Hyundai says the Kona Electric will do more than 630 miles per charge, but there’s a catch
by Ciprian Florea, onThe Hyundai Kona Electric is capable of running for more than 630 miles on a single charge. This is the result of a trial that Hyundai conducted at the Lausitzring track in Germany. The test included three Kona Electric crossovers that traveled 633, 636, and 637 miles without having their batteries recharged. The result exceeded Hyundai’s goal of running the cars for 1,000 km (620 miles).
The test lasted almost 35 hours and included two driver teams from Hyundai and one from AutoBlid. All three cars were stock, but their air conditioning units and entertainment systems were switched off. The daytime running lights, on the other hand, were left on in order to comply with traffic rules.
But before you rush to the closest Hyundai dealerships to buy a car with such an impressive range, you need to know that the cars were driven with average speeds between 18 and 19 mph.
According to Hyundai, these speeds reflect the typical city traffic speeds in Europe, including areas where the maximum speed limit is 30 km/h (about 19 mph).
In short, this is the kind of range you won't be able to reach in real-world driving conditions that involve highway driving or going through cities that aren't very crowded.
But still, it’s great to know that a modern EV is capable of such a long range, even though it was obtained at very low speeds. In the U.S., the Kona Electric is EPA-rated at 258 miles, which is around 40-percent of the benchmark above.
As of 2020, only a handful of cars are rated at more than 300 miles per single charge. The Tesla Model S Long Range Plus is the only EV that passes the 400-mile mark with an EPA estimate of 402 miles per charge. However, the upcoming Lucid Air could be the first production EV to offer more than 500 miles per charge in real-world driving conditions.
