ABM Q4 - Flipbook - Page 48
REV I E W
KIA EV2 GT-LINE
Small wonder
Kia EV2 GT-Line review
BY ADRIAN SIMPSON
I
recently spent a launch day
behind the wheel of Kia’s smallest,
cheapest electric car, and I enjoyed
it far more than I expected to. Not
because it’s fast, but because it’s so
easy and so comfortable to drive,
and because by the end of the
afternoon I had also worked out
that it might be the shrewdest little
company car in Britain.
They handed me the keys, and my
first reaction was that it looked almost
comically sensible. Small, boxy, upright,
honest. No theatre, no drama, just a neat
little electric Kia in the shape everyone
will end up buying.
And then I drove it, and did some
sums, and realised that ‘sensible’ is
precisely the point.
This unassuming thing is quietly one
of the most compelling budget
company cars I have come across
in a long while. Let me walk you
through it, numbers and all.
Long range by name
Start with what sits underneath,
because this launch is really about
one version: the Long Range,
which is set to become the only
EV2 you can buy once the early
small-battery car bows out.
It carries a 61kWh battery, of
which 58kWh is usable, and Kia
claims up to 275 miles between charges
depending on specification, with the
wheel-heavy GT-Line I mostly drove
rated closer to 261.
Over a launch day that took in
motorways, B-roads and town, I saw
a genuine 4.1 miles per kWh, which
works out at around 238 real-world
miles even on the bigger alloys, and that
is a seriously frugal result for a car at
this price.
For anyone whose company
mileage is a
