Korean automaker Kia said on Wednesday that it will begin selling a lower-priced electric in the United States later this year. This comes while EV makers are facing a tough year, after Congress repealed the $7,500 EV tax credit last year. However, the recent hike in gas prices have created a renewed interest in electric vehicles.
Kia said at the New York Auto Show it will offer the EV3 in the U.S. market starting later this year. “The market is going to come back for EVs — maybe not as quickly as we all would have liked,” said Russell Wager, vice president of marketing at Kia America. “We’re committed to it.”
Kia said the U.S. EV market could return to where it was in the next three or four years.
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The EV3 has already been on sale in South Korea for almost two years, followed by several European countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand. There have been significant demands in those countries. In North America, the car will compete against the likes of the Chevrolet Bolt, which starts at $28,995, and the Nissan Leaf, starting at $31,485.
According to a Firstpost report, the U.S. version of the Kia EV3 is expected to have a 320-mile (514 km) EPA-rated battery range on certain variants, comfortably higher than the 300-mile mark that may become the new U.S. standard for buyers concerned about range. The new design takes styling cues from the bigger EV9, a three-row SUV. There are also two battery options — a 58.3 kWh pack driving only the front wheels with a projected range of 220 miles, which will serve as the entry-level variant, and an 81.4 kWh battery with optional all-wheel drive, standard on GT models. The motor output is about 261 HP on the all-wheel-drive model, rising to 288 HP on the higher-performance EV3 GT model.
According to reports, the EV3 will be assembled in Mexico at the same Kia plant that builds the K4.
Meanwhile, David Christ, general manager of the Toyota Division at Toyota Motor North America mentioned that the Japanese automaker is introducing three EVs in the U.S. this year, and said higher fuel prices will give EVs a boost but unclear how much.
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“I don’t think they’re going to get a boost back to the incentivized government money levels, but it’ll be higher than it would have been without the gas price shock,” Christ said.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group representing General Motors, Ford, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Stellantis and other major automakers, said EV sales were 9.6% of all U.S. sales in 2025 but fell to 6.5% in the last three months — the lowest since early 2020 — after the $7,500 EV tax credit expired on Sept. 30.