Kia EV4 Review 2025

Given the ever-expanding proliferation of electric SUVs of various sizes, you’d be forgiven for assuming that car manufacturers were abandoning conventional compact family hatchbacks and saloons altogether. Yet rumours of more traditional bodystyles’ demise are greatly exaggerated it seems, especially if the all-new Kia EV4 is anything to go by.

Up to this point the electric-only, EV-prefixed models from Kia have all been SUVs, albeit with differing levels of slinkiness. There’s a svelte athleticism about the Kia EV6 that’s replaced by upright stoutness when it comes to the dinkier Kia EV3. All that’s about to change with the introduction of the Kia EV4.

Highlighting its significance within the company is the fact that the five-door Kia EV4 hatchback will be built in the firm’s European plant in Slovakia, ousting the combustion-engined Kia Ceed from the production lines in the process. That car’s replacement will in future be sourced from Mexico.

Although its angular styling ensures a very strong family resemblance to the EV3, Kia’s ensured that the EV4 isn’t simply the same design rehashed in a lower, longer form. Its LED headlights are more slender, almost appearing to be intakes in the front wing edges designed to smooth airflow around the front wheels.

Towards the back, the Kia EV4 is less perpendicular, the slope of the rear windscreen combined with the aerodynamic hood mounted at roof level, ensuring it cleaves the air with range-boosting efficiency. Elsewhere you’ll find sharply defined flaring over the front and rear wheels that conspire to make it look more planted, even lower to the ground than it really is.

We’ll reserve judgement about the gloss black band that loops over the EV4 roof from the rearmost edge of the side windows. A similar feature appears in even more striking form on the Korean-built Kia EV4 Fastback, which is the four-door saloon version that we’ll review separately. It shares the hatchback’s bodywork up to the back doors, beyond which it continues into an elongated, sloping tail with a stumpy bootlid.

As seems to be Kia’s wont in recent years, the EV4 certainly makes a statement, even when its bodywork is finished in more subdued tones. There’s a muscularity about it that serves to make one of its key rivals, the Volkswagen ID.3, appear to be even softer than before, plus there’s far more of a presence about the Kia than there is with the Citroen e-C4 and the Vauxhall Astra Electric.

Once inside the Kia EV4 the theme’s far sleeker and more elegant, almost to the point of appearing to be slightly at odds with the chiselled exterior bodywork. Atop the dashboard is a pair of screens — the touch variety for the infotainment screen in the centre — neatly combined within a single 30.0-inch panel. Although there’s a bar of fixed, touch-sensitive shortcut buttons below it, Kia continues to champion the cause with plenty of physical buttons, switches and rollers, including to alter the temperature of the dual-zone climate control system. Other manufacturers take note.

There’s space inside the Kia EV4 for five passengers, although it’ll likely be a more comfortable experience for four, particularly if you have a couple of child seats mounted to the Isofix points on the outer rear seats. Boot space with the rear seats in place is provisionally quoted at 435 litres, significantly trumping the Astra Electric’s 352-litre tally and comfortably ahead of the VW ID.3’s 385-litre capacity.

So far Kia’s confirmed that a front-mounted 204PS motor will be fitted to all EV4s available from launch with a choice of a 58.3kWh Standard Range battery and an 81.4kWh Long Range alternative. Top speed for all EV4s is electronically pegged at 105mph with the quickest version from 0-62mph being the cheapest Standard Range model at 7.5 seconds. When fitted with the Long Range battery the 0-62mph benchmark increases to 7.7-7.9 seconds.

When fitted with the larger capacity battery, Kia’s WLTP Combined cycle claim for the EV4 is 362-388 miles between recharges, depending on specification, while the smaller standard range version is quoted at 273 miles. Recharge times using a 350kW ultra-rapid DC charger are 29 minutes for a 10-80% replenishment for the EV4 Standard Range while the Long Range needs 31 minutes to do the same. 

Connected to an 11kW AC hook-up a 10-100% recharge for the Kia EV4 Standard Range will take 5 hours 20 minutes, increasing to 7 hours 15 minutes for the Long Range.

Given the trim level hierarchy elsewhere in the range, it's not a surprise that the entry-level Kia EV4 Air has a choice of Standard and Long Range batteries, while the latter will be the sole choice for the more sportily styled GT-Line and GT-Line S versions.

Prices start at £34,695 for the Kia EV4 Air Standard Range with a jump to £37,695 for the Long Range version of the same specification. For a GT-Line Long Range you're looking at £39,395 while the priciest Kia EV4 GT-Line S Long Range with battery heat pump will set you back £44,795.

Order books for the Kia EV4 opened in July 2025, with the first cars reaching customers before the end of the year. All versions benefit from the additional reassurance of Kia’s seven-year/100,000-mile warranty.

Keep this page bookmarked further news on this important new range and to read our forthcoming full and comprehensive Kia EV4 review in the months ahead.