Kias GT-line – fun cars, but ...

Kia is building a lineup of sporty electric cars. What they all have in common is four-wheel drive, sharp driving dynamics, and virtual gear shifts with intense sound effects.

09.09.2026 13:42 | Updated 13:49

Kia has gradually managed to fill every car class with new electric models sharing the same naming and design philosophy.

Now, fun GT versions are also available for all of them.

To showcase this to the entire European automotive press, they chose Nordmøre as the base location. With its numerous small roads in beautiful natural landscapes and the Atlantic Road serving as a route for visitors.

At the same time, it might seem a bit strange to introduce exactly these cars in a country with the lowest speed limits and the strictest penalties for breaking them?

For clarity: We test all cars in the same article. We only evaluate the specific GT features. If you want to know more about rear seat space, child seats, trunk capacity, charging speed, etc., we recommend reading our previous tests of these cars in the links further down.

3xGT

The new models in this series are the EV3, EV4, and EV5 in GT versions. This is quite natural since they share the same platform and 400-volt architecture.

There is a lot of similarity among these three models:

The battery capacity is 81.4 kWt, with a charging time of 30–31 minutes to reach 10–80 percent charge. The power output is roughly the same: 292 hp and 468 Nm for the two lower models, and 306 hp and 480 Nm for the EV5 GT. The turbocharger output is 95 hp for all three.

Kia has decided that all GT models must have all-wheel drive. This might mean the EV2 will never come in a GT version. Too bad. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a quick hatchback with front-wheel drive and a GT logo?

In terms of performance, these aren’t rocket-powered vehicles. The power boost is at least 30 horsepower across all models. All of them share a base setup as front-wheel drive cars, which sets them apart from the EV6 GT and EV9 GT we’ve tested before.

New Chassis

An adaptive chassis with three basic settings and a camera that scans the road to prepare the chassis for potholes and bumps is standard.

In addition to the four standard modes—Eco, Normal, Sport, and Snow—there’s an extra GT mode that can be activated with its own button, as well as My Drive, where you can adjust parameters such as throttle response, steering weight, suspension, and stability systems.

In the two weakest driving modes, none of the vehicles use the rear wheels, unless you press the gas pedal fully. In Snow mode, all four wheels are constantly engaged to ensure traction, but the engines provide more cautious responses to avoid spinning.

In Sport and GT modes, the rear wheels are quickly engaged to deliver maximum performance, stability, and excitement. In GT mode, ESP is also disabled.

You can also scroll down in the menu to find Launch Control. With this enabled, you should be able to get the most out of the vehicle.

But once you try it, it says you need to wait two minutes before trying again. In practice, it seems this rule applies for the rest of the drive, as the warning appears every time I try to use it.

The option should never have existed at all, and certainly not deep in a menu. It should understand that you want full power when both the brakes and accelerator are pressed to the floor with the car moving straight ahead.

Fake Gear Shift

In standard mode, the cars operate silently like any electric vehicle in all driving modes. This is also when it’s most efficient, as you have full power available at any time.

The GT package also includes fake gear shift as an option. It was first introduced in the group’s sibling model, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N, but later appeared in the facelift versions of the EV6 GT and EV9 as well.

But here, they’ve taken it a significant step further, likely based on feedback from both customers and journalists. The system in the EV6 GT and EV9 was quite limited compared to that in the Hyundai model.

Now there are the other speakers. You’re more familiar with the engine sounds, and moreover, you get a much richer sound experience. You can adjust the sound in three steps, and most people will definitely choose 3.

And many things suggest that the sound designers are aiming at Audis five-cylinders and Lamborghinis V10 engines. Because what you get sounds incredibly similar to a Lamborghini V10 engine or a lower-end Audi five-cylinder. I really like it.

Green details

The visual changes aren’t that significant, but the easiest identifier is the green brake calipers.

Kia has made things extra complicated for itself: All models have 20-inch wheels, but the design differs among the three. The same goes for the seats.

The GT has completely unique seats that are almost identical across all three models, but not exactly. The interiors are also very different.

The common elements are the small green details. Maybe the least noticeable in the EV3 GT, but the EV4 features a consistently darker interior, which is also cool.

Inside the EV3 GT – the smallest

We start with the smallest, the SUV EV3 GT. It’s been a while since I drove a two-wheel drive vehicle, and the first thing I notice is the sense of being in a large car despite its compact size. I sit a bit high and look down at a solid chassis.

