Date for EV2 production
Kia will start assembling the EV2, the marque’s cheapest EV, at its plant in Slovakia in February 2026.
Marc Hedrich, Kia Europe CEO, has declined to be specific but doesn’t scotch that the base price for the full-electric small crossover could be less than €30,000 – the equivalent of around NZ$60,000.
That would make the EV2 Kia’s most affordable fully electric model in Europe. Currently, Kia’s entry BEV is the EV3 compact crossover, which starts at €35,990 in Germany.
Hedrich says Kia is investing €108 million to make the EV4 and EV2 at its factory in Zilina, Slovakia, which is being adapted to add a conveyor belt to supply battery packs to the chassis line.
He adds a production target of 20,000 to 30,000 EV4s in 2026 “would make sense”. Combined EV4 and EV2 output could account for 10 and 20 per cent of the factory’s total production in 2026. Annual capacity at Zilina is about 350,000, which means the two BEVs could account for 35,000 to 70,000 units.
The EV2, EV4 and the South Korea-made EV3 are underpinned by a version of parent Hyundai Group’s E-GMP BEV-only platform that has a 400-volt electrical architecture.
A difference is that the original version of E-GMP has an 800V architecture, which provides faster recharging. That version of E-GMP is used on higher-end models, such as the Kia EV6 and EV9 and Hyundai’s Ioniqs 5, 6 and 9.
