2019 Hyundai Kona Electric review, road test

The Kona Electric sure looks interesting. But does it have the real-world performance and range to be considered as an alternative to conventional combustion engine cars?

Published on Sep 29, 2019 10:00:00 AM

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2019 Hyundai Kona Electric review, road test

Rear windscreen isn’t very big, which limits the rear visibility.

Sunroof is small but helps bring in some light to make the all-black cabin feel airy.

Legroom and headroom are limited. Under-thigh support isn’t great either.

For its price, the Kona Electric has a small cabin, so let’s talk comfort first. Getting in and out of the front seats isn’t that difficult. You have to drop down onto the seats rather than just sliding onto them, like in some SUVs. Once in the driver’s seat, though, you have good frontal visibility. Rear visibility isn’t that great because of the small rear windscreen. The front seats provide ample under-thigh and side support to keep you in place on corners. The driver’s seat also offers 10-way adjustment with lumbar support, hence finding your perfect driving position is quite easy. Tall drivers might find headroom to be tight, as the sunroof protrudes into the cabin.

Front seats are very supportive and comfortable. The cushioning is on point.

The instrument cluster has a simple layout and is easy to read. There’s loads of useful information like range, battery charge, energy flow and different drive modes. On the left, you also have a real-time drive indicator that shows the amount of battery power being used when accelerating and the amount of energy recovered during regeneration.

The fully digital instrument cluster is very detailed and provides plenty of information.

The horizontal layout of the dashboard is pretty straightforward and doesn’t feel very exciting.
Soft-touch plastics are few and the hard plastics don’t really givea premium feel. Neither do most
of the buttons on the centre console and steering, though they do havea very nice tactile feel to them. The 7.0-inch floating touchscreen in the middle is small but is at a nice height, so you don’t have to tilt your head down too much to operate it. Although the buttons on the sides of the screen may seem like they’re from a very old layout, they make touchscreen operation while driving much easier and safer.

Silver elements on the dashboard do break the monotony, but the design still feels mundane.

There are plenty of storage places to keep your day-to-day stuff – the door pockets are accommodating enough and the glovebox is also of a good size. The centre console has a couple of cupholders, a storage compartment in the armrest, and an enclosed storage space below the AC controls. Since the Kona uses buttons instead of levers to change transmission modes (P, R, N and D) and has an electric parking brake, you get an additional storage spacebelow the console. This space isvery usable and comes with a 12V charging socket as well as a USB charging slot.

Buttons to select transmission modes is convenient while parking.

If you are primarily going to be chauffeur-driven, there’s not much to look forward to in the Kona, as this isn’t a particularly spacious car. In addition, the floor is placed higher due to the position of battery below, resulting in a knees-up seating position. Legroom is sparse for tall passengers and there’s no space to slide your feet below the front seats due to the placement of the rear ventilation ducts underneath. Also, at 332 litres, the boot space is only the size of a hatchback’s.