3 ms·

As an aside: My 2019 gas Kona is a wickedly precise car to drive... just amazing really.

gnicholas 7y ago
Glad to hear it! I think they look great. Out of curiosity, will this one incident at all change how you charge, park, or otherwise treat your vehicle? I have a plug-in hybrid and would certainly take precautions if this story had been about the model I have.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > Out of curiosity, will this one incident at all change how you charge, park, or otherwise treat your vehicle? I don't park in my garage, but I do back it close to the garage due the neighborhood kids playing street hockey; however as it is gas powered, I really don't feel it is an issue.
  - gnicholas 7y ago
    ah — missed the part about being gas-powered. Definitely not an issue there!
    - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
      Because gas powered cars never explode?
      - RaceWon 7y ago
        > Because gas powered cars never explode? Well yeah they do, and people get hit by lightening, and yet I still walk in the rain. Not to mention the article is about an EV Kona... so ya know.
martin_a 7y ago
Got mine last week (1.2 liter engine or whatever the small one is :-D) and hope it will serve me well. The first impression is, that it's a well build car, despite the relative low price.
pi-rat 7y ago
Then add instant torque (from a >200hp electric engine), no engine noise, and you got the EV version. It's super responsive in sports mode. And easily does 500 km on a charge on Norwegian roads during summer if you need it to. Build quality and quality control is decent, my impression is that there are way less factory issues compared to Tesla. Only downsides for this car in my book is: - Lacking a bit of room for the back seats if you're transporting grown ups. - Cargo space could be better. - There's a bit of road noise (you notice that when you don't have any engine noise), I've had mine soundproofed to deal with this. - The default summer tires are shitty (they're low consumption though, but noisy.) Replaced mine with Nokian tires. - They could easily have added a frunk in the EV version, there's enough room under the hood. You can DIY this. - Front distance sensors doesn't automatically turn on when driving at low speed. You have to manually activate them or hit reverse first. (US version doesn't come with front sensors I believe). - Lane following assistant will disable itself if you don't touch the wheel for 2 minutes, ACC however will stay on. The correct safe way to do this would be to keep LFA on, but set ACC to 0. Stay in the lane, but slow to a stand still.
- RaceWon 7y ago
  > Then add instant torque... Sure I can appreciate that, but I like engine noise, and as a racer I'm More than just used to it--I interpret it into adhesion to name just one aspect of precision driving. Yep no real cargo room, I stored a lot of items down by the spare. No heated side mirrors--I got the base, but still that's really shitty on their part. Also I would NOT EVER have bought the car if I couldn't disable ALL of the driver assists: lane keeping, Forward collision and traction control--it takes a few seconds but I can't say it will ever irritate me. I did drive with traction control on until the 600 mile break in mark so as not to overrev while trying to catch the car IF that were to happen, which it never did. Now though all three are off all time--And always will be ;)

Glad to hear it! I think they look great. Out of curiosity, will this one incident at all change how you charge, park, or otherwise treat your vehicle? I have a plug-in hybrid and would certainly take precautions if this story had been about the model I have.

RaceWon 7y ago
> Out of curiosity, will this one incident at all change how you charge, park, or otherwise treat your vehicle? I don't park in my garage, but I do back it close to the garage due the neighborhood kids playing street hockey; however as it is gas powered, I really don't feel it is an issue.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  ah — missed the part about being gas-powered. Definitely not an issue there!
  - SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
    Because gas powered cars never explode?
    - RaceWon 7y ago
      > Because gas powered cars never explode? Well yeah they do, and people get hit by lightening, and yet I still walk in the rain. Not to mention the article is about an EV Kona... so ya know.

martin_a 7y ago

Got mine last week (1.2 liter engine or whatever the small one is :-D) and hope it will serve me well. The first impression is, that it's a well build car, despite the relative low price.

pi-rat 7y ago

Then add instant torque (from a >200hp electric engine), no engine noise, and you got the EV version. It's super responsive in sports mode. And easily does 500 km on a charge on Norwegian roads during summer if you need it to. Build quality and quality control is decent, my impression is that there are way less factory issues compared to Tesla. Only downsides for this car in my book is: - Lacking a bit of room for the back seats if you're transporting grown ups. - Cargo space could be better. - There's a bit of road noise (you notice that when you don't have any engine noise), I've had mine soundproofed to deal with this. - The default summer tires are shitty (they're low consumption though, but noisy.) Replaced mine with Nokian tires. - They could easily have added a frunk in the EV version, there's enough room under the hood. You can DIY this. - Front distance sensors doesn't automatically turn on when driving at low speed. You have to manually activate them or hit reverse first. (US version doesn't come with front sensors I believe). - Lane following assistant will disable itself if you don't touch the wheel for 2 minutes, ACC however will stay on. The correct safe way to do this would be to keep LFA on, but set ACC to 0. Stay in the lane, but slow to a stand still.

RaceWon 7y ago
> Then add instant torque... Sure I can appreciate that, but I like engine noise, and as a racer I'm More than just used to it--I interpret it into adhesion to name just one aspect of precision driving. Yep no real cargo room, I stored a lot of items down by the spare. No heated side mirrors--I got the base, but still that's really shitty on their part. Also I would NOT EVER have bought the car if I couldn't disable ALL of the driver assists: lane keeping, Forward collision and traction control--it takes a few seconds but I can't say it will ever irritate me. I did drive with traction control on until the 600 mile break in mark so as not to overrev while trying to catch the car IF that were to happen, which it never did. Now though all three are off all time--And always will be ;)