I picked up the Kia EV4 on 9 Feb 2026 with the odometer reading 1490 km and returned it on 16 Feb 2026 with the odometer reading 1679, a total of 189 km travelled during the week.This is my typical annual mileage of about 10,000 km.
The car was charged to 98% when I picked it up, on return the battery was at 58% and estimated range left was 277 km thanks to the benefits of one-pedal driving and the resulting regeneration.
I did not have to charge the car while I had it, otherwise I would have charged it using my newly installed Anker Solix V1 7.4 kW home charger.
I am writing this review as a retired senior in my early 70s and have driven ICE cars for almost 50 years on 4 continents. Manual Ford Anglia and Renault 12 in East Africa, manual Honda Civic station wagon in North America, Volkswagen Polo in the Irish Republic and for over 30 years Fords, Holdens,Toyotas, Mitsubishis and Mazdas in Australia.
This was my 10th car review and the first sedan. A different proposition compared to the 8 SUVs and a hatchback that I have reviewed previously.
On sitting in the driver’s seat to become familiar with the cabin, I was immediately comfortable with the interior layout of controls as this was my 4th Kia review. The controls are very similar to the other Kias, that I have reviewed i.e the EV6, EV5 and the EV3, i.e. well placed physical controls, very simple to work out and easy to use! A feature I really value in my selection of an EV that I am planning to buy.
The front and rear seats of the Air are very comfortable with fabric upholstery. The driver and front passenger seats can be adjusted manually. There is lots of legroom but headroom can be a problem for tall adults if sitting on the rear seats.
The EV4 has two 12.3 inch infotainment screens and 5 inch climate control screen. I used the wireless Android Auto feature to navigate my trips using the Waze app on my Samsung phone, a very useful feature indeed! The central console has lots of storage space including two cup holders. The car has a standard 6 speaker sound system, more than adequate for my use.
There is plenty of boot space at 490 litres but the opening aperture is narrow which is normal for a sedan. The rear passenger seats can however be folded back should you want to transport, say flat pack furniture.
There is no frunk and rear visibility is impeded by the steep roof line and rear windshield.
Like all Kia electric cars the EV4 supports Vehicle to Load via a 240V power socket located under the back row passenger seats.
The Kia EV4 Air features 17 inch wheels. This can be an advantage if range is an important aspect that you are seeking as smaller wheels give an extended range.
I noticed on driving off that the suspension was quite firm and the ride comfortable as compared to the recently reviewed BYDs and a Geely where the ride was relatively softer and the cars rolled when taking corners and on uneven roads. Kia has tuned the car suspension specifically for Australian road conditions!
To test the energy consumption of the EV4 I made two trips, the first to Camden which is 37 kms from home. The car used 12.2 kWh per 100km on the trip there and back, very good for this size of EV.
The second trip was to Cronulla on a wet and slippery road, a trip of 80 kms return during which the energy used was 12.2 kWh as well.
So the Tesla Model 3, Polestar 2 and BYD Seal now have competition from The Kia EV4! The one big difference between the three models and the EV4 is that they are rear wheel drive while the EV4 is front wheel drive.
The Kia EV4 Air Standard Range is the most affordable of the EV4 range from $49,990 and comes with a 58.3kWh battery pack good for 456km of WLTP driving range. It would be an excellent car for urban driving. Should you opt for the Earth long range with 612 kms WLTP, price is a cool $10000 more. I would have liked the EV4 range to include an Air Long Range!
I would buy the Kia EV4 Air if I were 20 years younger as it’s a stylish sedan with, in my opinion, almost all the right attributes for an EV, but given the state of my knees and lower back, an SUV is much more to my liking as it’s so much easier to get in and out!
EDITORS VIEW
I got up close with two Australian versions of the brand-new Kia EV4 – the sporty GT Line and the more practical Air spec and put them side by side to comment on the exterior and interior so you don’t have to guess which one suits you.
My dad joined me, fresh off a real-world day trip in the Air, and he had some genuinely surprising things to say about how it drives and how efficient it really is. We walked around both cars, poked into every corner, uncovered a few unexpected omissions, and finished up by plugging one in for a live charge test to see what the charging experience is actually like in the real world.
There are some choices Kia made that I think will divide buyers, and a few that impressed me – I’ll let you discover which is which.
I took the Kia EV4 GT-Line out for a real-world drive through Sydney from the suburbs to the M5 motorway and around through the inner west for a week. I could immediately tell that the EV4 has been well tuned to Australia’s poor road surfaces by Kia’s expert Graeme Gambold.
It’s a shame this isn’t heavily promoted by Kia Australia because a lot of potential buyers just compare car specifications lists and local tuning is never listed there.
This wasn’t a polished press event, just me behind the wheel seeing what this car is actually like to live with.
I discuss something Kia EV reviewers rarely talk about, a surprisingly capable feature that means you don’t need to have your phone in the car. On the motorway and around Inner West Sydney streets I measure the real-world efficiency numbers – they shifted a bit after one simple thing I changed early in my loan period.
I also put the ride and handling to the test on some genuinely rough Sydney streets and comparing this EV to the BYD Seal and Tesla Model 3.
KIA thinks they’ll sell about 70 EV4 a month in Australia, I reckon this will split 40% Air, 20% Earth and 40% GT-Line. What do you think?
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