Obviously, the new Kia EV3 slots into the same part of the Kia model lineup as the much-awarded pairing of the EV6 and EV9. Except... it also kinda doesn’t. Oh sure, the EV3 borrows some of the snub-nosed styling cues from the EV9 and looks very much as if you put that big seven-seater onto slightly too hot a wash cycle. It’s a chunky, four-square crossover that seems almost as wide as it is long (even though it actually tapers ever so slightly towards the rear, almost like a chunky teardrop).
So why isn’t the EV3 quite the same? Well, largely because the EV6 and the EV9 are very much halo models for Kia. The EV6 is essentially an electric sports car (in spite of its pseudo-crossover shape) and drives like one, while the EV9 is a proper all-electric rival to posh stuff like the Volvo EX90 and maybe even - on a good day, with a following wind - a Range Rover.
The EV3 isn’t like that. It is - avowedly, by Kia - a much more bread-and-butter car. It’s been designed to be a family’s only four-wheeled machine, with all of the practicality, usability and affordability that implies. You can buy one on the cheap for a reasonable amount of cash, or you can stretch your finances, just a little, and get one with an astonishing on-paper one-charge range, the kind of range that would allow you to criss-cross this little island of ours without bothering to charge on the way.
The EV3’s body shape may be that of a chunky wannabe 4x4, but its length gives the game away - it’s within a few millimetres of the traditional Kia Ceed hatchback. This, then, is Kia’s idea of what the none-more-mainstream family car market will look like as we evolve - slowly or speedily - into the electric era.
How much is the Kia EV3 in Ireland?
This is the crucial bit, really. Electric cars are going to have to become more affordable if they’re to achieve mass-market status, and the EV3 is - along with others such as the Citroen e-C3 - part of a major wave of more affordable new electric cars arriving in the next 12-18 months.
The base price in Ireland for an EV3 is €36,790 and that gets you an ‘Earth 2’ spec with the 58kWh battery pack that’s good for an official 426km range, marking the EV3 out as a head-on rival to the likes of the Renault Megane E-Tech and the Volkswagen ID.3.
Earth 2 spec includes dual 12.3-inch screens atop the dashboard (with an extra 5.3-inch screen that just looks after the air conditioning), 17-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights, heated front seats and steering wheel, wireless phone charging and wireless connections for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.
You can upgrade the EV3 Earth 2, at a cost of €40,350, with a 81kWh battery that unlocks a potential one-charge range of up to 605km - a range that, not so long ago, would have been beyond even the most expensive electric cars in production.
There’s also an Earth 3 spec which costs €42,840 and comes only with the 81kWh battery, although the range falls to 560km thanks to the effect of the larger 19-inch alloys fitted as standard. Also included are synthetic-leather seats with power adjustment and blind-spot monitoring.
Finally, at the top of the range, there’s the GT-Line model, which costs €47,190 and is the car we’re testing here. It gets a GT body styling kit, vehicle-to-load charging allowing you to use the EV3’s battery to power other devices, a sunroof and a powered tailgate.
A look inside the Kia EV3
As with the exterior, the EV3’s cabin looks very much like that of an EV9 built by The Borrowers. Well, maybe not quite that small... Up front, the EV3 is very spacious with plenty of legroom and headroom, although we did find the driving position slightly tricky when trying to find an ideal spot for comfort. The big screens are essentially those of the EV9, while there’s a new, chunky and squared-off steering wheel which, in this GT-Line model, gets an extra spoke for a sportier look.
The dashboard is covered with a soft fabric, which - like a lot of materials in the EV3’s cabin - is made from recycled plastics. In fact, there’s even a QR code printed on the dashboard on the passenger’s side which can be scanned to give you all the information about the various recycled bits and pieces.
One of those is the optional slide-out table between the seats. There’s a conventional padded armrest, which flips up, but instead of a storage space underneath, there’s a flat table which slides forward to make a handy perch for a laptop or tablet, or more likely a sandwich and some crisps. It’s a nice touch, and one aimed at keeping driver and passenger looked after when they’re stopping for a charge, but it does mean that all of the cabin’s storage space - aside from the glovebox - is open and on view. That’s not ideal, but on the upside there’s lots of space for stashing bags, wallets, phones, keys etc. The only complaint here is that the cup holders are set extremely low down on the floor and are a bit of stretch away.
