Kia EV5 2025 review: GT-Line long-term | Part 3

Three months with the 2025 Kia EV5 GT-Line have come and gone rather quickly, which probably says a lot about how easy the fully electric mid-size SUV is to live with.

In the first part of this EV Guide long-term review, I detailed the EV5’s pricing, specifications (including safety), warranty and servicing, which you can read all about in the first link below.

And in the second instalment, I deep-dived the Kia’s exterior and interior designs, plus its practicality, all of which is in the second link immediately below this paragraph.

Assuming you’ve now given the above a read, it’s finally time for me to reveal my all-important driving impressions of the EV5 in this edition.

Finally, I’ll reveal my overall verdict on the Kia, so let’s get to it!

An un-Kia-like driving experience

So, as you probably know by now, I am quite a big fan of the EV5 based on its value, aftersales support, looks and useability.

While I would love to say the same thing about the way the Kia drives, I sadly can’t – at least in some instances.

That’s not to say the EV5 is bad to drive – because it isn’t. But it is the poorest driving Kia electric car that’s currently on sale.

Yep, the EV3 small, EV6 mid-size and EV9 upper-large SUVs all have the EV5 covered and there’s a clear reason why. Its platform.

That trio is based on Kia’s EV-specific 'E-GMP' platform – which has been critically acclaimed since its launch – while the EV5 debuts its 'N3 eK' architecture, which is a Frankenstein version of the internal-combustion underpinnings used by the current-generation Kia Sportage mid-size and Sorento large SUVs, limiting its EV capabilities.

Adding to these challenges is the fact that the EV5 is the first Kia model to be built in China and exported to the rest of the world, Australia included. This matters because the South Korean brand has less influence over the final product than it would if it was a domestic proposition.

Closer to home, Kia Australia has arguably built its sales success on its local ride and handling tuning program for its models, led by engineering whizz Graeme Gambold, who has delivered far more hits than misses. Unfortunately for the EV5, it falls in the latter bucket – but because of its unusual platform and factory, I’m not sure the team Down Under is at fault here.

So, where does the EV5 underperform? Well, it’s not very well tied-down, with body control a little too loose for my liking – or many of my colleagues for that matter – via the MacPherson-strut front and multi-link rear suspension.

This is especially felt when cornering, where the Kia exhibits a high degree of body roll. So much so that, in my case, you have to change the way you drive it to ensure passenger comfort.

Adaptive dampers would obviously be very helpful here and would go some way in reducing the EV5’s handling gap to its most popular rival, the recently facelifted Tesla Model Y, which I had the opportunity to drive back-to-back as part of an upcoming comparison review from Contributing Journalist Byron Mathioudakis. I won’t say too much about it other than to say the Kia is nowhere as near confidence-inspiring to pilot.

In that sense, the EV5 can feel a little bus-like to steer. But once I made the necessary adjustments, wrangling it became second nature, so you could easily learn to live with its handling performance because I did in the end.

What is harder to live with, though, is the ride comfort.

Surprisingly for an electric car, this Kia is softly sprung, as opposed to being stiffer, which is a hallmark of zero-emission vehicles due to their relatively high weight because of their large battery packs.

By being softly sprung, the EV5 has the aforementioned reduced – but not unsafe – body control, but it also has a floaty ride, resulting in plenty of passenger body movement, even when travelling in a straight line. Yep, uneven road surfaces can be a challenge.

That said, the ride is otherwise very comfortable, with changing road surfaces not presenting any further challenges to this Kia, even with its 20-inch wheel and tyre package. In fact, I have rather enjoyed driving ‘a comfortable car’ for the past three months, body roll and passenger wobbles aside.

When it comes to the EV5’s electric power steering system, the 'Normal' drive mode delivers a tune that’s nice and light day-to-day – without being out of control. It also offers a satisfying level of directness.

The 'Sport' drive mode naturally adds more weight to the steering equation, but I don’t think the increased feedback is really needed when you’ve learnt how to best manage the Kia around corners.

When it comes to parking, the EV5 is easy enough to slot into a car space, but the only thing you should keep in mind is that if you’re a one-pedal driver like myself, it will annoyingly default back to Level 3 regenerative braking when changing gears from Drive to Reverse, meaning you will need to engage the brakes to bring the vehicle to a standstill.

Speaking of braking, I rarely called on the friction brakes in the past three months, as I like this Kia’s 'i-Pedal' (Level 4 regenerative braking) far too much when driving in and around the traffic-laden city. But their performance is suitably strong when needed.

When it comes to straight-line performance, the EV5 GT-Line has more than enough get up and go for any family, with its dual electric motors not only delivering dependable all-wheel drive traction, but also 230kW of power and 480Nm of torque, enabling a hot-hatch-like 0-100km/h acceleration time of 6.3 seconds.

Again, I wouldn’t bother with the Sport drive mode, as with or without its sharper throttle response, getting away quickly at the traffic lights, merging onto the freeway and overtaking are very easy with this Kia. It’s all about pointing and shooting, baby – but just don’t expect Model Y levels of ludicrous performance.

There’s no traditional multi-speed automatic transmission in the EV5 to impede progress, either, so it's nice and smooth when accelerating – unless you suddenly stick the boot in, in which case your passengers might not enjoy the instantaneous torque throwing their bodies into their seats.

One of the other advantages of having a fully electric powertrain is the reduced noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) levels. That said, road and tyre noise is still noticeable in this Kia due to the lack of engine noise to overpower it. But the chances of you not using the GT-Line’s solid eight-speaker Bose sound system at most times is pretty low, so I’m not sure it matters that much.

When it comes to the performance of the EV5’s advanced driver-assist safety systems, most of them perform well in the real world.

For example, the highway assist function works very nicely, automated lane changes included, with it combining the otherwise sometimes-challenging steering assist with the adaptive cruise control (with stop and go functionality).

But in what’s sadly become the norm for new Kia models, the EV5’s speed limit recognition is overbearing, with the driver constantly falling victim to its beeps and bongs.

There is no fair buffer to this system, meaning you either have to extra carefully monitor your speed to avoid its wrath, or turn it off altogether to have some peace and quiet. The latter is very tempting when it registers a non-existent school zone…

The cost of a heavy right foot

When it comes to average energy consumption in my third and final month with the EV5 GT-Line, I averaged 20.7kWh/100km over 803km of driving, a much higher proportion of which was spent performance testing on country roads.

This was my poorest return yet but not unexpected given the soon-to-be-published comparison review that ‘my’ EV5 GT-Line was part of. As a reminder, month two delivered a result of 19.6kWh/100km, while the first month’s average was 0.2kWh higher.

If you combine all three months of testing together, I averaged a relatively inefficient 20.0kWh/100km over 2670km, which translates to a real-world driving range of 420km.

While that’s 50km below the EV5 GT-Line’s claim on the more accurate WLTP combined cycle, it’s still a decent distance to travel in between charges, which are becoming easier and easier to do publicly. 

Acquired: March 3, 2025

Distance travelled this month: 803km

Odometer: 3369km

Average energy consumption this month: 20.7kWh/100km