Kia EV4 GT review

It’s the closest thing Kia has to a hot hatch. And also the latest EV in the Korean firm’s line-up to get the GT treatment – i.e. more power, all-wheel drive, and a box of tricks to go with it – following the EV6 crossover some years ago and the gigantic EV9 seven-seater just recently. Soon there’ll be hot versions of the EV3 and EV5 too. Spot the pattern…

The EV4 GT’s biggest rivals are the Cupra Born VZ and closely related VW ID.3 GTX, but apart from those and possibly the MG4 XPower, the landscape is pretty barren. Things like the Peugeot E-208 GTI, Alpine A290, Mini JCW Electric, and Abarth 600e are supermini sized: the fuse is still waiting to be lit on the whole electric hot hatch idea.

In light of that, the EV4 GT is to be lauded. If you can get on board with a) classing it as a hatchback, and b) calling it hot.

Wait, it’s not a hot hatch?!

Debatable. We’ll give it the benefit of the doubt as far as the bodystyle goes – it’s 9cm taller than a Civic Type R, but lower than a Born VZ – but the ‘heat’ is subjective. Despite gaining a motor on the rear axle for AWD, peak combined output only rises to a modest 288bhp and 345lb ft. 0-62mph in 5.6 seconds and a top speed of 105mph is also pretty tame by modern standards. This is a cosy campfire, not an inferno.

But let’s not knock it for that. What the EV4 GT lacks in punch it makes up for with an arsenal of tools including sticky 20in Pirelli P Zeros, electronically controlled suspension and torque vectoring, an active sound design that would feel right at home in the opening bars of a Nineties EDM banger, and a virtual six-speed gearbox complete with flappy paddles and a simulated limiter. All of which you can enjoy on regular roads at regulation speeds – as it should be for a small-ish fun car.

So it’s a laugh, but a bit underpowered?

Actually the opposite. We spent a day scything through the foothills of Nice in the EV4 GT, and despite it weighing more than two tonnes (2,060kg!), not once did we yearn for the kind of motivation that marks out the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N as the asylum’s missing lunatic. Full throttle is potent but not bombastic – if anything it’s better for being less highly strung than the other GT cars rolled out so far.

The grip from those P Zeros makes it nimble and chuckable, with the caveat that the front-bias caps how much fun you can have in it. Fluid inputs give you fluid outcomes, but if you’re hoping to get the rear involved, well… forget it.

It’s the virtual gear shift that stops the EV4 GT from being one-dimensional: flicking through the ratios adds another layer of involvement to a string of corners and quickfire switchbacks, and beware slamming into the limiter; it’s the only time the GT wakes up and chooses violence over light tomfoolery.

But if you look upon that kind of thing cynically, there’s not much here to stir the soul. Pity.

Doesn’t look that special, either.

It doesn’t, does it? Aside from neon brake calipers, a subtly different front bumper and rear diffuser, from the outside you’d be doing well to tell the GT apart from the normal EV4. Inside you get lots of colour-matched details – trim pieces, stitching, seatbelts and the GT button on the steering wheel – but otherwise it’s as per the standard car.

Two ways of looking at this: either you don’t want to show off and you’ll think of this as a sleeper hot hatch. Or you’ll feel short-changed because the bodywork flourishes you’d usually expect from a car like this simply aren’t there. Where’s the lookatmeee rear wing and nerdy dive planes and racing stripe? You’d think its creators would’ve bothered, given the price.

Why, what’s the price?

The Kia EV4 GT is – and there’s no gentle way of saying this – almost fifty grand. £49,345 to be precise, an uplift of more than £12k over the entry-level model with the same 81.4kWh battery; a gap that widens post-Electric Car Grant (which the GT doesn’t get).

Never mind costing more than the Born VZ, that’s more than Toyota charged for GR Yaris Aero Performance! And more than a Golf GTI Edition 50. And more than an AMG A35. Good grief. Feels like a misjudgement.

The EV4 GT seems to exist purely because Kia has the means to make it: it knows this won’t be a volume seller, but the act of building a quick-ish version with real substance gives the brand a degree of sporting clout and the regular car priceless context in the dealership. You’ll fawn over the GT, then pat yourself on the back for choosing the sensible, cheaper one with more range. You savvy spender, you.

Trouble is, in isolation the extra measures taken on the GT don’t elevate it into performance hatch territory – where the Born VZ manages to be greater than the sum of its parts, the GT doesn’t deliver nearly as much fizz, despite going to greater lengths with the active sound and fake shifts. The big limitation, we suspect, is that the bulk of the power is sent to the wrong end of the car.

And if that doesn’t put you off, the price definitely will.