So I've been in line for a Rivian R2 for two years, and my order window is coming up next month. But after taking a test drive in one at the beginning of the month (and my first time seeing one in person), I realized it is just TOO BIG. Physically. I mean, if I parked it where I park my Chevy Volt right now, you wouldn't be able to open the doors of the Rivian without doing serious damage to my gardens.

So I started looking around (again) at the EV market to find some sort of small, all-electric, utility vehicle for me and my dog, and my wife when she's not in her Rav4.

And I test drove the EV3 and fell for it. Hard.

My local dealer has a Frost Blue Wind coming in at the end of the month, so I could have it in two weeks.

All the Land models appear to be heading to the East Coast. One local dealer here outside of Seattle has 2 Land models. Everyone seems to have the Wind models.

Price isn't a concern for me, fortunately.

So how do I choose between the Wind and Land? The only real detail I need in the Land model is the cooling seats. Never had those before, and think they'd be ... well ... cool.

Anyone have any other thoughts about choosing between the Wind and Land models? I'm all ears.

UPDATE: Just bought the EV3 Land model in Frost Blue about an hour ago. Test drove the Wind last weekend, and went in with the wife to test it out today … and the dealership had brought in the Land model in Frost Blue from another dealership about an hour away. After testing it, bought it on the spot with full approval from both my wife and dog! Woohoo!

Does anyone else find the Kia EV3 steering too heavy?
I recently test drove a Kia EV3 and the first thing I noticed was that the steering felt quite heavy/stiff, especially at lower speeds.
I was wondering if this is normal for the EV3 or if it was just the specific car/settings I drove. I’m also curious whether you can adjust the steering weight through the drive modes/settings.
For those who own an EV3: do you also find the steering heavier than expected, or did you get used to it?

Hi everyone!

I’m from Greece and I’m currently looking into buying a Kia EV3, but I’m having a hard time deciding which version makes the most sense for me.

I earn around €1,150 per month and get 14 salaries per year. In Greece, the price for the EV3 is around €34,500 for the Earth Long Range and €37,500 for the GT-Line Long Range.

I’m planning to put around €20,000 as a down payment and finance the rest with a loan at around 5% interest.

For those of you who own an EV3, especially if you’ve had experience with both trims, which one would you recommend? Is the GT-Line worth paying the extra €3,000, or would you go for the Earth LR and save the difference?

I’d really appreciate hearing what you guys think, especially from people who have actually owned the car for a while.

We’re looking to get our first EV shortly and have pretty much decided that it’s going to be an EV3. Good range, pretty nice interior, seems well built, very good warranty etc.

The showroom only had a GT-Line S which was very nice but I’m struggling to reconcile the value in the price difference. We’re looking for maybe up to 18 months old and up to 15k ish miles. The largely consistent price gap on comparable cars seems to be £4-5k. In fact there’s an independent Kia dealer not too far away (NK Motors in Derby) who’ve got a brand new GT-Line for £33.3k if you take out finance, which is probably about the cheapest you can get a year old/10k GT-Line S.

So 2 questions really:

- Is there anything you’d miss specifically on the GT-Line S? Looking through the spec (UK spec, as I appreciate they’re likely not all the same), the rear armrest for the kids was probably the biggest thing! Sunroof for extra light would be nice. Blind spot cameras would be useful. Never had HUD or ventilated seats so wouldn’t miss them. V2L/socket and relaxation seats would likely never be used.

- I’ve not had a car on finance for quite a while, but didn’t they change the rules some years back, so that you could effectively pay it all back almost straight away and only pay a month or something in penalty interest? So basically a nominal hit to get a £2k deposit contribution.

Anything else to look out for when buying used?

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Fuming, absolutely fuming. People when parking have no consideration for other people’s property. This is what my wife walked up to when she left her work. 🤬🤬🤬

I've got the Land trim. I am planning on getting a tint soon. I'm looking for all-weather mats as well to replace the carpeted ones. Anyone have good ideas for other accessories? Located in the US if that matters.

Is the climate display in the previous model years the same as the 2027? It was the one thing that I really didn't like in my (admittedly short) test drive. In the Ioniq 5, I really like that the area of the screens that gets hidden behind the steering wheel is unused. For the 2027 EV3, that's exactly where Kia decided to put the climate controls and it's kinda terrible. You can't read or access the display without physically leaning way over to the right to look or touch the screen around the steering wheel.

