Watch The Kia EV2 Take On A Brutal Winter Range Test And Win

• This is how the Kia EV2 was able to go nearly 200 miles on one charge, driving normally in frozen Norway.
• The car was a prototype with the 61-kWh long-range battery rated at 256 miles, so it lost less than 25% of its claimed range.
• This video shows that it still had 1% in the battery and almost 10 miles of predicted range left when it stopped.

The Kia EV2 is the latest and smallest model to join the Korean automaker’s electric lineup. Even if it’s small, it still promises to deliver across all key areas where EVs are expected to perform well today, including maintaining as much of their range as possible in cold conditions.

One of the most brutal range tests is conducted each year by the Norwegian Automotive Federation (NAF), which pits new EVs against the cold. One of the unofficial participants in the most recent edition of the test was a Kia EV2 prototype with the long-range 61-kilowatt-hour battery, which had the lowest range loss relative to its total claimed range of any car tested.

It covered 193 miles (310.6 km) with temperatures never going above 17.6°F (-8°C), so it lost less than 25% of its claimed 256-mile (413 km) range. While we previously covered the result itself, Everything Electric Cars takes us along for the ride with a video documenting how the car performed and how it all went down until the car silently stopped with no more power left to give.

It highlights details such as not being allowed to use the car’s Eco mode, driving it normally without applying hypermiling techniques and keeping the cabin nice and toasty (at 70°F/21°C) using the car’s climate system. All the cars in the test are driven normally at the speed limit, although they are driven on B-roads, not highways, where they stick to the lower speed limit.

One interesting detail we learned after watching the video is that the EV2 that took part in the test didn’t hit 0% state of charge when it stopped. It still had 1% in the battery and an indicated range prediction of 9.3 miles (15 km). This is likely because the car is still an unfinished prototype, and the range prediction is inaccurate.

With an average efficiency of approximately 3.45 miles/kWh (18 kWh/100 km), the EV2 delivered remarkable performance in the test. Efficiency was even better before temperatures fell below 5°F (-15°C), when the battery thermal management likely kicked into overdrive to keep the battery at an optimal temperature, at the expense of additional energy.

Covering nearly 200 miles in the freezing cold in a small EV designed primarily for city driving is still a remarkable result. It shows just how far these electric cars have come and how usable and pretty much compromise-free they’ve become.

If a car like the EV2 can keep going for as long as it did in the harsh Norwegian winter, it should provide peace of mind for potential owners considering one in other cold-climate countries.