Kia delays EV4 indefinitely – America loses more choice due to tariffs

The Kia EV4 will be “delayed until further notice” in the US, according to a Kia rep and reported by InsideEVs. Kia said the change is because “market conditions for EVs have changed.”

The EV4 was expected to be released in 2026 at a price in the ~$30k range, entering Kia’s model like alongside the existing EV3 as the smaller, more affordable electric models below the EV6 and EV9. The EV4 will have the style of a boxy sedan, while the EV3 is a small SUV.

The EV3 is already available in Korea, Europe and other territories, but has not made it to the US (and may not ever).

The EV4 is not on the roads yet, but its release is imminent. And it seemed likely to make its way to the US. We saw the concept EV4 at the LA Auto Show in 2023, and the model was officially unveiled in the US at the New York Auto Show this April.

Bringing that car to a US auto show with an official reveal suggested that the US would get access to this smart, more affordable Kia. And Kia said that the car would hit US roads in early 2026, which would have been just a few months from now.

Kia abruptly “delays” EV4’s introduction to the US

But now, a Kia rep has confirmed that the car won’t come to America after all, at least until further notice. Kia gave a statement to InsideEVs, saying:

“Kia’s full range of vehicles offers meaningful value and inspiring performance to customers. However, as market conditions for EVs have changed, the release of the upcoming EV4 electric sedan will be delayed until further notice.” 

We reached out to Kia to confirm, and received the same statement back.

The reversal is a bit of a surprise, and we’re not sure why we’re hearing this today in particular. Heck, we wrote a story about the EV4 GT’s interior just a couple hours ago.

So, unfortunately it looks like Americans will have one less potential choice to get away from the land-yacht disease currently infecting our populace. For what it’s worth, the EV4 is still listed as “coming 2026” on Kia Canada’s website.

We’ve seen models get delayed suddenly before, and while Kia did not directly say that the model will never come to the US, the fate of other “delayed” EV models in the past does not give us significant hope. Usually, a “delay” like this ends up meaning that the car just won’t ever make it to US roads (see: VW ID.7, Gen 2 Kia Soul EV, Ram 1500 EV, and others).

While Kia did not state a specific reason for the reversal, it’s not hard to guess what some of the influences are.

Electrek’s Take – EV4 likely delayed due to US policy changes favoring higher costs, dirty air

Since the EV4’s April reveal, republicans have continued their all-out assault on clean air, as in July a republican Congress passed a $4 trillion giveaway to wealthy US elites which also inflated the price of EVs by $7,500. Regulatory changes focusing on raising your costs and making your air dirtier are in progress, trying to force more gasoline and pollution on Americans and restricting access to cleaner, better EVs.

In addition to these actions opposing clean air, republicans are raising your costs in other ways as well. Unwise tariffs on basically every country in the world, which have been haphazardly implemented (due to the ignorance of the person unconstitutionally implementing them) and seem to change day-by-day, have increased prices for Americans and made business more difficult.

These tariffs would apply to the EV4. While Kia just started EV4 production in Europe, the US model would have come from Kia’s Korean factories. The ignoramus squatting in the US Oval Office did just ink a trade deal with Korea today, but given the lack of follow-through on previous trade deals, we wouldn’t be surprised if the terms of that change.

The difficulty of doing business in America has been in focus especially for South Korean firms, after a high-profile ICE raid at a Hyundai plant in construction in Georgia, which saw South Korean businessmen with visas detained and resulted in delayed construction on the plant and a swift popular pushback against US products in Korea. Kia and Hyundai are partner companies with a complex corporate relationship, so it stands to reason that Kia’s business decisions would be intertwined with Hyundai’s.

Many companies have recently cited a claimed but not substantiated lack of EV demand in the US as reasons for delaying their EV ambitions. To be clear, EVs have seen a long string of consistent sales growth in the US, stretching back more than a decade (with only a few interruptions to that growth, the largest being the start of COVID).

In the meantime, gas car sales peaked globally in 2017, and will never again reach that level of sales. This fact has been consistently underreported by media, alongside false headlines claiming EV sales are falling.

However, despite the record EV sales quarter the US just went through, it’s expected that the next year or so will see temporary drops in EV demand in the US specifically. This is because of the pull-forward in sales experienced due to tax credit expiration, which caused a sales rush in Q3. Although, as has happened in other countries that suddenly ended purchase incentives, we’d expect perhaps a year of depressed sales before they begin to rise again.

But this likely drop in demand is hitting right around the same time the EV4 was supposed to launch in the US, so it’s not unreasonable for Kia to look at a market in a temporary downswing, especially when considering all the other factors laid out above (and the country’s current hostility to foreign investment, specifically investment from Kia’s partner company Hyundai), and wonder why they’ve gotten cold feet right now of all times.

While Kia didn’t lay out these reasons above in its statement, it sure seems likely that each of them could have had an effect on this decision.

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