Kia’s Electric Hot Hatch Has Fake Gears, and Americans Can’t Buy It

Kia's new EV4 GT has paddles behind the steering wheel that do not shift anything. Pull one and the car staggers the torque coming out of its motors to imitate a gearchange, with a synthesized engine noise to match. Kia calls it Virtual Gear Shift. The idea is that electric cars are so smooth your brain stops registering how fast they are, so the fix is to put the interruptions back in on purpose.

The EV4 GT is one of three GT-badged EVs Kia put on sale in Europe this week, alongside the EV3 GT and the EV5 GT. All three get dual-motor all-wheel drive, electronically controlled suspension, 20-inch alloys, and neon-green brake calipers, because a performance badge apparently requires a caliper color. Two of the three are never coming to the United States.

What the power figures buy you

The EV3 GT and EV4 GT make the same power, 215 kW (288 horsepower) and 468 Nm of torque (345 lb-ft). The EV3 GT is the small crossover and reaches 62 mph in 5.7 seconds. The EV4 GT, sold as a hatchback or a fastback, does it in 5.6. The EV5 GT is the larger SUV and makes more on paper, 225 kW (301 hp) and 480 Nm (354 lb-ft), but it has more car to move, so it takes 6.2 seconds. Quick without being alarming. A decent gas hot hatch has been doing those numbers for years.

The fake gears

In a normal EV the torque arrives all at once and never stops arriving, which is thrilling for about twenty minutes and then just becomes how the car moves. Kia's system chops that delivery into steps you pull for with the paddles and pipes in a sound to sell it. Hyundai has been running a version of the same trick on the Ioniq 5 N. Kia also throws in launch control, torque vectoring and a GT drive mode, and you can turn the pretend gearbox off if it grates on you.

Read the range numbers with a discount

Kia quotes up to 333 miles (537 km) for the EV4 GT fastback, 314 miles (505 km) for the hatchback, 311 miles (501 km) for the EV3 GT and 295 miles (476 km) for the EV5 GT. Those are WLTP figures, the European test, and it is a gentler test than the EPA cycle Americans read on a window sticker. The EV3 GT sold in the US carries an EPA estimate of 280 miles against that same 311-mile WLTP number, roughly a 10 percent haircut. Apply something similar to the other two before you plan a long drive.

The prices are hard to defend

In Germany the EV3 GT starts at €53,990 (about $62,500), the EV4 GT at €57,840 (about $67,000) and the EV5 GT at €59,990 (about $69,500). Those are steep numbers for cars whose whole job is to be the affordable end of Kia's electric range. Some of the gap is tax, since European prices include VAT and American ones do not. Not all of it, though. Kia lists the same EV3 GT at $45,890 in the United States.

The GT badge is aimed at the buyer who already settled on an EV3 or an EV5 and wants it to be entertaining on the way to work. That is a real person. At these prices it is a narrower group than Kia seems to be counting on.

Americans get one out of three

All three are on sale in Europe now. In the United States you can have exactly one of them, the EV3 GT, at $45,890 with that 280-mile EPA rating. Kia has no plans to bring the EV4 GT or the EV5 GT here.

The EV4 GT is the actual hot hatch of the group, the small one with two body styles and the pretend gearbox, and it is the one Americans cannot order. What we get is the crossover. Enjoy the calipers.