Kia’s electric sedan is already living up to the hype. After driving over 68,000 miles (110,000 km) on public roads, the Kia EV4 battery was still almost as good as new.
Kia EV4 impresses after driving +68,000 miles
The EV4 is Kia’s first fully electric sedan. In Europe, it even comes as a hatchback, also a first for Kia. It’s part of the Korean automaker’s push into affordable EVs, and it might just be the most important yet.
To ensure it’s up to the task, Kia put the EV4 to the test in real-world and extreme conditions. Following an over 68,000-mile (110,000 km) public road test and over 6,200-mile (10,000 km) Nürburgring campaign, Kia’s engineers confirmed the EV4’s battery State-of-Health (SOH) was still at 95%.
Kia credited its fourth-generation battery system for the impressive performance. The new system features a thermal management system that distributes coolant evenly across all battery cells.
By doing so, Kia said it “ultimately extends battery life and maintains consistent performance.” Even during the Nürburgring run, which simulated 90% to 95% of the vehicle’s max output, the EV4 had minimal wear.
Despite repeated hypercharging in between sprints, the EV4 battery remained efficient throughout the performance.
In addition to the new battery system, the EV4 features regenerative braking. Kia said the system can recapture 25% of energy while decelerating, which will further reduce strain on the battery.
Top comment by Maebe
The idea the Kia battery, or almost ANY EV battery would do less well than this Kia is no surprise at all. It's standard or less for modern EVs. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 (same battery as my Kia EV 6) has an example of a manic driver that drove 360k miles with only 13% degradation. And you can count on most of that distance being charged at DCFC chargers.
This example of the Kia 4 is certainly not special. Researchers now admit that their cycle testing doesn't reflect the reality of a car in a customer's hands as the cycle to 100% back to 0% over and over in the lab. Nobody does that in an EV in the real world, they can't. Even a Bolt with 150k miles had less than 8% degradation (as near as could be calculated) and was almost completely charged on DCFC chargers.
The Hyundai featured is nothing special. All EVs are doing very well on battery life, much better than the mythology regarding EV batteries - except maybe Teslas, because we can't be sure what the mileage might be as Tesla inexplicably doesn't use a direct measurement of distance.
According to Kia, the EV4 “is guaranteed to retain at least 70% of its battery capacity after 160,000 kilometres driven or eight years of regular use.”
Kia opened orders for the EV4 sedan, or Fastback, starting at £40,895 ($55,000) in the UK less than two weeks ago. Powered by an 81.4 kWh battery, the electric sedan offers a range of up to 380 miles.
It follows the EV4 Hatchback, which was introduced earlier this month. The hatch variant is offered with two battery pack options: 58.2 kWh or 81.4 kWh, providing a WLTP driving range of up to 273 miles or 388 miles. It’s priced from £34,695 ($47,700).
Kia is launching the EV4 in the US later this year. It will feature an EPA-estimated driving range of up to 330 miles, and the US version will come with a built-in NACS port to recharge at Tesla Superchargers. Kia has yet to announce official prices, but the EV4 is expected to start in the $35,000 range.
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