2019 KIA SOUL EV — Complaint #1956434
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about POWER TRAIN:AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION:GEAR POSITION INDICATION (PRNDL) filed January 8, 2024
NHTSA complaint #1956434 (ODI reference 11564307) concerns a 2019 KIA SOUL EV and was filed on January 8, 2024. The owner reports the failure occurred on January 7, 2024. The report was geocoded to California based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as power train:automatic transmission:gear position indication (prndl), one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: yes, fire: no, injuries: 1, fatalities: 0. A complaint that flags a crash, fire, or fatality is escalated on NHTSA's internal review queue and factors more heavily into any Preliminary Evaluation decision on this make and model. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same KIA SOUL EV cohort independently describe similar power train:automatic transmission:gear position indication (prndl) failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2019 KIA SOUL EV shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
Please note this was in our driveway and we have a video of the incident. Driver parked the car on slight hill and engaged the parking break and exited the vehicle. The car was still "On". Driver opened the door and reached in and pushed the ON button to shut down power. The brake disengaged by itself, car rolled, knocked down and almost rolled over driver. Rolled into street in oncoming traffic. Damage to door, slight injury to driver who was nearly run over.
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 1956434 |
| ODI Number | 11564307 |
| Date Filed | January 8, 2024 |
| Failure Date | January 7, 2024 |
| VIN | KNDJP3AE2K7 |
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.