2015 Kia Soul EV: Car Seat Check
Kia’s quirky box probably doesn’t immediately jump to mind when you think of a family vehicle, but the Kia Soul has more room for kids and cargo than its compact dimensions suggest. The gas-powered Kia Soul, which was redesigned for the 2014 model year, performed admirably in our Car Seat Check, but what about the new-for-2015 electric version? Although the 2015 Kia Soul EV gives up some interior space to make room for the battery and has unique seats, small families won’t have any problems installing two child-safety seats in the backseat.
How many car seats fit in the second row? Two
What We Like
- The Latch anchors — two sets in the outboard positions — are exposed and easy to use.
- The infant seat and the convertible in both rear- and forward-facing modes installed easily and all three seats had enough room. There was no need to move the front passenger seat forward to accommodate them.
What We Don’t
- The backseat is lightly contoured, which helped hold our booster into place, but the buckles are on floppy bases so kids may have a problem buckling up independently.
Grading Scale
A: Plenty of room for the car seat and the child; doesn’t impact driver or front-passenger legroom. Easy to find and connect to Latch and tether anchors. No fit issues involving head restraint or seat contouring. Easy access to the third row.
B: Plenty of room. One fit or connection issue. Some problems accessing third row when available.
C: Marginal room. Two fit or connection issues. Difficult to access third row when available.
D: Insufficient room. Two or more fit or connection issues.
F: Does not fit or is unsafe.
About Cars.com’s Car Seat Checks
Editor Jennifer Newman is a certified child safety seat installation technicians. Editor Jennifer Geiger is working on renewing her certification.
For the Car Seat Check, we use a Graco SnugRide Classic Connect 30 infant-safety seat, a Britax Marathon convertible seat and Graco TurboBooster seat. The front seats are adjusted for a 6-foot driver and a 5-foot-8 passenger. The three child seats are installed in the second row. The booster seat sits behind the driver’s seat, and the infant and convertible seats are installed behind the front passenger seat.
We also install the forward-facing convertible in the second row’s middle seat with the booster and infant seat in the outboard seats to see if three car seats will fit; a child sitting in the booster seat must be able to reach the seat belt buckle. If there’s a third row, we install the booster seat and a forward-facing convertible. To learn more about how we conduct our Car Seat Checks, go here.
Parents should also remember that they can use the Latch system or a seat belt to install a car seat, and that Latch anchors have a weight limit of 65 pounds, including the weight of the child and the weight of the seat itself.
Cars.com photos by Evan Sears
