Kia Electric Drive day
Five Kias, one estate and some seriously tight corners
There are worse ways to spend a day than driving five new Kia EVs around the Swinton Estate near Ripon with the Northern Group of Motoring Writers, but someone has to do it!
Located just outside Masham, North Yorkshire, the roads around the estate are narrow, twisty and, in places, surprisingly challenging. They rise and fall, disappear around blind bends and aren't particularly interested in giving you enough room to explore the outer reaches of a car's handling. Which, as it turned out, was probably a good thing.
This wasn't a day for discovering which Kia could be driven fastest. It was much more about getting a flavour of what each car is like, from the little EV2 through to the frankly enormous and ferocious EV9 GT.
And there is a surprisingly broad spread here. We've got a small electric SUV, a conventional-looking electric hatchback, a family-sized electric SUV, Kia's familiar Sportage and a 500bhp seven-seat electric monster.
So, what are they like?
Kia EV2 GT-Line S 61.0kWh
The EV2 is the little one, and it doesn't take long to appreciate why Kia has built it.
At just over four metres long, it is small enough to make the narrow roads around Swinton feel considerably less intimidating than they might in something like the EV9. Yet from the driver's seat it doesn't feel like you're sitting in a tiny car.
The driving position is good, visibility is decent and the cabin has the sort of airy, modern feel that makes the EV2 seem bigger than it actually is. There is plenty of headroom up front and the dashboard follows the now familiar Kia formula of digital displays and a central infotainment screen, with physical controls still available for some of the important functions.
The layout and the amount of storage you get is decent, although the rear seats aren't particularly generous for adults and the 362-litre boot is hardly enormous. But it's a small car, not a load-lugger!
The 61kWh battery in the GT-Line S produces 133bhp and 250Nm, which sounds modest by modern EV standards. It is. But it doesn't really matter most of the time.
Electric motors are rather good at making relatively ordinary power figures feel perfectly adequate, and the EV2 gets from 0-62mph in around 9.7 seconds. It feels brisk enough away from junctions and roundabouts, but there's no great surge of acceleration waiting to pin you into the seat. Again, that's appropriate for the car.
On the Swinton roads, the EV2 felt happiest being hustled along rather than thrashed. The steering is light and push it a little harder through corners and you can have a bit of fun with it, particularly because it's small and easy to place, but it isn't pretending to be a hot hatch.
The ride is more interesting. Kia has clearly put considerable effort into making the EV2 quiet and comfortable, and it works. At sensible speeds it feels remarkably grown-up, with little wind or powertrain noise. The suspension generally does a good job, although sharp imperfections and ruts can upset it. The 19" wheels fitted to the GT-Line S don't help when the road gets particularly scruffy.
The 61kWh battery in the GT-Line S produces 133bhp and 250Nm, which sounds modest by modern EV standards. It is. But it doesn't really matter most of the time.
Electric motors are rather good at making relatively ordinary power figures feel perfectly adequate, and the EV2 gets from 0-62mph in around 9.7 seconds. It feels brisk enough away from junctions and roundabouts, but there's no great surge of acceleration waiting to pin you into the seat. Again, that's appropriate for the car.
On the Swinton roads, the EV2 felt happiest being hustled along rather than thrashed. The steering is light and push it a little harder through corners and you can have a bit of fun with it, particularly because it's small and easy to place, but it isn't pretending to be a hot hatch.
The ride is more interesting. Kia has clearly put considerable effort into making the EV2 quiet and comfortable, and it works. At sensible speeds it feels remarkably grown-up, with little wind or powertrain noise. The suspension generally does a good job, although sharp imperfections and ruts can upset it. The 19" wheels fitted to the GT-Line S don't help when the road gets particularly scruffy.
That leaves the EV2 as an interesting little thing. It's not especially exciting, but it doesn't need to be. It feels like a proper small car rather than a cheap EV dressed up as an SUV.
For somebody living mostly around town, commuting, shopping, school runs and the occasional longer trip, there's a lot to like here.
And because Kia has managed to make the cabin feel considerably larger than the exterior suggests, you don't constantly feel as though you've bought the smallest Kia.
That's probably the EV2's biggest achievement.
Kia EV4 Air 58.3kWh
The EV4 is an altogether different proposition.
Where the EV2 looks deliberately chunky and SUV-ish, the EV4 is a relatively low-slung hatchback. It's an interesting move from Kia because the company has spent years convincing us that everybody wants an SUV. Apparently not.
The 'Air' I drove had the smaller 58.3kWh battery, producing 201bhp and 283Nm through the front wheels. Kia quotes 0-62mph in 7.5 seconds and a WLTP range of 273 miles for this version.
That gives it plenty of performance for normal driving. In fact, on the narrow roads around Swinton, the EV4's biggest limitation wasn't acceleration. There simply wasn't enough room to exploit it.
Press the accelerator and it moves away smartly, but there's none of the slightly silly shove you get from some more powerful EVs. Instead, it feels like a car designed around covering distance without making a great fuss about it.
