2023 Kia Soul Reviews, Pricing & Specs
Write a reviewPros
Stylish design
Spacious
Excellent value for money
Cons
Fairly pedestrian performance
Uncomfortable seats
Advanced safety features are not standard
The 2023 Kia Soul is a boxy machine that proves economy cars don’t have to be boring.
The Kia Soul demonstrates that good ideas mean nothing without good execution. Launched for the 2010 model year, the Soul instantly drew attention with its distinctive boxy styling. But unlike the similarly styled Honda Element and Scion xB, the Soul has managed to stick around.
That’s because the Soul has style and substance in equal measure. It’s both a practical car and a good value, just one that happens to be more interesting to look at than most other vehicles sharing those traits. Now in its third generation, the Soul is an excellent compromise between car and crossover, boasting the tidy proportions of the former and the upright driving position of the latter. So, it makes sense to cross-shop it against both small hatchbacks and the gaggle of tiny crossovers that have hit the market since the Soul first appeared, such as the Hyundai Kona, Subaru Crosstrek, and Chevrolet Trax and Trailblazer.
The current-generation Kia Soul was introduced for the 2020 model year and gets a number of notable updates for 2023, including some styling tweaks. In Canada, the trim line-up now includes LX, EX, EX+, EX Premium, and GT-Line Limited. We drove the U.S. equivalent of a Kia Soul GT-Line Limited for this review.
It may be a few years old, but the current-generation Kia Soul’s styling still looks fresh. It takes the signature boxy profile of the previous two generations and adds funky touches like big upright taillights that wrap into the rear hatch and a furrowed-brow headlight design that mixes toughness and cuteness.
For 2023, the Soul gets a few styling changes. A new front fascia includes redesigned horizontal fog lights that flank the truck-like grille, as well as upright elements that curve back to blend with the wheel openings. The large daytime running light elements are now gone, and the LED headlights have a new design. The taillights were changed as well, although the differences are harder to spot. New 17-inch and 18-inch alloy wheel designs round out the changes.
Our GT-Line Limited test car was the sportiest looking Soul model, thanks to 18-inch wheels and a massive centred exhaust tip which, combined with the hard-to-miss taillights, gives the Soul one of the most unusual rear profiles of any new car.
While the exterior is defined by hard angles, the interior is defined by curves. The infotainment touchscreen sits in an ovoid housing, with a shape echoed by the dashboard speaker grilles. Our GT-Line Limited test car added some welcome pops of colour to the mostly black interior, including red contrast stitching and red trim for the doors, which also have large scalloped elements that add more flair to the interior. Little touches like these make the Soul feel like more than an entry-level car.
In addition to looking nice, the interior is also nicely equipped—if you get a fully loaded GT-Line Limited model like our test car, that is. Added convenience features here include power-adjustable front seats, heated and ventilated front seats and heated rear seats, and a dual-level cargo floor and cargo cover. In Canada, heated front seats are standard, and a heated steering wheel is equipped from the Soul EX grade. The Canadian GT-Line Limited comes with a sunroof and leather seats, while cloth seats are standard on all other trims. Dual-zone automatic climate control is standard from the EX Premium trim level.
Kia is offering only a single powertrain for 2023. The carryover 2.0-litre four-cylinder engine produces power specs of 147 horsepower and 132 pound-feet of torque, and is only available with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and front-wheel drive (FWD).
The Soul was previously available with a 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine that produced 201 hp and 195 lb-ft of torque, and was paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission, but the turbo been dropped for 2023. In Canada, the Soul EV continues to be available for 2023, but this will be discontinued from 2024 as Kia focuses on the Niro EV as its base electric model in North America. And the Soul has never been available with all-wheel drive (AWD).
Any of those items would likely enhance the driving experience, but the basic package is still pretty good. CVTs have a bad reputation thanks to excessive noise and a lag in acceleration known as “rubber banding,” something Kia has tried to distance itself from by labelling its CVT an “Intelligent Variable Transmission.” This isn’t just marketing nonsense though; the Soul’s transmission was mostly free of the aforementioned CVT bad habits. It was able to quickly crack off whatever the CVT equivalent of a downshift is, making the most of the engine’s 147 hp for stress-free overtaking. Switch the drive mode from Normal to Sport, and the throttle gets even more responsive.
The Soul handled corners reasonably well but still felt more like an economy car than hot hatchback. The suspension isn’t anything special after all, with the same front MacPherson strut and torsion beam rear axle combination used on most entry-level FWD vehicles.
Our GT-Line Limited test car’s larger 18-inch wheels may have affected ride quality a bit, as some impacts with broken pavement felt harsher than expected, but overall there wasn’t much to complain about. The Soul felt fairly buttoned down, but with enough compliance in the suspension to keep the ride comfortable most of the time. Cabin noise levels were reasonably good for an entry-level vehicle as well, although on highways we experienced a level of crosswind buffeting rivaled by only the Jeep Wrangler.
