John Marcar has been sampling Kia's latest EV offering, which is rapidly earning the South Korean automaker the accolade of a one-stop shop for car consumers, something the likes of VW and BMW have been building on for decades.

I'm starting to think my job is getting more difficult as time goes by. There used to be a clear scale of good cars and bad cars. In the early years of my life, there was a period when certain automotive stereotypes could be reasonably assumed to be true. For example, in the early 1990s, if a vehicle was built in Germany or Japan, it was considered high quality and likely very reliable. If a similar car were built in Slovakia or South Korea around the same time, it would likely be regarded as cheap and probably not very good. But now, the stereotypes have all but gone out of the window. Long story short, there simply aren't any bad cars any more. The brilliant Land Rover Defender I drive every day proudly rolled off a production line in Slovakia, and some of the best cars I've driven this year all arrived via boat from South Korea. This week's press car is precisely that: the Kia EV4, which joins the futuristically designed electric lineup alongside the EV3, EV6 and EV9, all of which are, in the simplest terms, brilliant cars.

Kia's new C-Segment EV

What makes the EV4 refreshingly different to the other models in the range and its competitors is that it's not an unnecessarily oversized SUV. The EV4 is a C-Segment, or 'medium-sized', car available in two styles. As standard, EV4 is a 5-seat hatchback. There's also a Fastback variant, which, from the front bumper to the rear doors, looks identical to the hatchback, but beyond the C-pillar it has a more saloon-car shape, with a sloping rear window and a boot lid rather than a hatch.

Both variants offer ample space for a driver, a front passenger and three adults in the back, with the only difference in headroom between the two being that the Fastback has 20mm less headspace in the rear, which is only noticeable if you're over 6' tall or have a particularly tall hairstyle... ask me how I know.

Regardless of variant, the EV4 doesn't boast skin-peeling power or a promise to embarrass Porsche-driving friends on a track day; it's simply an attractive, versatile and practical family car delivering 201bhp to the front wheels, a big boot and a simple charging process.

Aside from the two differences in shape, there is also a difference in trim levels. In hatchback form, buyers can choose from Air, GT-Line or GT-Line S, and as a Fastback, there is a choice of GT-Line or GT-Line S.

EV4 (hatchback) Pricing

Air, the base model, is priced from £34,695 if the 58.3kWh (exclusive to Air) battery pack is selected or £37,695 if the 81.4kWh battery is picked.
In GT-Line trim, prices start at £39,395. The top-of-the-line GT-Line S is priced from £43,895, or £44,795 with the optional heat pump.

EV4 Fastback Pricing

There is no Air variant to the Fastback. GT-Line is the entry-priced from £40,895, and in GT-Line S form it's £45,395 or £46,295 with a heat pump.

Power and Performance

All variants and shapes of EV4 share the same power and torque figures: 201 bhp, 283 Nm of torque and a top speed of 105mph. Even the acceleration is very similar across all models. All GT-Line and S models will achieve 0-62mph in 7.9 seconds, while the Air with the smaller (and by proxy lighter) battery gets the job done in 7.5 seconds with the 58.3kWh battery and 7.7 seconds with the 81.4kWh battery.

Electric Range

According to WLTP, the range varies from 273 miles for the entry-level Air model to 380 miles for the top-level GT-Line S.

Battery and Charging Times

The other advantage of spending more on the GT-Line and S models is charging capability and charging speed. With the smaller battery on the Air, 50kW chargers will boost the battery from 10-80% in 79 minutes, but with the GT-Line and S, that time drops to 55 minutes. Admittedly, the time gap does close with the faster chargers; if you can find a 350kW charger, there is just a 3-minute difference between 31 minutes for the Air and 29 minutes for the GT-Line and S.

Bootspace - EV4 Hatch vs Fasback

In the EV4 HAtchback, the boot space can accommodate 435 litres of storage, aided by the hatch back style bootlid and in Fastback form, the space increases to 490 litres however with the smaller opening, what you gain in volume, may be lost in versatility.

Driving the EV4

I decided to opt for the top-of-the-line GT-Line S for my driving day and explored some of the nice standard features, like heated and ventilated seats. If gadgets aren't a priority, the entry-level variants are just as lovely to drive, with only a slight drop in interior quality and tech. The EV4 is quiet, comfortable, spacious and intuitive to drive. The 201bhp power output feels more than punchy enough to launch onto motorway slip roads and equally well suited to town centre start-stop traffic jams. Intelligent cruise control takes the fatigue out of driving, and an array of safety features, including forward-facing collision avoidance, lane keep assist, intelligent speed limiter assist, driver attention monitoring and blind spot collision avoidance technology (to name but a few), ensure that the risk of incidents is kept to a minimum.

In the most positive way, the EV4 is otherwise pretty unremarkable. It goes, stops and steers in precisely the way you would want a C-segment car to go, stop and steer. It has ample storage for front- and rear-seat passengers and is loaded with enough tech and features to keep even the most gadget-obsessed drivers happy, engaged, and fully charged.

The driving position is fully adaptable, the seats are exceptionally comfortable, and luxuries on the top-spec cars, like a head-up display and a premium Hardon Kardon sound system, reward the sort of quality that Kia's German competitors would likely charge almost twice the retail price for in their showrooms.

Also available in small, large, XL and soon... XXL

The genius of Kia as a brand is that its EV range is now so vast that if neither the hatchback nor the Fastback EV4 works in terms of size and practicality, both smaller and larger versions of the same platform are available as alternatives. The EV3 offers a similar package in a smaller form, and the EV6 and EV9 handle the larger duties.

In the not-too-distant future, the EV5 and PV5 will arrive on the market, filling yet another gap for the consumer.

It's taken the likes of VW and BMW decades to offer a full range of cars under the same roof, yet Kia has pulled it off in the last few years. The fact that the cars are all very good at what they're designed to do makes the bigger picture extremely impressive.

Nu-Classless motoring

Another accolade similar to that of VW is that Kia attracts the new-age, classless motorist. Like the rest of the range, the EV4 isn't pining to be the poshest, most attention-seeking, or the sort of car to be brandishing the keys to in the country club. The EV4, like the EV3, EV6, EV9, and soon-to-be-added EV5, is fit for purpose for all, and that in itself is worthy of celebration. It's a car for those who don't aspire to be noticed, but one that will attract admiration from those who do - And that's not an easy thing to do.

words by John Marcar
photography by Henry Faulkner-Smith

Kia EV4 - A New C-Segment For One and All