I really like the clean lines and the two-tone paint treatment.....all that is missing is a trailer hitch .........
I have the same ceramic Blue SEL. One of the reasons I got the base model was because of the two-tone color. I’ve gotten lots of compliments. I sacrificed leather seats for the base model. I really didn’t want the sunroof and the wireless charging is not a factor because once you plug in your phone to Apple play, it charges in that little space anyway. I really don’t get the benefit of wireless charging when the USB for Apple play charges the phone anyway. It was a pleasant surprise .Love my Kona so much!
My way of thinking was similar.. I loved the 2 tone color and I did not care for the sunroof or leather (heats up too much here in Florida). Only reason I could have bought the Ultimate trim was the adaptive cruise control. It is an awesome feature but the question is.... is it worth extra $10k?
Curious, does the SEL come with regular cruise control? The packages are a little different here in Canada, our base or preferred model comes pretty much with all the safety and semi autonomous features like adaptive cruise control but omits the rear cross traffic detection, weird but it works fine with me. I also wanted 2 tone and cloth seats and only thing that would be nice items from the ultimate that I might miss is the heads up display and bigger screen real estate.
The SEL has regular cruise control as also FCA but the FCA does not include pedestrians. It also does not have rear cross traffic alarm. The bigger screen would be nice as would be the heads up display but again, the question for me was if it was worth extra $10k for me.
Just checked the downloadable Canadian brochure, and it says that the Preferred does have rear cross traffic alert. The only safety features missing are High Beam Assist and Parking Distance Warning ... according to the brochure anyway. Agree that the extra $10K for the Ultimate doesn't provide enough value, especially as we prefer cloth seats.
I might have been interested in a Preferred trim as well, but none were available in May when I got mine. I had to act quickly then, with the new fed subsidy taking place, and was just lucky to get my color choice in the Ultimate trim. Very happy with it so far, and also lots of compliments on the color and looks of the car.
The SEL (U.S.) does have rear traffic alert. I know because it went off once when I was backing up! Even though my car is the same as BlueKonaEV, I'll post a pic anyway.
I realized today that my SEL has it too.. I was backing out and a car came from the side and I got a warning... so the US SEL version does have that feature.
I think that red looks better in the Ultimate trim.. While I don't "dislike" the black roof on the red SEL, I still think that it looks better all red.. Very nice Kona!! My favorite colors in the SEL trim are Ceramic Blue and Galactic Gray. They look so sharp in the 2 tone trim.