Kia is forging ahead with its huge influx of electric vehicles and the latest one to arrive is the pint-sized Kia EV3. Unlike the EV5, which is built in China, the EV3 comes from Korea. But, is it too expensive in this top-specification GT-Line trim? Paul Maric finds out.
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:16
Interior: 02:43
Infotainment: 04:06
Safety Tech: 05:31
Practicality: 06:04
Charging: 09:26
On the Road: 10:15
Driver aids: 16:31
Accel. & braking: 17:30
Verdict: 19:29
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
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#kia #ev3 #review
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:16
Interior: 02:43
Infotainment: 04:06
Safety Tech: 05:31
Practicality: 06:04
Charging: 09:26
On the Road: 10:15
Driver aids: 16:31
Accel. & braking: 17:30
Verdict: 19:29
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
#kia #ev3 #review
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00So there's 130. Oh wow. Yeah, that is super floaty.
00:11Oh, gee, that felt really strong. G'day, I'm Paul. So Kia has just rolled out. This,
00:18it is the Kia EV3. It's kind of like a part of the onslaught of electric cars that are coming
00:25for Kia. They've got stacks of everything from EV9, that enormous SUV to this little pint-sized
00:31thing that kind of competes with stuff like the Hyundai Kona. So this here, top spec Kia EV3 GT
00:38line, priced at just under $64,000. So a big old chunk of money. That is too expensive though.
00:44The entire range kicks off at just under 48 grand. So there is a pretty wide spectrum there. Two
00:50battery sizes to choose from as well, including a longer range version that'll do like a little
00:54over 600 kilometres, which I think is pretty impressive for an electric vehicle in today's
00:58day and age. Fun fact as well, EV5 made in China, the slightly bigger version of this. EV3 though,
01:04made in South Korea, but still sort of fairly sharply priced. Today we're going to do a detailed
01:08review of this car. So if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time
01:12codes that are on the screen, or if you're on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters
01:16below. Now, what about your design? Around 500 bucks for optional colours, which I think is pretty
01:22impressive. I don't know that this would be at the top of my list of the optional colours I'd go for.
01:26It's like a light green sort of colour. It looks like it belongs on an appliance of some sort, but
01:32hey, look, I'm not one to dictate style, obviously. So you can pick whatever you want. Kia logo up the
01:38front here, and I just love the design of this. I don't know, Kia, just compared to Hyundai, their
01:42designs just seem to be a bit more cohesive, have that futuristic vibe to them, and just look really
01:47cool. This thing turns so many heads, and I think they've done a great job with the design.
01:51So piano black down the bottom here, you've got these sort of pixel-looking LED light with an LED
01:56running light there as well, which looks quite nice. Piano black on the wheel arch, and the wheels,
02:02they really have gone to town on piano black all over the place here. So that's on a 19-inch
02:07alloy wheel with a sort of eco design on the alloy wheel itself. Running through charging a little bit
02:12later on, more piano black up here. You've got a glass roof, roof rails, privacy glass,
02:18little door handle tucked into the top there. Come around to the back with me. Now around the back
02:22here, you have full LED taillights. You have a washer that's tucked in up the top there.
02:27Reverse camera here, Kia logo just there. I've got EV3 down the bottom there, and then GT line for the
02:32top spec, and then a little bit more piano black shark fin aerial up the top there as well. So let me know
02:38what you reckon about the design. Do you like it? Let me know in the comments section below. What do you
02:41think of the design and the pricing? So we're inside the EV3. We'll start off with the key.
02:47Kia logo up the top there that lights up when you push buttons. Got a lock button, unlock button,
02:53boot. It's a proximity sensing key, so you can leave that in your pocket. Once you're inside,
02:57you've got a push button start here on this gear lever that you kind of turn to engage gears.
03:03Let's talk about the design to start with. I'd really like the look of this. It's simple,
03:07but it just looks really futuristic and advanced. Like you've got this enormous screen display here
03:13with climate controls in the centre, driver display and infotainment display, materials,
03:18sort of fabric materials used throughout the cabin. There's a QR code on the dash over there as well,
03:23and when you scan that, it actually takes you to a web page on the Kia website that kind of gives
03:28you details on the materials they use throughout the cabin and their quest to be leather-free.
