Kia EV3 review

Well, it doesn’t share the same ruggedness of the exterior, with light colours and soft touch materials (spot the fabric-wrapped dash) dominating. A hat-trick of screens give it a proper premium feel, though Kia has foregone a flat floor up front in place of a static centre section, complete with sliding table which you’ll likely never use.

Kia’s gone big on sustainability in here too, with recycled fabric and plastic featuring heavily from the dashboard to the seats to the doorcards. Something to shout about to your friends, eh? Light colours add to the home from home feel, and while the screens do much of the heavy lifting, it’s not as minimalist as an EX30.

Is the tech any good?

Said trio of screens include a 12.3-inch instrument cluster, 12.3-inch infotainment display and 5.0-inch air conditioning panel. That’s nearly 30 inches of screenage in all, or in other words, as wide as the TV in your mum’s living room. Not that you'll be watching much Emmerdale in here.

Fortunately Kia hasn’t overcomplicated things, with the instrument cluster clear, easy to read and customisable to your liking, and the central infotainment display crisp to look at, responsive and pleasingly simple to operate.

The air conditioning panel breaks the two main screens up nicely, but physical climate controls under the central touchscreen kinda renders it redundant. Better than not having them at all, we suppose.

The steering wheel too features proper physical switchgear, while the heated and ventilated seat controls are found on the doors. We wish there was a shortcut button to easily turn off the many annoying driver assist functions, which currently requires you to delve into the touchscreen. When will car manufacturers learn? 

How does it score for comfort?

Certainly no complaints from us here. Up front the seats have an armchair like squidgyness to them, lovely mesh headrests and a fold-back relaxation mode, while in the rear there’s ample head and legroom; markedly better than the EX30.

A flat floor means you can just about squeeze five in too, while the boot - measuring 460 litres and offering a split-level flat floor - is nearly 150 litres bigger than the Volvo. It trumps the Smart #1 and Renault Megane E-Tech too.

Kia also claims it’s the first manufacturer to bring Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) charging to the compact EV segment (at least in top-spec guise), allowing you to charge or power external devices such as laptops, cool boxes, coffee machines… you get the gist.