Some days I feel like I'm truly missing out because I don't live in South Korea, and that's not just because I'm partial to functional public transit systems and tteokbokki. It's also because it's where the Hyundai Motor Group is dropping its latest and greatest electric vehicles before the U.S. gets them. And though it won't hit our shores until next year, the hot, affordable new Kia EV3 is already on sale in its home country right now and YouTube's CarSceneKorea got to take a brief test drive.
InsideEVs will get some seat time with the EV3 in the coming months too, which we're excited about. Until then, this video makes us even more excited than we were about Kia's upcoming affordable electric option. This is no cheap afterthought or some half-baked sequel to the Kia Niro EV; it's a substantial evolution of Hyundai Motor Group's E-GMP platform, and may end up one of the most exciting electric options at any price. "It's the compact EV SUV
that we've all been waiting for," host DK Kim says.
To recap, the EV3 is a subcompact crossover with a price expected to start around $35,000. It packs two battery options—a smaller 58.3 kWh pack and a next-generation 81.4 kWh pack—with the latter expected to deliver around 300 miles of range in the U.S. And it boasts a number of impressive technical improvements over the EV6 and EV9, although with a 400-volt electrical architecture to reduce costs, it likely won't have those cars' lightning-fast charging speeds.
When Kim starts his test, the EV3 is at 95% charge with 464 kilometers of range, which is 288 miles. That means the 300-mile rating certainly seems plausible. And it's quite handsome inside and out—nothing about it feels like some dirt-cheap penalty box here. The infotainment system is clearly aped from the EV9, not the previous-generation system on cars like my Kia EV6. (I like that system but I'm already jealous of the new hotness.)
Kim is already seeing 5.3 km per kWh, or about 3.2 miles per kWh in our system—impressive efficiency considering the car is being tested in "boiling hot" and humid conditions. He also has praise for the newly more adjustable i-Pedal system, the automated Highway Driving Assist 2 tech, the interior space and especially the second-row headroom.
I'll let you enjoy the rest of Kim's test here, and he has more to come we'll follow closely. But I think we're about to be in for something special whenever this heads our way.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