The Soul launched just before the subcompact crossover segment came into existence, but it has a lot in common with some of these vehicles. The Nissan Kicks and Hyundai Venue have similarly square profiles and lack AWD, showing just how amorphous the definition of “crossover” can be.
The Kia is between the Hyundai and Nissan in size, and it offers about the same amount of front seat headroom. Nissan managed to find a bit more front legroom, but the Soul offers more rear seat legroom and headroom than both the Kicks and Venue.
Kia says the Soul offers up to 663 litres of cargo space with the rear seats in place for models with the optional dual-level cargo floor and cargo cover, plus 1,758 litres with the rear seats folded. That easily beats the Venue’s tiny cargo area, but the Kicks still offers more cargo space with its second row up.
Still, the Soul packs an impressive amount of interior space into a small footprint. The Mazda CX-30 is longer overall than the Kia, with an additional 5 centimetres of wheelbase length, but its narrower, lower body shell (derived from the Mazda 3 compact hatchback) means it offers less headroom in both rows, less rear legroom, and not as much cargo space as the square-bodied Soul.
While spacious for its size, unsupportive seats made the interior slightly less pleasant. The driver’s seat in particular forces a splay-legged position that got uncomfortable after awhile. Interior functionality was fairly good, though. We found the large buttons for our test car’s heated seats helpful, along with the large smartphone storage tray that leaves plenty of room for large centre-console cupholders.
A digital instrument cluster and 8-inch touchscreen infotainment system are standard on the LX, EX, and EX+ trim levels. Higher trim levels get a 10.25-inch touchscreen with navigation, plus wireless phone charging and two USB centre console charge ports in addition to the standard port located at the base of the centre stack.
Like other Kia models, the Soul gets wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the smaller touchscreen offered in the base model and wired versions with the larger screen. Bluetooth is standard as well. The GT-Line Limited also adds a Harman Kardon premium audio system with an external amplifier, subwoofer, and door-mounted tweeters.
Kia continues to offer one of the best infotainment systems among mainstream brands. The digital instrument cluster display wouldn’t look out of place on the bridge of a Romulan Warbird, but it was still easy to read. It was a refreshing departure from the uncreative virtual dials most other automakers use.
The main touchscreen’s graphics carry over from other Kia models, with a dark theme and images of old timey vacuum tubes for the radio display, but they still looked good here. Menus were also generally easy to navigate, although switching SiriusXM satellite radio stations through the touchscreen could be a bit easier, as the dropdown menu needed to do this isn’t obvious at first.
The Soul doesn’t have any really novel tech features, but this is a basic car after all, and we see no need to add tech just for its own sake.
For 2023, most driver-assist features are included starting at the EX trim, including forward collision avoidance assist, automatic emergency braking, lane follow assist (lane keep assist and lane departure warning), blind spot monitoring, and rear cross-traffic alert.
Our Soul GT-Line Limited test car also had a junction-turning feature for the forward collision warning that detects oncoming vehicles while making left turns, plus navigation-based adaptive cruise control and Highway Drive Assist, which combines adaptive cruise control with automated lane centring for highway driving. It’s roughly equivalent to Volkswagen’s Travel Assist in capability. Highway Drive Assist’s automated lane centring didn’t work very well in the Soul, as it was sometimes overwhelmed by the flat bodywork’s tendency to catch crosswinds.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) gave the 2023 Kia Soul top “Good” ratings in all crash-test categories, but a lower “Acceptable” rating for child-seat anchor ease of use, and it hasn’t published headlight or crash-avoidance tech ratings for this model year.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives the Soul a four-star overall safety rating, with four stars in frontal and rollover crash testing, and five stars for side-impact protection.
All 2023 Kia Soul gas-powered models are rated by Natural Resources Canada at fuel economy of 8.5 litres per 100 kilometres in city driving, 7.0 on the highway, and 7.9 combined. The 2023 Kia Soul EV is rated at 2.0 Le/100 km combined with its smaller 120 Ah battery and 2.1 Le/100 km with the larger 180 Ah battery. Estimated driving ranges are 248 and 383 km respectively, and all Kia Soul EV qualify for federal and provincial EV incentive programs.
In Canada, Kia offers a 5-year, 100,000-kilometre, comprehensive warranty including powertrain, and eight-year, 160,000-kilometre, electric drivetrain components warranty.
New vehicle pricing starts at $25,133 for the base Kia Soul LX trim level (all prices include a mandatory $2,399 destination charge). The top gas-powered trim is the Soul GT-Line Limited, which is priced at $32,033. On the EV side, the Kia Soul EV Premium is priced at $45,933, while the EV Limited is priced at $54,933.
The Soul remains relatively affordable by current new-car standards, coming in below many similarly equipped subcompact crossovers, albeit without the availability of AWD. The Soul also boasts competent driving dynamics and a stylish design that doesn’t impact practicality, making for a well-rounded small car that’s definitely worth considering. Sometimes thinking inside the box can be a good thing.
Note: Images show a US model.