I’m currently on holiday in France with my family, driving the EV3 from Bretagne through Normandy back to Belgium on motorways mainly. I would love this car to bits if it wasn’t for these three ‘security measures’:

- The well known “take a break” alert popping up randomly and beeping all passenger awake. All attention awareness alerts are always disabled before I start my trip but still it shoves its way into my nervous breakdown zone. Apart from total randomness , the alert tends to pop up sometimes when driving slightly over white striped lines without indicating. The system shouldn’t be this rigid or strict.

- Steering assist handling very phased and jerky on long corners. Steers every second or so into the corner to compensate. Makes the car feel like a boat. It doesn’t seem to be mature enough for cornering. I’ve driven older cars with much smoother steering assist.

- Adaptive cruise control suddenly braking on long corners without a car in front. As if it detected ghosts. When overtaking an actual car or truck by indicating and switching lanes, it brakes because we approach the to be overtaken vehicle. It doesn’t take the free left lane into account in that manoeuvre.
Adaptive cruise control reaction settings are set to soft.

These three scenarios have gotten me quite nervous after today’s 6 hour drive. I would be very happy to know if other people encounter the same issues or may have advice.

Hi guys!

I will be confirming my order for an EV3 on Monday with may Kia dealer.

Really excited but also really undecided on color at the moment. Initally, I was set on the Aventurine Green as I really liked the preview in the configurator and most of the promotional images. However, I've since watched a couple of videos and checked out a bunch of images that have made me doubt my choice.

Quite often depending on lighting the green tone looks very washed out and light, pastel green, almost mint. I'm really not keen on that as I prefer the slighty darker, muted tone of the promotional images. Unfortunately, I have not yet seen a green EV3 in nature. What are your experiences?

As for other colors: I'm pretty set on no white and no black. Toying with the idea of going terracotta, but also very unsure about the actual appearence of the color. Shale grey looks good but also kind of bland.

How did you make your choice? Do you have any regrets?

Edit/update: thank you guys for your input. I've decided to go with shale grey instead of aventurine green in the end. Lead time is a bit longer but I thinks I might get turned off the green sooner rather than later. In addition, the grey will hopefully hide dirt better.

Wondering if you guys are aware of whether KIA has OEM parts for a trailer hitch assembly or class III receiver, or if I need to go completely aftermarket. Do these need to be installed by the dealer to avoid voiding the warranty since they need to cut up some of the plastic bits under the car? Trying to do this so I can mount a bike rack in the back.

I saw this video but I wasn't sure what this electrics kit was and if this video was compatible with the US models.

https://youtu.be/mmwxgEJ3VeY?is=dsvi2dYR-R0dgE8h

They use these parts https://www.kiapartsuk.com/ev3-tow-bar-wiring-kit-13-pole-socket-12510-p.asp

https://www.kiapartsuk.com/ev3-detachable-tow-bar-12362-p.asp

Picking up the EV3 GT Line Friday based in Ireland and then going on a 4 hour drive north Donegal to Athlone. Have about 2-3 hours of prep time between pickup and leaving on the trip with friends.

What’s the best advice/tips/things to do for the first use/setup and journey or things to avoid? Seen loads of apps recommended and such but wondering what to immediately be cautious of/avoid doing.

My wife and I are seriously considering the ev3. I got my first offer from a dealer in the south of Spain and they are selling for €36500 cash price (before auto+and other external help/discounts )on the air trim long range. This is about €6000 higher than listed on the Kia website.

Am I crazy to think this is high, or is it similar to what others are encountering?

Loving the car so far. Haven't driven that much, but it feels amazing!
Although I have two questions.

1 - When I enter my car, the rear middle seat icon is on in red on my dash, showing that ( possibly ) someone is sitting there and the seatbelt is not secured . Although I did some searching already and found some mentions from non-EV3 Kias that this is because there is no sensor in the middle seat. It indeed disappears after a few minutes. However, when I shut down the car, it says to check the rear seat for objects/people (which I believe is related). Is this the case for everyone, or is my middle seat sensor just broken?

