KIA Soul 2020

Body and cabin

The Kia Soul maintains exactly the same proportions as the preceding generation, along with the slab-sided styling that has always characterized the series. Impossible to mistake this car for anything but a Kia Soul.

All trims have a sporty look, but buyers who want more can add the new GT‑Line package to the two most expensive versions. $600 gets sport bumpers, red trim, roof rails and a flat-bottomed steering wheel… but not the extra power of last year’s turbo engine.

U.S. buyers can still opt for the more powerful powertrain as well as an X‑Line package that adds special wheels and black wheel-well cladding, for a more rugged appearance. According to Kia Canada, the larger American market justifies the offers, which are off limits to Canadian customers.

Only the wheelbase and length increase this year, by 3 and 5.5 cm respectively, with almost no impact on the interior, still surprisingly spacious for a subcompact. The ceiling height accentuates the feeling of space while allowing for a slightly elevated driving position, without compromising headroom. In the back, the nearly flat floor makes the middle seat position palatable on short trips.

The trunk does not seem very large at first glance, but it is high enough to allow you to pile up a good quantity of cargo, and even more so when the new dual-level cargo floor is lowered completely. Meanwhile, the vertical liftgate in no way encroaches on cargo space.

The 60/40‑split seatbacks fold completely level with the trunk floor in the upper position, resulting in as much volume as many compact SUVs.

The Kia Soul’s practicality extends right to the cockpit, which features the impeccable controls customary of Kia and its sister company Hyundai. Always crisp and logical, the “corporative” touch screen measures 17.8 cm (7 inches) in LX, EX and EX+ trims.

Kia Soul EX Premium and EX Limited offer a new, 26‑cm/10.25‑inch screen that can be divided into three sections with multiple configurations. This high-end system includes navigation and lets you plug in two Bluetooth devices at once, so you can listen to music on one and receive urgent calls on the other, for example.

Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and heated front seats are standard on all models; a wireless phone charger and a heated steering wheel appear starting on EX trim. The two priciest models offer an elaborate, sound-reactive mood lighting system that highlights the unique details of the dashboard.

Safety

Kia has significantly upgraded safety for the 2020 Soul. On the one hand, structural reinforcements allow the Soul to maintain its position among the Insurance Institute for Highway’s top safety picks for crashworthiness, in its category.

Driver assistance technology has also been expanded. Rear cross traffic alert now comes with an automatic braking system. Driver attention monitoring, lane centering and automatic high beams make their appearance. Another plus, most active safety features formerly restricted to the top model now extend to the second trim level (EX).

Crash test results

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Overall score: 4 / 5
Frontal impact: 4 / 5
Side impact: 5 / 5
Rollover resistance: 4 / 5

Insurance Institute For Highway Safety (IIHS)
Moderate overlap frontal impact: 4 / 4
Small overlap frontal impact:
- driver side: 4 / 4
- passenger side: 4 / 4
Side impact: 4 / 4
Rear impact: 4 / 4
Roof strength: 4 / 4

IIHS Top Safety Pick

Mechanical overview

The 2020 Kia Soul maintains much of the former generation’s platform, duly reinforced by its manufacturer. Components underneath the vehicle receive minor changes. The rear suspension still uses a torsion bar, less sophisticated than a multilink setup but much less costly to maintain.

The biggest mechanical change is found under the hood, with the manufacturer replacing the three gasoline engine choices offered in 2019 by a single, 2.0‑litre four cylinder that delivers 147 hp at 6,200 rpm, and 132 lb-ft of torque at 4,500 rpm. This engine first appeared on the 2017 Hyundai Elantra and has been used by the Kia Forte for nearly year now.

A closer reading reveals a loss of 14 horsepower and 17 pound-feet of torque, compared to last year. The fault lies with the “new” engine’s Atkinson combustion cycle, oriented more toward fuel economy than performance, paired with a multipoint injection system, which is less advanced than the direct injection used in previous years.

In return, according to Natural Resources Canada, the combined city/highway consumption rating indicates 7.9 L/100 km, about 9 percent less than in 2019. Moreover, the new engine so far seems exempt of the reliability problems that plagued the direct-injection version in past years.

Again, after the Kia Forte, the Kia Soul becomes the second Kia to adopt a continuously variable automatic transmission. The manufacturer qualifies it as “intelligent”, but it functions like all the others of its type: the fixed gears are simply replaced by a ratio than constantly changes depending on the demand for power. Eight virtual shift points keep the engine from revving too high, for too long under heavy acceleration; a manual mode lets you shift gears as you want.

U.S. buyers can still obtain a manual transmission on the LX base model, as well as a 201‑hp turbocharged engine paired with a dual-clutch transmission on the top-line version. In Canada, demand proved too weak to convince Kia to offer those options in 2020.

All-wheel drive is still conspicuous by its absence on both sides of the border. For better or for worse, that encourages potential Soul buyers to turn to the Kona, a close mechanical cousin of the Soul offering AWD as an option.

Driving impressions

The outgoing generation of the Kia Soul did well on the road, but its engine was excessively loud during acceleration and tire noise pervaded the cabin too easily at highway speeds.

The new model largely corrects those faults; it is probably what you notice first behind the wheel. The ride is more composed than before but the Soul still proved a bit too firm during our drive in Toronto at the end of spring 2019. Despite claims to the contrary, the manufacturer still has not found the ideal tuning for the rear torsion bar of its “urban crossover”.

That irritant was less apparent once we switched from downtown to a suburban highway. There, the new powertrain performed adequately, with sufficient pep to merge safely into traffic. However, belying the Soul’s quirky styling, the CVT transmission, despite all its efficiency, extinguishes any pretense to dynamic performance in the name of fuel economy.

The steering also proved somewhat lacking in road feel, though it remained acceptably precise on narrow city streets.

The Kia Soul’s neutral, unaggressive comportment may not meet the expectations of driving enthusiasts but it will no doubt please the majority of typical buyers. And no one knows its customers better than Kia.