03:32Even sort of innovative stuff like this sort of slides out to give you like a little workbench
03:37to work with, which I think is a pretty cool sort of feature there. Terms of your touch points though.
03:43So centre here, nice and soft, soft on the door there as well. How soft are they? We've got our
03:48durometer. Tested the main surfaces in this cabin. If you do want to see how this car compares to
03:52others that we've tested before, there is a link in the description below. Now, build quality.
03:56Let's do a little shake test. It feels pretty decent. Decent there as well. This is what our
04:03door slam sounds like.
04:08Now, infotainment. You've got two 12.3-inch displays, one for the driver, one for infotainment.
04:15Touchscreen, nice and sharp and easy to use. Latest version of Kia's infotainment system,
04:20so it comes with remote connectivity as well, which is good. In-built satellite navigation as well.
04:27That's cool. So, it's actually got... Oh, it had satellite overlays. When you zoom in,
04:32the satellite overlays disappear there. So, but anyway, still pretty cool sort of looking setup.
04:38I was noticed then when I was trying to access that, if you lean your finger on that, it kind of
04:42triggers all of this stuff as well. It's a little bit annoying, so you've got to rest your finger on
04:46here to use it. On the audio front, you've got AM, FM, DAB digital radio, and it's sent through an
04:53eight-speaker Harman Kardon branded sound system, which is pretty decent. Outside of that, you've
04:58got online functions such as weather. You've got the voice memo function, which I'm a huge fan of.
05:03Smartphone mirroring, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both of those are wireless. Full screen display
05:09there as well, which is good. And then the ability to jump back to the home menu without having to faff
05:14around. Shortcut menu from the top there. I'll show you what Android Auto looks like. So,
05:19wireless, full screen. Very nice. Screen ahead of the driver. Minimal sort of customization here,
05:25but it does sort of change its display a little bit as you move through some of those different
05:30drive modes, but nothing sort of too crazy outside of that. In terms of safety tech, you've got an
05:35auto-dimming rear vision mirror. You've got this SOS function as part of the Care Connect setup.
05:40Blind spot monitoring built into the wing mirror. Radar cruise control with a
05:44lane keeping or semi-autonomous lane keeping assistant. Yeah, front rear parking sensors and
05:48a reverse view camera. I'll show you what that looks like. There it is there. So, quality of that's
05:53actually not too bad. It just is a shame it doesn't have a 360 camera. It doesn't make sense for the
05:58top spec to miss out on that sort of functionality. And it's what the horn sounds like.
06:05Now, moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity.
06:08You've got two USB-C ports down here. These are interesting because you can actually switch
06:15between having just charging or data functionality, and then you've got a 12-volt outlet hidden behind
06:21this little track door as well. Wireless phone charging on the storage front. Let's have a look
06:29at that glove box. The glove box is reasonably sized, but I mean, have a look at this. There's just nowhere to
06:33really put anything out of sight. If you stick anything here, you can clearly see it from outside the car,
06:37and someone's going to come and nick it. So, yeah, I think this all needs to be enclosed. I just don't
06:42understand why all of that's open. I think that could be much, much better done, in my opinion.
06:47But anyway, what about your comfort? Well, you've got dual zone automatic climate control, and you can
06:52use these buttons here. Unfortunately, the climate panel is hidden by the steering wheel. Not the end of
06:58the world, though, because you kind of set this once and then don't really touch it later on. So, it's not
07:04the end of the world, but I just can't see any of that because of the steering wheel being in the way.
