For the front-wheel-drive Kia EV5 Earth with 19-inch wheels, the manufacturer states a WLTP range of 520 kilometres and a consumption of 17.1 kWh/100 km. My summer test vehicle in Ivory Silver Metallic, including optional equipment, costs €54,250. Need to boil a kettle, charge a laptop, or use a hairdryer – with no power socket in sight? Not a problem. There’s plenty of electricity onboard. During a stay at a small campsite near the Polish Baltic coast, it became clear that one feature of the Kia EV5 proved to be one of its greatest strengths on this trip – a feature that would typically merit only a few lines in a standard road test: vehicle-to-load.
But let’s take things step by step. This is less of a conventional test of the Kia EV5 – such a review already exists on electrive. This is more of a travelogue. Nearly three weeks of real-world experience instead of test tracks. First Berlin and Brandenburg, then putting a small caravan in tow, and off via the Feldberger Seenlandschaft of lakes and forests and up to the German coastal island of Usedom, and West Pomerania to near Łeba on the Polish Baltic coast, where mighty shifting dunes await.
The companion in tow is my nifty Mink Camper 2.0. A small teardrop caravan with a tare weight of 490 kilograms and a maximum permissible weight of 750 kilograms. In other words, it’s pretty much the opposite of those massive white caravans that occasionally hide entire families along with half their household goods on the motorway.
