4 weeks in

I’ve just seen this pop up – we ordered an ST-Line Puma last month. Delivery estimate so far is September! 🙁 Paid extra for the adaptive cruise control (which will have the blind spot checking) and the automatic gearbox version – after driving auto for the last 5 years, I don’t think I’d go back to a manual. We were going for the Titanium, but it worked out cheaper to get the ST-Line based on the PCP payments. Benefit of that as well is we get fully LCD drivers display, so means going to Ireland is a doddle as we can covert the dashboard to KM and kph.

We needed something bigger now we’ve a little one so we test drove this and a Yaris Cross. Wife preferred the Puma and I must admit the boot space won me over.

It’ll be a lower MPG than our existing Yaris, but the bigger boot space will offset that and we shouldn’t need to use a roof box for travels across country to Devon or Ireland to visit grandparents, again probably saving us MPG drops on that distance.

If we didn’t have those long drives, we’d have gone fully electric, but the Irish charging network is worse than here.

Drezha, with a little one I’m surprised that you did not need a furniture van!

I guess modern buggies take a lot less space than the old prams/push chairs, and even less if you just opt for body slings.

Segueing back to cars, we decided that for our new (probably ultimate) car that we would go fully electric and opted for the Kia e-Niro.  Given the current prices for petrol and diesel I feel that we lucked out, even more so as we can charge it up from our solar panels. The wife loves the car, even more than she did with our old Toyota hybrid. She is in the petite size range and often has problems with front and side visibility in the cars we drive, but the Kia’s seat adjustment has totally fixed that issue.

We now have three grandchildren who are all school age, so we can get away with relatively little boot space even if we are taking them all off somewhere.

The range quoted for a 64Kwh battery is around 230 miles (warm weather, not threshing it) This equates to around 3.5 miles/Kwh, a figure that experience shows to be fairly accurate, however battery performance is reduced in cold weather and goes downhill fast when the car heaters are used. (Apparently better to use seat warmers as this is more efficient, but kids tend to complain a bit).

The high torque of an electric motor means acceleration is extremely good, not quite up to hybrid acceleration, but more than acceptable. Braking can be a fearsome experience when both motor and discs cut in – give such cars plenty of braking space if behind them as their ability to stop on a pin may give you a shock!

The only real downside for us is range worry. Going away further than 100 miles means looking for hotels or venues that have chargers – preferably a high speed one. It also means planning to take breaks en-route where there are chargers we can use during the break.

I guess all this will improve with time as the numbers of electric cars increases, but it is going to make motorway recharging an interesting logistical exercise.

The Yaris has lived in Eco since we bought it! I was impressed with the manual that we test drove, but for longer drives, I’ve found automatic more comfortable. I was surprised at how the car seemed to perform with the small engine – my old Fiesta was a 1L and was sluggish, this felt faster than the larger Toyota Cross engine.

She’s on a buggy now, rather than pram and the one we have will fold down to fit to a airline overheard baggage holder, so that’s not really an issue – it fits in the rear seat footwell of the Yaris. But now the bikes and other items start appearing…. Plus side, the Megabox appears to be an ideal size for my Brompton! 😀

The Niro was something that we considered but didn’t go to look at in the end as we felt it looked to big.

The 1.0L Ford EcoBoost Hybrid (mHEV) 125PS 7 Speed Automatic version – Automatic was limited to just the single engine type.

Driver assistance packs can be both useful AND irritating. My wife likes all the bells and whistles turned on which can make the Kia a medley of sound whilst driving. Unfortunately not all the bells and whistles are intelligent. For example, the ‘lane wandering bong’ happens even if I have signaled and I am moving into the right hand lane. Frankly I find it b-annoying that the programmers did not think to turn off warnings whilst the indicators are being used.

My mental reaction is always one of irritation,  ‘I KNOW I’m lane crossing – I bleeding well meant to do so!’

Even if your car meets the low emissions numbers, you could still have a congestion charge hanging over you if you go through central London.

check here to see what applies.

PlaneMan wrote:

Okay. Forgot about the automatic limitation. I’m aware that the specs have changed a bit since I got mine, did you get the full driver assistance pack?

We did, as this brought in the adaptive cruise control (ACC). My two requirements for the car were CarPlay and ACC, as these are the two features I really missed when we had to hand my company car back and we got our Yaris. Sounds odd with the CarPlay but the larger screen for sat nav is good and I’ve never successfully used the hands free in the Yaris, so I don’t do anything in the car. ACC was a godsend for driving long distances in my Golf, so wanted that. The auto stop/start for traffic jams is amazing.

Lane assist is disabled in the Yaris – it does disable itself if you’re indicating, but the number of times it goes off normally made me turn it off.

Wife wanted parking sensors, front and rear, and this comes with that. Toyota wanted £3K more to have the front sensors, pulling the cost up to over £28,000, which is why that one was discounted from the running!