The cabin is one of the EV4's stronger points. It's spacious, particularly considering the car's relatively compact exterior dimensions, and the long wheelbase gives rear passengers a huge, almost limousine amount of legroom. The dashboard is recognisably Kia, with the wide digital display arrangement and a separate climate-control screen. The Air also gets 17" wheels, heated front seats and steering wheel and the usual collection of driver assistance technology. It's an easy car to settle into.
The Air's specification is also significant because those 17" wheels give the EV4 a noticeably different character from the more expensive versions on larger wheels. As you'd expect from smaller wheels and larger tyres, the Air's ride more comfortable and better isolated, while the 19" versions can feel a little brittle over broken surfaces. That came as no great surprise on the Swinton roads.
Despite its aggressive looks, the EV4 isn't a sports car. The steering is fairly muted and there isn't a huge amount of feedback coming back through the wheel. Push harder and the soft suspension allows some body movement, and again, that's fine for the type of car it is.
For most people, the EV4 is going to spend its life on motorways, A-roads, town streets and supermarket car parks rather than being flung through bends at Swinton Estate. In that environment, the combination of comfort, quietness, range and easy controls starts to make a lot more sense. And there's something refreshing about the fact that Kia hasn't tried to make every EV feel like a sports car.
The 58.3kWh Air is probably the EV4 I'd be most interested in living with. It has enough performance, plenty of space and, importantly, the smaller wheels seem to suit the chassis better. It's a car that gets on with the job without constantly reminding you that you're driving an electric car.
Kia EV5 GT-Line S 81.4kWh
If the EV4 is Kia's alternative to the conventional family hatchback, the EV5 is the electric family SUV. And it's a much more conventional proposition than the EV9.
The EV5 has a boxier, upright shape, a bit like the Sportage, which immediately pays dividends inside. There's plenty of room, a good driving position and a cabin that feels designed around actual people rather than the requirements of a design studio.
The 81.4kWh battery is the only battery size available in the UK EV5, with Kia quoting up to 329 miles of WLTP range depending on specification. Kia's UK specification also shows 214bhp for the front-wheel-drive version and 261bhp for the all-wheel-drive powertrain.
The GT-Line S I drove felt much more substantial than the EV2 and EV4, which really isn't surprising.
There is less of the lightweight, nippy feeling and more of the impression that you're sitting in a proper family SUV. It feels stable and planted, and the instant response from the electric motor means there's never any shortage of acceleration when you need to get past slower traffic.
What it doesn't do is turn into a sports SUV. Again, those Masham roads exposed the limitations rather than the capabilities. You can drive the EV5 quickly enough, but there's little point trying to discover how it behaves at the limit when you're confronted with narrow lanes, blind bends and the occasional cyclist or walker. It's much happier flowing along.
Inside, the EV5 makes a convincing case for itself as something you'd actually want to own. The GT-Line S gets the nicer interior treatment, electric front seats, heated outer rear seats, ventilation for the front seats and a number of the comfort features you'd expect from the top specification.
There's also a useful feeling of normality about it, if that makes sense. You sit fairly upright, there's good visibility and the cabin doesn't make you learn a completely new way of operating a car. That's becoming increasingly important as manufacturers fill dashboards with touchscreens simply because they can.
Practicality is where the EV5 starts to make even more sense. The upright body gives you useful passenger space and a decent boot, while the cabin has the sort of storage you expect from a family SUV. Overall I found it comfortable and easy to live with (for around 30 minutes).
Range is perhaps the one area where reality needs a little context.
Other testing has produced around 3.8mi/kWh in warmer conditions but closer to 3.1mi/kWh in colder weather, making a real-world range of roughly 250 miles in winter quite possible. A heat pump isn't standard on every version either.
None of that makes the EV5 a poor long-distance car. It simply means that the usual EV caveat applies: the number in the brochure isn't the number you'll necessarily see on a cold January morning with the heater running.
As a family EV, though, the EV5 makes a lot of sense.
It's big enough without being ridiculous, has the space people actually need and doesn't make a great song and dance about being electric. Think of it as the EV child of the Kia Soul ad Sportage!
Kia Sportage Pure 1.6 T-GDi manual
And then there was the Sportage.
Among all the EVs, climbing into a petrol-powered Sportage with a manual gearbox felt almost slightly old-fashioned, but in truth it gave me the biggest smile.
Was there as a key to turn? Well, no. But there was an engine making noises, a clutch pedal and an actual gear lever.
The latest facelifted Sportage Pure uses Kia's 1.6-litre turbocharged petrol engine producing 147bhp and 250Nm. The six-speed manual is standard on this version, with Kia offering automatic transmission higher up the range.
On paper, 147bhp doesn't sound like much in a vehicle of this size. In practice, it's perfectly adequate.
You have to work the gearbox a little harder than you would in the electric Kias, particularly when you want a quick burst of acceleration, but that isn't necessarily a criticism. There's something rather pleasant about having to think about what gear you want for a change.
The roads around Masham suited it. Not because it was particularly sporty — it isn't — but because the combination of predictable handling, good steering and a slick manual gearbox gave you something to do. The EVs are wonderfully smooth, but the Sportage requires a little more involvement which in my opinion is lacking in today’s motoring.