07:07Now, seats, they offer electric adjustment for driver and front passengers. You can go forwards
07:12and backwards. Your backrest can go forwards and backwards. You've got lumbar adjustment. You can
07:16lift the front of the seat, back of the seat. You've also got seat heating, seat cooling, steering
07:22wheel heating, seat memory, but also this cool function, if you're ever at a charger, it can basically
07:29kick back and sort of give you like a relaxing position while you wait for the car to charge,
07:35which is kind of a unique function and something you don't really sort of see in other cars. But
07:40yeah, maybe a bit of a gimmick, but it's fun anyway. Steering offers both tilts and reach
07:46adjustment. On our reach test, some of this stuff from there onwards is just a little bit tricky to
07:52reach from the driver's seat. Now, second row. What is it like back here? So, knee room,
07:58fairly cramped. Tow room, not amazing either. Headroom average as well. You know, this is kind
08:06of where the concept of this at this price falls apart for me a little bit. This kind of money is
08:11Tesla Model Y money, which is a much bigger vehicle. Obviously, not as much driving range,
08:16but this is the compromise that you are making here with bigger battery and more price in a smaller
08:22platform. It's just a little bit cramped. So, you've got the storage bin down here, air vents,
08:27USB-C ports with matte pockets as well. There is a centre armrest here with two cupholders too.
08:33And you know, that sort of design thing follows back here as well. Windows, do they go all the way
08:40down? So, it's manual up and down. There you go. All the way down, which is at least a good part.
08:45So, cargo space. You've got a power tailgate.
08:50You have 460 litres available. So, not a huge amount just here. But, if you do move this out
08:56of the way, there's actually heaps of storage under the floor there. So, they've really capitalised
09:00on the deep floor there because you don't have a rear motor here. So, that's actually pretty decent.
09:05It just means that you just have to kind of just shove things in there really. I'll show you what it
09:09looks like with our suitcase in here. As you can see there, that doesn't close. It's got to go
09:14sideways. What else have we got back here? Cargo blind. You can drop the second row for more space.
09:20There is also a frunk, but it is comically small. It's like 25 litres. I don't even know what you're
09:25going to get into the front there. Now, before we go for a drive, let's chat about battery and charging.
09:30So, battery size, 81.4 kilowatt hours nominal capacity. So, slightly less for your usable.
09:36It's an NCM battery. So, the type of battery, you don't really want to charge to 100% constantly.
09:41You want to keep it sort of between 20 and 80%. You have AC charging, which is three-phase,
09:4611 kilowatts, and DC charging, which is 135 kilowatt peak, average of around 105 kilowatts. So,
09:54reasonable charge rates. This is on a 400-volt architecture. It doesn't get the 800-volt setup
10:00that some of the bigger Kia products get, which means you're getting slightly less sort of charging
10:05pace there. Driving range is a little over 550 kms on the WLTP cycle. You also have vehicle-to-load
10:12capability that allows you to run external devices using the vehicle's battery.
10:18Okay, we have just hit the road in the EV3. So, before we get driving, I just want to point out
10:25Kia has implemented this thing where if you push and hold the mute button, it turns off the overspeed
10:30warning, which is one of the annoying things that we find constantly in new cars today. They don't
10:35pick up speed signs properly, and they constantly think that you're speeding. Unfortunately, though,
10:40it works briefly, and then it just stops working and keeps warning you about speed limits. You have
10:44to go in and manually disable it. Likewise, the driver attention warning. And I know I keep harping
10:48on about this, and it's not Kia. It's every brand that is releasing a car this year. They just cannot
10:54get this stuff right, and it is really frustrating. I just wish that we could abolish these stupid
10:59safety requirements because it's not helping at all in terms of safety. Okay, so EV3. It's an
11:05interesting setup because, regardless of which variant you pick in the range, they all have the
11:10same front motor power and torque output. The only difference is battery size and then the weight of
11:16the vehicle, depending on the features that are added. This GT line, ironically, is heaviest and slowest in
11:23the range. Normally, they reserve the fastest in the range for the top spec, but this is actually the
11:28slowest. So, it's a single motor mounted to the front axle, 150 kilowatts of power and 283 newton
11:34metres of torque. I'm always a little bit concerned about front-wheel drive electric cars because lots
11:39of torque on a front-wheel drive leads to lots of torque steer. And torque steer, effectively, is
