Kia EV3 review

Our favourite of the EV3s is the entry-level Air, which costs £32,995 and enjoys heated front seats, a heated steering wheel (both more powerful than a nuclear-powered volcano), parking sensors at both ends and a back-up view camera. The twin screens with phone mirroring, nav and digital radio are all here. Adding the bigger batter here costs £3k.

Stepping up to GT-line (with the long-range battery as standard) pumps the price up to £39,495. This adds more angular bumpers, 19-inch rims, auto pop-out door handles, privacy glass, the wireless phone charger, LED headlights and the ability to use your smartphone as the car’s key.

Top-spec is GT-line S, (+£2,500 from GT-line) which sounds like it should be faster and sportier… but isn’t. For that, you’ll have to wait for a twin-motor EV3 GT sometime in 2025.

Instead, the S stands for, um, ventilated from seats and heated rears. A 360-degree view camera aid. Electric tailgate, which you don’t need because the manually operated one is easy to close on powerful struts. S-kind also get a head-up display (nice to have but not essential when the instrumentation is comprehensive), a sunroof and Harman-Kardon hi-fi. Uns uns uns.

Optional extras?

For £900, you can add a heat pump to only the GT-line S. By using excess battery heat to keep the cabin at a stable temperature, you’ll reduce strain on the battery on long journeys. Fine, but arguably least necessary on the version with the biggest cell count anyway.

And what about charging?

The standard range battery can accept charge at up to 100kW, so using the very quickest motorway chargers won’t bring a time saving. Kia quotes 29mins for a 10-80 per cent charge.

The long-range battery will replenish at up to 127kW, but by virtue of being a bigger capacity, it takes 31mins to do the 10-80 per cent recharge.

Kia’s seven-year, 100k-mile warranty outstrips its European competitors, though bear in mind all British market EVs have an eight-year, 100,000-mile warranty for their motor drive units and batteries… and one of the boons of EV ownership is, after all, fewer oily bits to go wrong.