Take any Sportage for a spin and you'll find them comfortable and composed, with decent grip and a well-insulated cabin. Okay, there is some body lean when you push it, but the general balance between comfort and control is, in my humble opinion, one of its strengths.
Inside the Sportage remains a strong family car. It's roomy, comfortable and familiar, with a good driving position and a dashboard dominated by Kia's broad digital display. The Pure gets black cloth upholstery rather than the more expensive trims' artificial leather and suede, but it doesn't feel like a poverty-spec interior.
And that's perhaps the biggest point about the Sportage, it doesn't feel like Kia has deliberately made the basic version unpleasant so you'll spend more money.
There's also the question of whether you actually need an electrified powertrain. The petrol Sportage is obviously less efficient around town than a hybrid, and the latest range has dropped the mild-hybrid petrol option, but if your driving is relatively straightforward and you don't want the complication, or charging requirements of an EV, this remains an easy car to understand and live with.
It may not have been the most exciting car here, but it was certainly the easiest to get on with, and sometimes that's exactly what a family SUV needs to be.
Kia EV9 GT 99.8kWh AWD
Then you get into the EV9 GT, and everything else suddenly feels rather small… and sluggish.
The EV9 GT is a ridiculous thing in some respects: a huge, Six-seat electric SUV with a 99.8kWh battery, two electric motors, four-wheel drive and around 501bhp. Kia claims 0-62mph in 4.6 seconds and a top speed of 136mph. That's properly quick.
As I've mentioned numerous times already, the problem is that the roads around the Swinton Estate aren't exactly the Nürburgring.
The roads are narrow enough in places that the EV9's considerable width becomes something you are constantly aware of. You don't so much attack a corner as negotiate with it. And yet, once you're moving, the EV9 doesn't feel quite as unwieldy as you might expect.
There's a huge amount of glass, the driving position is high and visibility is good. Cameras and sensors take some of the stress out of manoeuvring, while the low-mounted battery keeps the centre of gravity lower than the size of the thing suggests. This all equates to a car that's surprisingly composed in corners, although nobody is going to mistake it for a small SUV.
Then you find the accelerator.
Four hundred and something horsepower would already be plenty in a family SUV. Five hundred and one is bordering on the daft.
The shove is immediate and completely effortless. You don't need to plan an overtake in quite the same way because there's always another sizeable chunk of acceleration available.
The GT also gets a more serious chassis setup, with revised suspension and different drive modes.
Press the GT button and the car becomes noticeably more eager, with a more rear-biased character and less body roll. But this is still a large, heavy six-seat SUV. It isn't going to change the laws of physics.
Inside, though, the EV9 is a very impressive place to spend time. There is acres of room in the second row, useful third-row seating and a vast amount of luggage space when those rear seats are folded. The GT gets proper sports seats with Alcantara, and despite the firmer setup they remain comfortable.
I also like the fact that Kia hasn't completely abandoned physical controls. There are proper buttons for things like heating and ventilation, steering-wheel controls and a mixture of touch and physical interfaces. That's important in something designed to carry a family because you shouldn't need to hunt through a menu to turn the heater up while driving.
The price you pay for all this is energy consumption.
Kia claims 316 miles from the 99.8kWh battery, but enthusiastic driving can bring that figure down dramatically when making more use of the GT's performance, which isn't surprising.
If you buy a 500bhp electric six-seater and actually use the 500bhp, you're going to use electricity rather quickly.
The EV9 GT is therefore one of those cars that is difficult to judge purely on conventional car-review logic. It is enormous, extraordinarily quick, comfortable, practical and, in GT form, slightly bonkers.
It is also probably the car of the five that most obviously demonstrates how far Kia has travelled. Not that long ago, Kia was the sensible alternative, now it makes a 500bhp electric six-seater that can embarrass genuinely fast cars, and that’s quite a change.
Five Kias, five very different answers
What struck me most after driving all five wasn't that one was obviously better than the others. They are simply aimed at completely different lives.
The EV2 is the little urban adventurer that feels bigger inside than it looks. The EV4 is the quietly competent electric hatchback, and the 58.3kWh Air's smaller wheels make a convincing case for choosing the less expensive version.
The EV5 is the family SUV, with the space and practicality that comes with it. The Sportage remains the familiar choice, and the manual petrol version is a reminder that not everybody needs or wants to make the jump to electric yet.
And then there's the EV9 GT, which seems to exist because somebody at Kia asked, "How much power can we put into the biggest EV we make?”
The answer, apparently, is 501bhp.
The roads around Swinton Estate weren't the place to properly test the performance of any of them. But they were a useful reminder that cars don't exist on spreadsheets, they exist on roads and sometimes those roads are narrow, bumpy, twisty and populated by people walking dogs. Which, frankly, is a much better test of what a car is like to live with than another run from 0-62mph ever will be.
Finally a huge thank you must go to the Kia PR team for organising the day, they really are a genuinely great bunch.