Never drove an EV prior to this. It was great to get some first hand knowledge.

I rented the Tesla in Colorado out of DIA and spent my time in Colorado Springs. 75 mile trip gave me some range anxiety right off the bat... As did just generally not knowing how quickly the battery would go down. I received the car with 80% charge.

First impression... The UI was not nearly as intuitive as I was expecting. I had to look up how to get the car in gear because the stalk was hidden from my view. It took some doing and I never quite got the break-shift-cardkey-tap order quite right. The rear view mirror is ridiculously small and it took a long time to figure out how to adjust the side mirrors. This type of basic thing was infuriating and just seemed overly cumbersome. The air controls where neat to look at, but tactile sliders are just so much more intuitive.

It was, however, fun to drive. When you wanted to go from 50 to 75, it just jumped up to 75 like it was nothing. The small steering wheel made the car feel tighter and I loved the handling. Shocks and steering where very firm and the driving experience was great.

The car battery drew down to 50% pretty quickly and overnight (It was in the 30s) I was shocked how much more it drew down. It seemed like the heat exchanger was on the whole time, maybe that's by design. I never felt like the car was "off". Seemed like there was always some sound coming from it. Charging didn't take much to figure out at the super chargers. I put in $10 once and $5 a second time (midway through a round trip back to DIA to pick up family).

Charging at my sister's house didn't work (it didn't like the length of the extension cord or something). Charging at the hotel took some doing (had to set up an account through a stupid UI) and was finicky (one side worked better than the other). It worked though, and the cost was included in the hotel stay. Plugged in overnight and woke up to a fully charged battery. For driving around town this seemed like a tremendous benefit...never having to go to a gas station again. But for any moderate trip (and in a place like Colorado 150 miles is just a quick trip to the airport) range anxiety is real. I'm not a planner, and having to map out my travel to ensure I get all the charging stations seemed like a real pain.... I would freak out on a trip to Moab and driving past green River (where "next service is 150 miles") just seems impractical... Or at least stress inducing.

The auto pilot left me really uncomfortable. It was much more aggressive than I am... Or maybe I was expecting it to slow down in traffic and I had the wrong version of the software...I dunno. I wanted to like it (beyond the visualizations which was really cool), but I just couldn't trust it.

Tesla summary: It's an experience and car drove and handled great. Screen is beautiful, loved the maps, but UI leaves a lot on the table. Review/side view mirrors are silly small. Frunk/hood felt really thin, but otherwise I didn't notice any build quality issues.

I rented the Kia in Philadelphia. Hotel was 35 miles away. The car had a nice modern feel and I enjoyed the roto drive select. The android car app made for easy navigation. I preferred the audio and climate controls...they were super intuitive. The car had a nice pick up, but nothing like the Tesla. The car felt like a car, nothing special really. The car was efficient and I never saw the battery drop substantially overnight despite similarly cold temperatures.

I never had to plug it in. I returned the car with 30% battery remaining.

KIA summary: It's a car that's electric rather than an electric car. This makes it familiar and somewhat pedestrian. My travels where more local than what I had in Colorado, so can't really do an apples to apples comparison.

I don't know that I would buy either car. But I'll keep renting them for now.