siunitx not using kerning units correctly ahead of a sentence-ending dot (period, full stop)

Question

If the unit is the final character in a sentence, the sentence-ending dot is not kerned correctly.

MWE:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{siunitx}
\usepackage{mathpazo}

\begin{document}
\SI{}{\electronvolt}. And V.
\end{document}

The eV will have no kerning where the single V does. Can I tell siunitx/pdflatex to use kerning or do I have to apply kerning manually?

Answer 1

The way that units are typeset in siunitx means that they are 'hidden' from any kerning: they are inside a box, which then has various math mode switches. That's required in order to be sure you can control the font weight (bold is tricky to deal with). As a result, you will have to kern such cases by hand. (As an aside, it's arguable that the units are 'mathematical' and so should be in math mode anyway. You'll find that $\mathrm{V}$. also does no kerning, so even without the complexities of siunitx this is still something you may have to worry about.)