[ScooterMaxiJim]

The Niro was designed to be a FWD car, but with a lot of that big battery weight placed low on the rear axle, it performs very similarly to AWD (and in some instances better). If the battery gets moved to accommodate AWD, the Niro likely would suffer in the handling department. Certainly choice of tires is also more important than the drive differences in any event... Sure, truck based four-wheel drive is superior, but a lot of folks assume that car-based AWD is pretty much the same (not close). Having owned all types (even rear wheel drive vehicles in my youth), I have a pretty good sense of situation driving in Minnesota winters.

 

[ScooterMaxiJim]

To see how AWD could affect design, check out the Subaru Impreza Crosstrek PHEV. Open the rear hatch. Instead of a nice flat floor, or one that's a bit lower than the door opening, you'll see the floor about 6 or so inches higher, taking away from cargo capacity, especially usable vertical capacity (see photo)
View attachment 6561

Yeah, talk about a totally screwed up design. Kia engineers don't have to bow down to the Subaru AWD ethic that gave the brand a lifeline decades ago. The Niro was design specifically for HEV, PHEV and full EV performance in FWD. Keep in mind that FWD designed properly will outperform in the wet and snow any poorly designed, grafted AWD every time. AWD isn't remotely similar to 4-wheel drive. Anytime you have to bring center of gravity higher and take weigh away from the wheelbase, you have failed in AWD. From experience, I can tell that is what happened with the early Tucson AWD which had very poor traction... and this applies pretty much to all the grafted FWD plus AWD offerings. And you pay the added penalty of losing fuel efficiency.

If you just want to tell you buddies you have AWD while gaining no traction performance benefit from it, perhaps best to look elsewhere than the smarter design of the Niro.

 

[ScooterMaxiJim]

i have no 4WD experience but my AWD subaru was superior to the FWD vehicles i’ve owned. it was marginally better starting from a stop in snow or going up hills around town but where it really shined was on the highway in light snow cover and heavy rain. i found that it tracked like it was on dry pavement. if anything it tracked too well in light snow cover because i probably drove too fast and an emergency maneuver likely would have put me on the median or in the woods. thankfully it never came to that. i would have bought another subaru but i wanted a phev or ev and the crosstrek did nothing for me. and i’m retired now so i feel no need for AWD, if the weather’s bad i just stay home, but it’s comforting to see the praise for the niro FWD.

That's a fair assessment. I want to clarify that Subaru has built most (all?) of their AWD vehicles from the ground up that way... and that allows for maximum design advantage. (Still, I don't think its a good idea to have the tailgate lip lower than the floor - I ran into falling groceries on the Cmax due to that failed design.) At the same time, other manufacturers (such as Hyundai with the early Tucson - and presumably the sister Kia Sportage) grafted AWD in as an afterthought... and traction suffered. Indeed, the Cmax with FWD had better traction and swerve control up to the 5" limit of the undercarriage compared to the AWD Tucson before it - and I had the same all-season tire on it. Quite a bit experience with this - in Minnesota where we buy the tires ranking the snow-ice capability above all other factors.