The front seats are very comfortable, and optionally they come with a lounge-style reclining option which, again, is there to provide a bit more relaxation for charging stops.
In the back, thanks to a wheelbase that’s identical to that of the bigger Kia Sportage SUV, there’s decent space. Legroom is fine, and the flat floor means that there’s plenty of space for feet as well, although not really enough room for middle-seat passengers to get properly comfortable. Headroom is OK, although the stadium-style seating will make taller rear passengers feel a bit perched up, and some will find their hair brushing the headlining.
There’s no big glass roof option for the EV3, possibly because of that rear headroom deficit, but there is an optional sunroof, which is small enough to evoke memories of the 1990s.
The boot is a decent size at 460 litres (just 10 litres shy of the new Skoda Elroq’s) and the boot floor is flat with only a small loading lip. The rear seats fold near enough to totally flat when needed, opening up 1,230 litres of space, and there’s a handy 25-litre ‘frunk’ storage area in the nose, which means you don’t have to leave space for a charging cable in the main boot.
How many child seats can I fit in the Kia EV3?
There are two ISOFIX mounts in the Kia EV3, one in each of the outer rear seats. The middle rear seat is pretty narrow, so don’t expect to fit more than a small booster cushion in that. The rear doors are fairly large, but they don’t open quite as wide as you might hope, which can make loading in a bulky child seat a bit tricky.
How safe is the Kia EV3?
The EV3 hasn’t yet been assessed by Euro NCAP, but Kia tends to perform well in the crash and safety equipment tests, so we’d expect a decent score for the EV3. As standard, you get adaptive cruise control (which is linked to the navigation so that it will automatically reduce your speed for tight corners), forward collision avoidance braking, intelligent speed limiter, lane-keeping steering, driver monitoring and seven airbags. The driver monitor is a bit of a pain, though, often chastising you simply for checking over your shoulder when joining a motorway, which seems rather to miss the point.
The Kia EV3’s on-board technology
As mentioned, the big twin digital screens are familiar from other Kia products, but that doesn’t mean that Kia has rested on its tech laurels. Oh no...
Let’s start with the main stuff. The on-screen displays are big, clear and simple, and there’s plenty of opportunity for customising the look and information displayed. Our GT-Line test car came with the optional head-up display, showing speed, safety and navigation directions onto the windscreen, and it’s excellent.
The built-in navigation seemed a little flaky, occasionally sending us up a cul-de-sac, but it saved its blushes by quickly - and thankfully accurately - re-routing. There are the expected online connected services including traffic and parking info, as well as a smartphone app that allows you to monitor the EV3’s status from afar and control its charging.
The Apple CarPlay connection is either wireless or by USB, and there are two USB-C sockets in the front, one of which has a handy switch which allows you to use it either as a data connection to the big screen, or just as a charger if you want to top up the battery but don’t want to connect your phone. There’s a 12-volt socket too, and there are two USB-C sockets in the back, mounted high up on the backs of the front seats.
Kia is definitely pushing the in-car tech innovations in the EV3 though. Already in the car is Kia’s new built-in payment function, which for the moment is restricted to paying for parking, via parking services giant Parkopedia, but which will doubtless expand to other services as well in due course. It may well be that in the coming years it will become second nature to use your Kia to pay for stuff as it already is your phone or smartwatch. There’s already also plug-and-pay tech, allowing the EV3 (when set up with an appropriate account) to automatically pay for public charging without the need for RFID nor debit cards.
Once again focusing on the charging downtime aspect, Kia also says that it’s going to roll out streaming services built into the dashboard, including Netflix, YouTube and Disney Plus, so that you can catch up with your favourite shows or vloggers (ahem, CompleteCar.ie has a YouTube channel you know...) while you plug in.
