Not every car galavanting around the Nürburgring is striving to slice seconds off a lap time or nab a new track record. The 12.9-mile Nordschleife is essentially a fast-forward button for exercising a vehicle’s weak points that would take considerably longer to find in real-world testing. And since the machine featured here is Kia’s first dedicated electric vehicle, much testing is required.
We still don’t have a name for this edgy, sleekish people mover. From what we’ve seen thus far, it looks like a love child between 2019’s Kia Imagine and Futuron concepts, and the forthcoming Kia Sportage which we’ve also seen in spy photos. The SUV is gaining a significant update for 2022, and when you look at this EV in profile there’s plenty of Sportage influence to be seen.
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The lines here are sharper, however, and that roof looks lower. There’s definitely a coupe-crossover theme happening, and we bet a gazillion dollars that those heavy tarps front and rear are hiding lights and design cues from the aforementioned concepts. How do we know this sucker is electrical? Our spy sources tell us this prototype was cruising the ‘Ring completely devoid of noise.
There are some things we know about it, aside from the visuals. Kia is developing this crossover under the codename CV, and it will be the company’s first EV built specifically for electric power. It’s is based on Hyundai’s Electric-Global Modular Platform – E-GMP for short – and rumors say it will have a range of around 310 miles with the ability to fast-charge in 20 minutes. Of course, you’ll need a power source capable of such juice to take advantage of that, but the combination of range and charging time is impressive.
With heavy camouflage still the order of the day, we aren’t expecting a reveal anytime soon and the rumor mill is silent on a timeframe. The best we can do right now is narrow it down to sometime in 2021 as a 2022 model.