The Kia EV5 is a 5-door SUV from Kia, built from 2023 to 2025, in the decade the industry is turning electric.
The story
The Kia EV5 is a battery electric (D-segment) mid-size crossover SUV produced by South Korean manufacturer Kia since 2023. It was first introduced in March 2023 as a concept form, and announced as a production form in August 2023. It is the third model in the manufacturer's "EV" battery electric vehicle range after the EV6 and EV9.
It is also the first battery electric vehicle that will be exported by Kia from China, being produced by the joint venture Jiangsu Yueda Kia Motors. It is the younger sibling to the EV9 due to its similar styling, and as the name suggests, the EV5 features two-row seating and a 5-seater layout. It is Kia’s first dedicated electric vehicle to feature the 400-volt architecture.
What is underneath
160-230 kW is the published figure. It weighs 1870-2229 kg. Work it out per tonne and you get about 86 horsepower — unhurried — enough for the job, not for the bragging. The wheelbase is 2750 mm. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
Its place in the line
Its family tree is legible: assembly was at Gwangju (List of Kia design and manufacturing facilities#Gwangju Plant. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the BYD Song L, the Mazda CX-90, the Toyota bZ3 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the Kia catalogue sit the Kia K5 (Optima) and the Kia Magentis.