KIA EV3

Kia's Niro EV has established itself as the 'VW Golf of EVs'. This more exciting-looking newcomer aims to go one better

- MARK TISSHAW

TESTED 3.9.24, SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA DELIVERIES LATE 2024

A few weeks ago, I drove a new Volkswagen Golf with a 148bhp diesel engine that cost from £34,110 in the well-equipped trim as tested. It was fantastic, exactly the sort of family car that UK buyers have defaulted to for much of the 21st century so far, even if cars of its ilk have become £10,000 or so more expensive in the past decade, such is life.

The new Kia EV3, a £32,995 electric crossover that's Golf-sized and looks like a shrunken EV9, is exactly the kind of car that buyers could default to in the electric era as they have done to the Golf in the internal-combustion one.

It gets to that diesel Golf parity price without skimping on battery capacity: your £32,995 gets you a 58kWh battery with 267 miles of range in base (but Golf-matching) Air trim. An extra £3000 gets you an 81kWh battery for 372 miles of range, also in Air trim. At £35,995, that seems the EV3's sweet spot.

The EV3, then, can go almost like-for-like in a comparison against a similarly equipped Golf, regardless of their differing powertrains. You would buy the Volkswagen because you like it and it happens to be a diesel and you would buy the Kia because you like and it happens to be an EV. Both come from top, established brands in the UK with sizeable dealer networks.

So what's the catch with the EV3? It's hard to find one on the spec sheet. Kia says it's based on a scaled-down version of the Hyundai Motor Group's E-GMP architecture, as used for the larger Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5, with MacPherson-strut front suspension and a multi-link rear, but with a 400V electrical architecture, rather than an 800V one, it has just as much in common with the Kia Niro EV.