Kia is getting ready to reveal its first dedicated electric vehicle.
The brand’s first vehicle on the new e-GMP architecture has been spied testing ahead of its debut this year.
The Electric Global Modular Platform will first debut on the Ioniq 5, which will be followed by crossovers for the Kia and Genesis brand in short order.
Codenamed CV, it has a more curvaceous, organic design than the sharply-creased Ioniq 5 that’ll arrive in Australia around the middle of this year.
Like the Ioniq 5, however, the CV is decidedly low and sleek for a crossover.
It’s expected to look a lot like the Kia Imagine concept revealed at the 2019 Geneva motor show.
2019 Kia Imagine concept 
Given the Ioniq 5 appears to have transitioned from Hyundai 45 concept to production car with few changes, that bodes well for the CV to hew closely to the Imagine concept in terms of exterior styling.
Interior styling is another matter – the Imagine’s 21 cascading phone screens splayed across the dashboard is pure concept car bravado.
If it follows its Hyundai cousin closely, the CV – or whatever it’ll be called – will be roughly as long and wide as a Hyundai Tucson, albeit lower.
Kia CV 
Ioniq 5
Measuring 4630mm long, 1890mm wide and 1600mm tall on a 3000mm wheelbase, the Ioniq 5 is identical in length to the new Tucson and 15mm wider, although the electric car has a lower roofline by 65mm and a 245mm longer wheelbase.
Leaked specs from Hyundai Austria and published on The Korean Car Blog reveal the Ioniq 5 will have Tesla-rivalling range when it launches. It will offer up to 550km of all-electric range on the tougher WLTP test with the larger 73kWh battery option, and 450km with the smaller 58kWh battery.
The Ioniq 5 will also offer dual-motor all-wheel drive and a total system output of 230kW of power, good for a 5.2 second sprint to 100km/h.
Like the Porsche Taycan, the E-GMP platform will make use of an 800V architecture for ultra-rapid charging at up to 350kW. That means an 80 per cent charge in just 18 minutes, or up to 100km of range in just five minutes connected to the right kind of charger.
Kia is planning an aggressive rollout of electric vehicles, saying it wants to launch seven such vehicles by 2027 and have 11 battery-electric vehicles in total by 2025.
The company is aiming for 25 per cent of its sales volume to come from electrified vehicles by 2029. By 2025, it hopes EVs to account for 20 per cent of its sales in “advanced markets” like Korea, North America and Europe.