The EV3, as mentioned, already has a vehicle-to-load function, meaning that it can use its battery to power and charge other devices - a sort of 21st century version of Land Rover’s old power take-off connection - but more is coming. As energy providers adapt and update their systems, the EV3 will also be able to handle vehicle-to-grid (allowing your electricity provider to draw power from the EV3’s battery at peak demand times, and then give it back to you at a preferential rate later on) and vehicle-to-home, allowing the EV3 to directly power your house, either at peak times when you don’t want to be running up big bills, or during a power outage. If you’ve got the 81kWh battery and it’s topped-up, then at the average Irish domestic energy consumption of 11kWh per day, you could power your house for a whole week.
There is a bit of notice being served that Kia is looking down the road of paying for extras after the car has been bought, though - a practice which we generally disagree with. There’s an expanded function for the regenerative braking (adjustable via the paddles behind the steering wheel) which ties it to the navigation, and which will automatically start to slow the car for upcoming junctions and roundabouts. It’s activated by accessing the Kia in-car online store, and it’s free to do, but as Kia slightly ominously adds, for now...
Driving the EV3
The Kia EV3’s overwhelming sensation is of comfort, with a substantial side-order of refinement. Given the car’s family friendly focus, that seems about right to us. The suspension is generally quite soft and is very good as dispatching big tarmac obstacles, including some savage-looking potholes and big speed bumps on our test route. Shorter, sharper intrusions are felt a little more and can occasionally cause the suspension to stumble and fidget a bit as it tries to deal with this big-battery version’s hefty 1,930kg kerb weight, but for the most part this is a pretty serene car to drive.
Overall sound insulation is excellent, especially at low-to-medium speeds, and if wind noise and tyre noise do build up a touch at motorway speeds, it’s never to an unpleasant level.
There’s another form of refinement and that’s in how the 150kW electric motor delivers its power. Early electric motors just basically dumped all of their torque onto the road as soon as you even looked at the accelerator, but the EV3’s motor is far more cultured than that. Yes, there’s pleasant, smooth electric urge from step-off, but the power delivery is pleasingly linear (more so in Eco mode, which should probably be your default driving mode) and it feels more natural to drive than some others. Which is not to say it’s slow - 0-100km/h in under eight seconds is pleasantly brisk.
When it comes to cornering, the EV3 is slightly let down by two things. The first is its steering, which is too light and too vague to provide any entertainment, which is one thing, but it can also make the EV3 slightly difficult at times to precisely place on the road, which is a shame. It weights up a bit in Sport mode, but never quite enough. If the EV3 is going to truly replace the classic C-segment hatchbacks such as the Golf and Focus, and even the Kia Ceed, it’s going to have to up its dynamic game a little.
The other issue is its chunkiness. The EV3 might only be 4.3 metres long, but it’s 1,850mm wide and that feels broad-shouldered when you’re trying to navigate a tight space.
How economical is the Kia EV3?
Is that 605km range truly realistic? Yes, it seems to be. Our GT-Line test car’s official range is actually 563km, and on slightly less than a full charge our car - on a muggy day with the air conditioning going - was showing just over 500km until a recharge would be needed. Overall, we averaged 17kWh/100km in our test, which included some motorway sections, urban driving and some brisk mountain roads.
This big-battery version charges at a maximum of 128kW on DC fast chargers, which is OK if not spectacular, but Kia says that its battery management system means the charge speed is kept up for more of the charging time, allowing it to claim a massive 460km added in just 30 minutes of charging. At the moment, the EV3 accepts a maximum of 11kW on AC power, but there will be the option of 22kW AC charging from 2026 onwards.
The reasons you'd buy a Kia EV3
In some ways, the EV3 feels ordinary. Crossovers and SUVs have lost their sense of newness or adventurousness, and the same is happening to electric cars - the EV3 is kind of the epitome of that process of mainstreaming. That’s not a bad thing, though. Although it’s not a barrel of laughs to drive, the EV3 is roomy, practical, comfortable, reasonably affordable and seems to have a very impressive real-world range. All of which ought to be very useful when it comes to convincing more and more family car buyers to switch to electric power.
Ask us anything about the Kia EV3
If there’s anything about the Kia EV3 we’ve not covered, or you’d like advice in choosing between it and other cars, you can avail of our (completely free) expert advice service via the Ask Us Anything page.
