EV4 RISES TO CHALLENGE

FIRST DRIVE Kia's first electric vehicle designed specifically for Europe looks set to give Volkswagen's ID.3 hatchback a headache

- Ellis Hyde

IT'S easy to see the Kia EV4 just as the latest rival to the Volkswagen ID.3, Renault Megane and our reigning Car of the Year, the Skoda Elroq. Or merely as the sleeker sibling of the award-winning EV3 SUV. While all of that is true, this is also the brand's first electric car designed specifically for Europe, which was fine tuned on European roads and is being built in Slovakia, where the now-deceased Kia Ceed was produced for nearly 20 years.

At least that's true for the EV4 hatchback. Kia has also launched a much less conventional-looking EV4 Fastback that's being built in the brand's South Korea homeland. It adds a sloping roofline and 300mm to the car's back end, and is a rival for electric saloons such as the Tesla Model 3 and newly launched MG IM5.

The EV4 uses the same E-GMP platform and is offered with the same powertrains as the EV3. However, Kia wanted the new hatchback to feel like a more dynamic car than its SUV alternative. It helps that the driving position is 40mm lower, and its centre of gravity is 20mm nearer the ground, too. The suspension and steering have also been tuned differently.

We're told Kia's engineers spent many hours and tens of thousands of miles thrashing the car around the gruelling Nürburgring race track in Germany. Although the impression we get from our first drive in the EV4 is that this car's priority is comfort rather than handling, because it's supremely refined and quiet inside.

We should point out that our initial taste of the EV4 was on the smooth sun-soaked tarmac near Malaga, Spain. We'll have to wait a little longer to find out how it copes with the gaps and gorges of UK roads, but we're confident it’ll remain unfazed.

The soft suspension does a great job of smoothing out the impacts from potholes and other imperfections, and we noticed only a tiny amount of road noise making its way into the cabin.