11:44so you punch the throttle, and you can see what the vehicle's doing now. It's steering on its own in
11:51one direction, and it does that because torque is taking the path of least resistance. And when the
11:57vehicle is turned in, you're putting load on this tyre over here. This tyre is becoming unloaded, so it
12:03gets more of the torque. As a result of that, it starts pulling the vehicle in the direction that the
12:07wheels are pointing. So, that is torque steer. And unfortunately, it's something you can't get away
12:13from, especially in an electric car. Now, here, it's not terrible. Like, it's fine. It's perfectly
12:18manageable. It's not the end of the world. I suspect, though, at the lower end, where you've got the same
12:23power and torque output, but a much smaller battery and a lighter vehicle, this would have considerable
12:27torques here. Haven't driven it yet, but I can just feel that that's how it would go if you shed
12:32kilos off the car. But yeah, so just something worth keeping in mind. You're going to have to have a look
12:37at other brands if you want to move away from front-wheel drive in a package like this. Now, what does all that
12:42feel like behind the wheel? So, we'll give it a punch there. Outside of that sort of torque steer
12:46issue, it feels punchy enough. Like, it's not face-tearing, but it sort of moves along perfectly
12:50fine. Now, what does all that mean in terms of economy? So, Kia claims a combined average of around
12:5616 kilowatt-hours per 100 kilometres. The figure's fine, but it's not really amazing when you consider
13:02that there's a lot of other cars in the segment that are doing less than that. So, they've gone with
13:07the bigger battery here to give them superior range. And if you look at the model beneath
13:13this with the bigger battery, but without the GT-Line trim, you're getting around 600 kilometres
13:18of driving range. So, a really good driving range, but I think the efficiency could be a
13:21little bit better in terms of how much energy it's using to achieve that sort of driving range.
13:27Okay, so this car benefits from a local ride and handling tune. So, let's send it over our
13:32sine waves. We do that at 130 k's now. Wow, it's already feeling pretty floaty. To see what the
13:38body control's like. So, there's 130. Oh, wow. Yeah, that is super floaty. I get the vibe here that
13:48they've engineered this car as a city vehicle, because it feels very much like it has a soft
13:55ride and stuff that's designed to cater for city driving, which is fine if you're only going to be
14:00driving in the city. It's probably perfect for that. But if you are wanting to head out to the
14:04country and tackle some sort of more challenging stuff, I suspect this is going to feel a little
14:08bit floaty through corners, which we'll test a little bit later on when the speed picks up.
14:12Okay, bumpy road time. This is a 90k an hour job. Let's see how it goes. If you do decide to head out
14:19to the country and you get some corrugated, dodgy roads, it feels quite nice here. Let's see what it's
14:26like on our condensed sine wave. Yeah, look at that. It's super floaty over that. Any steering
14:33inputs over those corrugations and it really just wanders. So, that is again, just a symptom of the
14:38ride being quite soft. Now, drive mode. You've got a button here at the bottom of the steering wheel.
14:42You've got eco, normal, sport, my drive and snow. So, I get into sport mode. Let's see what it's like
14:49around our track here. We test all cars back to back in the same way to see how they feel when the speed
14:55of peaks up. Brake pedal feels pretty good. Tip it in through here. A bit of body roll there.
15:12Throttle. Yeah, a bit of body roll and you do notice the torque steer as you're getting on and also
15:18it's quite wallowy if you're hitting bumps mid-corner. It sort of just tends to boat along
15:23there and that is probably due to a longer wheelbase here and softer suspension. Like right
15:28there, you can feel it really carries a fair bit of that bounce through the corner. Like I said before,
15:32I think this has been engineered predominantly as a city car. I'm really not getting sporty car vibes
15:38here, which again, like I said, is perfectly fine. It's not the end of the world. But yeah, I think the
15:44dynamics are probably a little bit sloppy for my liking if you were hoping to tackle a couple of twisty
15:51roads. But yeah, just my thoughts on it. Now let's talk about road noise. Not a huge amount. You do
15:58notice a little bit, but it really isn't the end of the world. So we've put it up against our calibrated
16:02sound meter and this is how it went. You can compare this car to other cars that we've tested
16:07using the link in the description below. Let's talk about visibility. So I can see clearly out the
16:12front of the car. The wing mirrors are really nice, but visibility out the back is quite poor.