We sit comfortably in the seats as usual, with plenty of adjustment options for cooling and heating. The GT steering wheel fits well in my hands. The journey can begin.

Naturally, we press the GT button once. Everything tightens up, and ESP is disabled. Wow, really. It’s quite stiff, yes. You never doubt that you’ve chosen a GT. A quick switch back to Normal confirms this.

The steering wheel is ideal for those who prefer a more sporty driving experience. The drive mode buttons and favorite buttons on the wheel and dashboard are excellent, allowing you to adjust the car’s characteristics without having to navigate through cumbersome menus.

We quickly added a virtual gear shift to one of the favorite buttons and a shortcut to the attention warning on the other.

The speed limit warning and lane keep assist can be easily disabled by holding down the two buttons on the wheel if desired. The attention warning still requires navigating deep into the menu, but it can be made quicker by assigning it to one of the favorite buttons.

The EV3 becomes significantly more sporty as a GT, but during the rush to break away from the asphalt wrapped in its Lamborghini-like shell, there’s a desire for more responsiveness from the accelerator pedal.

It’s easy to forget that Kia hasn’t invested in any significant performance upgrades. Or rather, just 27 horsepower and 83 Nm more.

A 0-100 km/h time of 5.7 seconds says it all really. It felt fast in the old days, but not anymore.

A Look at the EV4 GT – The Most Sporty

Most of what’s true about the EV3 GT applies here as well, but there are some differences. The EV4 is 1.5 meters taller and weighs 2,022 kilograms, while the EV3 is 7.5 cm taller and weighs a few kilograms more.

The given acceleration time is not the absolute lowest in the world, just a provisional figure; although we measured it at 5.54 seconds using the car’s own timer. We forgot to test it on the EV3 GT, but it likely showed similar positive deviations.

However, a shorter wheelbase and a more sporty seating position are sufficient reasons to consider the EV4 GT the best in this category if sportiness is the priority.

The Reliable EV5 GT – Back in Action

When I tested the two-wheel drive model, I called it a great family favorite. Once again, it offers a large-car feel with an excessively high front end, especially considering the tank capacity is just over 44 liters. We found it to be sluggish, soft, and unimpressive.

The GT model I’m driving now is 88 horsepower stronger and has 185 more horsepower than the two-wheel drive model, as well as 41 more horsepower and 95 Nm more torque than a standard AWD vehicle.

The specified 0-100 acceleration time is 8.4 seconds for the two-wheel drive version, 7.3 seconds for AWD, and 6.2 seconds for the GT. Fortunately, we managed 5.7 seconds on our only successful attempt with the silly Launch Control feature. But half a second better is still great.

The first thing we notice about the EV5 GT is that it feels too stiff. Its weight is “only” 2,205 kilograms, but it’s still heavier than most in this class. And it’s larger as well.

It can’t handle rough roads, even in normal mode. In this case, you’d need to make it softer further, but that’s likely not easy to do just with the shock absorbers. The suspension definitely has a stiffer setup.

You can live with this, but you should avoid driving a regular version first. And if you want better handling, you MUST choose the GT.

This was the car I drove the most, and since it seems to offer a bit more enjoyment with audio visuals in the background from time to time, I sat and drove for quite a while in Normal mode with virtual gear shifting on automatic setting.

It’s fascinating how natural it sounds. If I had invited a die-hard petrol-head into the car without saying anything, he would have thought it was a gasoline car he was sitting in.

Conclusion

Kia doesn’t have a long and proud history of sports or GT cars. It’s the group’s sister company Hyundai that has focused on those areas.

But they have had some interesting cars, including the Cee’d GT and the bold station wagon ProCeed, which we saw some of in Norway. Some of the semi-performance Stinger GTs are also on the road.

And that’s where they likely want to position themselves too. A bit below Hyundai’s bright blue lines. Slightly more approachable, but still fun for those who think the standard models are a bit too conservative.

But unfortunately, I don’t think many will end up buying them. They’re expensive. We still don’t know the price of the two lowest models, but the EV3 GT-Line already costs 569,900 kroner.

It’s actually 10,000 kroner more expensive than the EV5 GT-Line. If you want the EV5 GT, it costs an additional 100,000 kroner!

The EV4 is currently only available as an all-wheel drive version, and in the GT-Line variant, it costs a steep 549,900 kroner. We can expect a significant price drop for this one as well.

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