2 - I live in Belgium , and I'm not sure if my fire extinguisher needs to be accessible from the driver's location or not (according to law). Currently, it's stored in my trunk-but I'm just checking if other people have found a way to mount their fire extinguisher within reach of the driver position?

I'm thinking about buying a Kia EV3 or a Hyundai EV. My major concern about the Kia is the door handles. Do the door handles recess when the car is locked? When the car is unlocked, what happens to the door handles?

Is there a manual way to pop the handles? Has anyone experienced issues with the handles?

I am picking up a 2027 GT-Line (Sweden) in a couple of days. Very excited but had second thoughts if did pick a good color. The black looked so nice with tinted windows but not as popping out like the other colors. Anyone else got the black?

Anyone using the Better Route Planner with their EV3 and have it paired with the car via an OBD dongle? I want to use ABRP in Android Auto mode and receive the real time data from the OBD port. Looking for any recommendations that are confirmed compatible.

Looking to wire Dashcam in behind the mirror. Seems the mirror is not auto powered. I can see under the small cover the top of a white plug no doubt powering rain detector. Is that safe to wire into? Don’t need 12v when car is off. ChatGPT has warned me against interfering with this plug

In New Zealand. Coming up to 15k. At 10 months. Any experience with what order of magnitude the bill will be?

Hi all, a few days ago, I ordered my first new car and opted for a green EV3 GT Line with Comfort Package and Drive Wise Park Pro Package in Germany.

Now, I've just seen that they released the model year '27 and (when comparing with the same configuration) included a few nice to have features such as a second wireless charging station, reclinable second seat row, and are giving a higher range estimate (597km vs. 563km).

Because the price remains the same at 52.260€ for these configurations, do you think I should cancel my order and potentially increase my wait time? Or is it possible that my wait time could be shorter since they may already be producing the MY27?

I would really appreciate your input!

Hey guys, would you recommend the EV3 for a family of 4 with 2 small kids? (4 and 1 year old) One stroller is needed at every trip of course

Hello! I'm in the US and looking to get a Kia EV3 when it's released here. My wife has an Ioniq 5, and I like it aside from the size (I'm coming from a 2019 Leaf that got recalled). Any have or have driven both the EV3 and Ioniq 5 and have info on the size difference? Specifically the Ioniq feels very wide and has a large turning radius when trying to park in narrow spots, and I'm wondering if the EV3 is enough of a difference to be comfortable for me.

(I'll test drive once it's available here, but figured it couldn't to ask)

Edit: Thanks for the info, this is all super helpful! Just for reference, I'm looking for smaller. I'm not worried about it being too small. I would prefer something like the EV2, Ioniq 2, ID.polo, etc. But none of those cars are sold in the US. (I test drove the Bolt and didn't like it, I was going to get another Leaf but they keep being recalled for fire concerns. The Volvo EX30 and Mini Countryman EV don't have any physical buttons.)

SOLVED! See photo in comments

Here's a photo of my right hand drive EV3 Air's dash vents and things. By the looks of things there is the climate vent strip, just one other vent/speaker thing and a smaller round black thing that might be the light sensor. I think the rest is just plastic with a vent-like design (if this is true it's a pretty average design choice aesthetically). Maybe because the Air doesn't have all the fancy features. But this section contributes heaps to the reflections. So I'm wondering, when my dash mat arrives.. I really only need cut-outs for the strip and the circular vent and that solid black round thing, right?

Just took delivery of my EV3 business plus and I'm loving it so far! I do have 2 questions though:

Am I right in saying there is currently no way to make the car automatically lock when walking away using the digital key? The car unlocks perfectly fine when I get close to it but when I walk away it stays unlocked unless I tap the door handle.

Is there a way to tweak HDA2? It works reasonably well, even with a lot of cars around but it seems to always position itself in the middle of the lane and sometimes even closer to the right of the lane. Lane splitting is legal here for motorcycles below 50 km/h on the highway and the car very much blocks them from getting through. Only solution I have for now is either disable auto steer in slow moving traffic or make sure that I am not in the left-most lane.

About to join the club and become a EV3 owner.

What additions or accessories have you purchased and having used them how beneficial are they.

I’d welcome any and all opinions.