Kia Niro EV outscores all other mass-market EVs in JDPower's Electric Vehicle Experience Study

The Kia Niro EV just topped the ranks of JDPower’s 2022 Electric Vehicle Experience study as the highest rated mass market EV for the second year in a row. What might that indicate for Kia and Niro sales in comparison to its competitors, especially with the updated 2023 Niro soon going on sale?

First, how did the scores break down in the JDPower Electric Vehicle Experience (EVX) study? There are two segments, premium and mass market. The Kia Niro EV falls into the mass market segment. I’ll point out here that the Tesla Model 3 had the highest overall score, but is in the premium segment.

Next, the study measures electric vehicle owner satisfaction via 10 factors: accuracy of stated battery range, availability of public charging stations, battery range, cost of ownership, driving enjoyment, ease of charging at home, interior and exterior styling, safety and technology features, service experience, and vehicle quality and reliability. The study further breaks down some scores by whether owners are new to EVs or veteran owners which provides for some interesting comparisons, with veteran owners having a slightly higher overall satisfaction scores than those who are new to EVs. Information like this may be useful to manufacturers and dealers as they prepare their marketing pieces for the year and may offer guidance as to where and how to target their placement or outreach.

Generally speaking though, this is great news for Kia and the Niro models sales prospects for 2022. Buyers are already lining up for the Niro EV, perhaps all the more so due the lack of availability of certain key competitors (looking at you GM and your ongoing Chevy Bolt battery recall and stop sale). With Kia bringing out a restyled, larger, more efficient and more aggressively styled Niro line of vehicles for the 2023 model year, and the other awards Kia has won recently for its EV6, Kia shouldn’t have a difficult time selling every single EV, PHEV, and HEV they can make in 2022. This includes the Sorento PHEV and the new HEV Sportage too.

Speaking of how many EVs Kia is going to sell in the U.S., in a recent article I estimated that Kia might sell up to 60k EV6’s this year, depending. So how many Niro EV’s might Kia sell? Kia sold 8,717 Niro EVs in the U.S. in 2021, according to InsideEVs and a total of 26,192 Niros of all three types (EV, PHEV, and HEV) combined according to Kia. For 2021, it was Kia’s HEV Niro that captured the most sales of the three, likely selling about as many as the other two versions combined. 2022 will probably see a similar breakdown for Niro sales simply due to the lower price point for the HEV version and the lower availability of plug-in versions due to limited battery supply, globally. However, I predict that the Niro EV, and possibly the PHEV versions, should also see a healthy bump in sales due to the redesign, increased production, and as mentioned above the continued lack of competing product from the previous leader in the mass market EV segment, GM with their Bolt. I find it particularly difficult to estimate what the Niro’s combined sales might be for the U.S. in 2022 because the price points for the three models span such a broad range and due to the complex mix of factors in U.S. consumer habits and features included in each Niro. But just for fun, so I can look back quarterly to see how close I was, I’ll predict between 40,000 - 60,000 Niro sales, all models combined, for 2022. This seems like a reasonable growth range for Kia to achieve, but it all depends of course. Good luck Kia and let me know what you think in the comments section.

Images provided by Kia.

Justin Hart has owned and driven electric vehicles for over 14 years, including a first generation Nissan LEAF, second generation Chevy Volt, Tesla Model 3, an electric bicycle and most recently a Kia Sorento PHEV. He is also an avid SUP rider, poet, photographer and wine lover. He enjoys taking long EV and PHEV road trips to beautiful and serene places with the people he loves. Follow Justin on Twitter for daily KIA EV news coverage.