia EV3 and the Skoda Elroq were comfortable on the rather lousy British motorways at the beginning of the trip. All the cars left with a full battery and after about 100 miles into the journey, the Elroq had 190 miles left and the EV3 estimated it had 165 miles left. However, things were noticeably worse in the Mini. The reviewer said that the car wasn’t particularly comfortable on bumpy roads and, to make matters worse, the indicated range left was just 88 miles.
Things went from bad to worse after hitting the French highways, which have a higher speed limit of 80 mph compared to the 70 mph limit in the UK. Here, the Mini needed a top-up along the way, whereas the Kia and the Skoda reached the destination with range to spare.
Comfort-wise, the Kia EV3 is the most comfortable out of the group, followed by the Skoda Elroq and the Mini Aceman, according to What Car. In terms of rear passenger space, the Skoda is the most generous, followed by the Kia and the Mini.
In the end, the efficiency figures were as follows: The Kia EV3 with the big battery pack used 115.8 kWh of energy over 330 miles and averaged 3.1 miles/kWh. It needed two charging stops, both made at Tesla Superchargers, which in Europe have CCS2 plugs. The Skoda Elroq averaged 3.3 miles/kWh, as indicated by the trip computer.
The Mini Aceman SE reported an average efficiency of 3.5 miles/kWh, so the best of the group, but it needed three charging stops and the total charging cost was higher than the other two.
