Kia PV5 review

Joyous. The driving position is commanding, more like being at the helm of a ship than the wheel of a car.

In fact, forget the ship - it’s closer to operating a crane, considering the windows. They are massive, almost stretching down to the driver’s waist. We’d have felt mildly exposed driving around in it, were it not for the obligatory limo tint on our Korean spec test car.

The enormous glasshouse, combined with the fact that the vehicle’s exterior dimensions barely extend beyond those of the cabin you’re sat in, make for a very special driving experience. It’s got all the feelgood factor we fawned over in the Buzz.

How does it fare in town?

Better than you might think. Visibility is fantastic, plus it’s no bigger than a regular car: it has basically the same footprint as an EV6. This combined with a 10.8 metre turning circle means it’s actually easier to squeeze down city streets than many smaller vehicles.

Talk to me about handling and dynamics.

Like all the Kias that sit on the E-GMP from which the PV5’s platform is derived, it strikes a nice balance between comfort and cornering ability. The steering is super light and despite the modest power figure, there’s sufficient performance (at least in the 160bhp version we tested) when you need it.

Most noteworthy is the body control - you expect such a tall vehicle to roll about through corners but there’s none of that, because all the weight sits low in that skateboard chassis. You’d probably be impressed with the result if you really chucked it into some corners, but nothing about the PV5’s personality encourages you to do so.

You said it was efficient?

This is the really impressive bit. Granted it was a balmy autumn day in Seoul - optimal temps for batteries, which are happiest at the same sort of climate as we squidgy humans (we’re not so different really). But even so, averaging over four miles per kWh is genuinely impressive. If we’d driven it until it died, with that efficiency we’d have exceeded the 256-mile WLTP range by over 20 miles - a deeply refreshing notion in a world where most brands spout fanciful “up to” range figures that you’ll never get near in real life (cough, Stellantis, cough).

Any bonus features?

It’s got proper one pedal driving but, more impressively, it has what we believe to be the first recorded example of an automatic regen setting that isn’t infuriating. On clear motorways it coasts, maximising efficiency as you’d want it to, and in traffic it holds speed with the car in front, bringing itself to a complete stop if required. It works eerily well, except when it doesn’t - it will, for example, cheerfully barrel through a red light if there’s no car in front for it to copy. And that’s a tough one to explain to the rozzers. “Sorry Officer, I thought my car knew better!”

Say something negative.

It doesn’t charge fast enough. The PV5’s platform is relegated to 400V, not the 800V seen on other electric Kias, presumably to help facilitate its low price. As a result, rapid charging is limited to 150kW which is distinctly average in this day and age. Since the batteries offered aren’t that big, you can still get from 10-80 per cent in less than 30 minutes, but it feels like a weird oversight in an otherwise technologically impressive vehicle.