With the recent rush by the prestigious European marques to try to grab all of the glittering limelight for their forthcoming SUV-style EVs, a similarly sized offering coming in at half the price is quietly proving its merits with superior efficiency and range.
The Kia Niro EV’s early real-world tests show it will have range within 5% to 10% of it’s significantly smaller “efficiency-champ” sibling, the Hyundai Kona, and far better efficiency than any of the purportedly well-engineered European marques.
Only the Tesla Model 3 has better efficiency than the Koreans, but that’s not an SUV or CUV.
The Kia Niro is a bigger vehicle, approximately the same size in usable interior space as the Jaguar I-PACE. But whilst the Jag is struggling with poor efficiency and disappointing range, the Niro, a vehicle expected to be offered at around half the price, is giving a much needed lesson to the prestigious marques about how efficient EV powertrains should be designed.
The price of the Kia Niro in the domestic market of Korea is only very marginally higher than it’s smaller sibling, the Hyundai Kona. The premium for the larger sibling is only around 130,000 Won ($1160, €1000), which is less than 3% higher.
Given what we know of the Hyundai’s existing price points in Europe, and assuming the Kia will have a similarly modest pricing bump, that’s still going to put it at around half the price of the I-PACE.
Reference- Cleantechnica, Kia website, EV guru Bjørn Nyland Youtube Post