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Around the world people are asking for smaller electric vehicles. Someone at Kia has been listening and designed this car, the EV3. (credit: Kia)
Kia provided flights from Los Angeles to Seoul and three nights in a hotel so we could see the EV3, EV4, and EV5. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.
Kia is staring down an ambitious goal. The company wants to increase its global electric vehicle sales to 1 million units annually by 2026, further ramping up to 1.6 million by 2030. New products like the
EV5 crossover
and
EV9 SUV
will certainly help with this push, but smaller, more affordable EVs will be crucial to Kia's success, as well. That's why, despite being called concept cars, the new EV3 and EV4 are thinly veiled glimpses into Kia's next round of production EVs.
Unveiled at Kia's EV Day event in South Korea this week, the EV3 and EV4 will arrive in the next few years. The company also spoke about an even smaller EV2 that will be designed for Europe and emerging markets, with the goal for that car being a super-low starting price—something around the equivalent of $30,000.
The EV3 and EV4 ride on the same E-GMP electric vehicle architecture that underpins the
Kia EV6
and EV9, as well as sister vehicles like the
Hyundai Ioniq 5
,
Ioniq 6
, and
Genesis GV60
. However, while the current crop of E-GMP vehicles are built with 800 V electrical architecture giving them fast charging speeds, the EV3 and EV4 will use a slightly more cost-effective version of this platform with a 400 V system. That's a bummer; one of the big highlights of cars like the Kia EV6 is its ability to charge at a max rate of 233 kW. With the EV3 and EV4, we could be looking at a maximum rate of 150 kW—or less.