There’s a very obvious idea at the heart of the Kia EV5. Take everything that makes the Sportage such a strong seller in the UK — the sensible size, the family-friendly cabin, the straightforward controls, the easygoing nature — and turn it into an electric car.
And that’s exactly what Kia has done. The EV5 is a mid-sized SUV that feels designed to make life easy for people to live with, and just happens to be electric. It’s roomy, comfortable, well equipped and simple to get on with. If that sounds faint praise, it isn’t really. For plenty of buyers, that will be more than enough.
But being easy to live with and being memorable are not the same thing.
Pros
+ Spacious and practical cabin with lots of rear-seat room and a useful, family-friendly boot.
+ Comfortable, quiet and easy to drive.
+ Sensible controls and strong usability.
Cons
– Lacks excitement or personality
– Cabin feels a bit plain and dark in places
– Charging speeds are decent rather than standout
Looks like a Kia
If you’ve seen the EV3, EV4, EV6 or EV9, the EV5 won’t come as much of a surprise. It looks tough and upright, with the sort of square-edged styling that seems almost compulsory for new SUVs now. In isolation, it’s a smart enough thing, and it has more road presence than my pictures might suggest ― and the Magma Red paint job isn’t the boldest we’ve seen recently — but it doesn’t feel especially fresh.
That’s partly because Kia’s electric design language is now so well established. Park the EV5 next to its siblings and you can clearly tell they’re related. The EV5 doesn’t quite carve out enough of its own personality in the process. It can feel a little like the middle child of the line-up: big enough to be useful, polished enough to be likeable, but not especially distinctive.
That theme continues inside. The dashboard is neat, tidy and modern in the way recent Kias are, with twin 12.3-inch screens and a separate climate display making up the now-familiar panel across the dash. The really good news is that Kia hasn’t gone fully down the “everything through a touchscreen” route. There are still proper physical controls for key climate functions, and that immediately makes the EV5 easier to live with than some rivals.
It’s not a particularly exciting cabin to look at, though. Depending on trim, it can feel a bit dark and plain, and while the materials are generally good enough for a mainstream family SUV, there isn’t much in the way of warmth or flair. It’s more sensible shoes than statement trainers.
It’s properly spacious
If the cabin design won’t set your pulse racing, the space on offer might at least raise a knowing nod of approval.
This is where the EV5 starts making its strongest case. There’s lots of room front and rear, and the back seat in particular is properly generous. Adults should have no problem getting comfortable, while the flat floor helps anybody in the middle seat and makes the whole thing feel airy. For family duties, that matters more than a clever dashboard gimmick ever will.
The boot is a useful size, too, with a wide opening and a square shape that should make it easy to load. Fold the rear seats down and you get a flat load area, which is always helpful. There’s even a small frunk up front for charging cables, which will stop grubby leads rolling around in the boot.
There are also plenty of thoughtful touches scattered around the cabin: storage spaces where you want them, rear USB-C ports, and the sort of general usability that suggests Kia understands how these cars are actually used day to day.
Calm, comfortable and not especially exciting
The EV5 arrives in the UK with a single front-mounted electric motor producing 215hp, powered by an 81.4kWh battery. On paper, that gives it enough to feel respectable rather than rapid, and that’s pretty much how it comes across from behind the wheel.
It’s brisk enough to keep up with traffic without effort, and it never feels slow, but it’s not trying to be entertaining. There’s no sense that Kia has tuned this to deliver a grin on your favourite road. Instead, the EV5 is all about making ordinary journeys feel easy.
And it succeeds. The steering is light and accurate, visibility is decent, and everything feels predictable in the best possible way. If you’re moving from a petrol or hybrid SUV into your first EV, there’s nothing here that will unsettle you. In fact, that may be one of the EV5’s greatest strengths — it feels completely ordinary.
The suspension has a soft edge that helps the car deal well with poor surfaces, and on the motorway, the EV5 settles into a quiet, refined cruise, making it a wonderfully comfortable car. There is a bit of floatiness at times, but overall, the balance is clearly aimed at comfort over cornering thrills.
That makes sense for a family SUV. Push hard and there’s body roll, modest front-end grip and little real reward. This is a car that’s safe, stable and competent, that’ll get you from A to B quietly and comfortably.
Kia EV5 battery and efficiency
The EV5 offers up to 329 miles of range in the entry-level Air trim, with slightly less for GT-Line and GT-Line S versions running on larger wheels. Real-world figures are a litte less, which is not unusual for an electric SUV of this size, but over some reasonably gentle driving on a winter’s day, our EV5 GT-Line returned 3.8 miles per kWh — efficient enough to get 309 miles from a full charge.
Peak DC charging of around 150kW means a 10–80% top-up takes about 30 minutes, in ideal conditions, which is perfectly acceptable. However, Kia makes a big deal about the faster charging tech in its more expensive EVs, so the EV5 feels a little less special here.
The EV5 lets you adjust the strength of the regen braking (a system that slows the car and feeds energy back into the battery when you lift off the accelerator) using paddles behind the steering wheel, ranging from a near coasting feel to a much stronger style that’ll bring you to a reasonably quick stop. Better still, the calibration is well judged, so it doesn’t take long to find a setting that suits your driving. In daily use, it makes a real difference. A badly sorted regen system can make an EV feel awkward, while a good one is intuitive and smooth. The EV5 lands on the right side of that line.
So is the Kia EV5 any good?
Yes, it is. It’s spacious, comfortable, easy to drive and easy to understand. It has enough performance, enough range, and enough practicality to do the family-car job without fuss. For a lot of buyers, that will be exactly what they want.
The problem is that the EV5 arrives in a class packed with alternatives, and some of those rivals give you a stronger reason to choose them. Some are better value, some are more interesting to drive, some feel more distinctive inside, and some just leave a stronger impression.
That leaves the EV5 in an odd position. It’s hard to criticise strongly, because it does so much well. It’s just slightly harder to get excited about than it perhaps ought to be.
He is the founder of Huff Media, publisher of Professional Pickup, Professional Van, Average Janes, Average Joes, and CALIBRE. His work focuses primarily on light commercial vehicles, pickups, and real-world vehicle use, with much of his time spent on manufacturer launches, industry events, and long-term vehicle testing.