16:16That envelope is so narrow. You can barely see sort of anything around the headrest. So this
16:21could definitely do with a digital mirror to look out the back there to overcome that little narrow
16:26window that's in there because of design. I think it looks great from the outside, but it really does
16:29affect your visibility out the back. Okay. So time to test the semi-autonomous systems. We do this
16:35at 70 kilometers an hour. So I'll crank that up. And the whole aim is to see how well the self-steering
16:43system works on our three outer lanes. The higher we go on the bank, the harder it is for the car
16:49to actually offer steering input. So lane one here looks very good. Jump over to the next lane. We'll
16:56see if it's like up here. All right. Locks in nice and early. Beautiful. Keeping us very central to the
17:04lane there. Nice. All right. Our most challenging lane. Let's see what happens. So it's gone green.
17:11Let go of the wheel. Yeah. It's sort of had us there. We'll try one more time. I'll just guide it
17:17in. It's gone green. Let go of that wheel. See, it's not willing to provide enough steering input
17:25there to hold it within that lane. So good, but not amazing in terms of the way that it works.
17:30Okay. Let's do some performance testing. We're going to do zero to 100 and go all the way through
17:36120 so we can get our 80 to 120 overtaking time as well. All right. So pop this into sport. I've
17:43turned traction control off. I'm just going to stand on the throttle and we'll see what happens. Here we go.
17:47This feels nice and strong off the line. 80, 90, there's 100 and
18:02120. Okie okie. Actually, it doesn't feel too bad for a front wheel drive car. It sort of
18:10gets along all right. Zero to 100, 7.75 seconds. So yeah, not too bad. 80 to 125.36 seconds. So
18:21again, reasonable. Not too bad at all. I'd be curious to see what this is like with people on
18:26board, but those figures are pretty good for a front wheel drive electric car.
18:30Okay. Let's do a stop from 100 k's an hour. A lot of loose stuff in the car. It might go flying. Here we
18:38go. Gee, that felt really strong. I don't know if my thoughts are deceiving me, but let's have a look
18:48here. 100 to zero. Wow. 2.62 seconds. 35.67 meters. That is awesome. I actually remember last few
18:58KIAs that we've tested. The brake performance has been excellent. So that is a good combo of
19:04tyre, brake package. Like it is just really finely tuned. So head off to Kia for making a car like
19:10this that stops as well as it does. Really impressive stuff. All right. Let's see how
19:14quickly it goes in reverse. Here we go. 39, 40 kilometers an hour. If you do want to see how this
19:25car compares to others that we've tested before, there's a link in the description below. You can
19:28compare all the numbers. Okay. Kia EV3. What do we think? Okay. It's an interesting one. I actually
19:35really like the car. What I don't like though, is the price of the top spec. I just don't know that
19:40anyone's going to be going for that. That sort of price there is like Tesla Model Y money. And I just
19:44don't know that it really fits the bill there in terms of what you're getting for that kind of cash.
19:48So lower down the range though, you are still getting the ability to go for a big battery,
19:52to get lots of range and a vehicle that is city size and able to be driven around the city without
19:56too many dramas. But then if you go even further down, you've got smaller battery, but still a car
20:01that is just fun to drive in and around the city. In terms of the negatives though, visibility out the
20:05rear, not very good. And I also just don't love the handling. I think if you are strictly driving this
20:11in the city, it's not that bad, but from a handling point of view, it just feels a little bit too soft
20:16for my liking. But you know, that is not the end of the world if you are just driving it in the confines
20:20of suburbia. So let me know what you reckon in the comments section below. Have you test driven this?
20:25What did you think? What do you think about the pricing? Do you think it's too expensive?
20:28I'm keen to hear what you think. If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you
20:32share it with your mates. And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the channel. But until next time,
20:37take it easy.
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