Kia EV3 Wins World Car of the Year Award!
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The 2025 World Car Awards were just held at the 2025 New York International Auto Show, which started today, and close cousins Kia and Hyundai nabbed a couple of big awards. Let’s start with Kia, since it won the biggest award of the year.
2025 World Car of the Year — Kia EV3
Just a couple of weeks ago, I highlighted that the Kia EV3 was absolutely crushing it in the Netherlands. From the beginning, we expected big things from the little EV3. For some of our early commentary (including from readers), see: “Is The Kia EV3 The EV We’ve Been Waiting For? Golden Steering Wheel Team Says Yes” and “Hyundai & Kia Most Likely to Fill “Tesla Model C” Hole — Readers Chime In!” So, I’m confident the EV3 was fully deserving of the giant World Car of the Year award. This is what it was destined for.
For its part, Kia explains the win with the following description of the EV3:
“The EV3 brings the cutting-edge innovation of Kia’s flagship EV9 to a wider audience than ever before, setting new standards in the compact electric vehicle (EV) SUV segment. The EV3 boasts a bold, progressive exterior and an innovative, practical interior that maximizes space, functionality, and comfort.
“The EV3 has a segment-leading range of up to 605 km and can charge from 10-80 percent in 31 minutes*, delivering impressive usability. The vehicle’s innovative interior design optimizes space, comfort, and accessibility, while Kia’s AI Assistant, advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), and Over-the-Air (OTA) updates enhance the ownership experience with cutting-edge technology.”
Indeed — it offers a lot in a small package and at an affordable price. It’s a compelling, futuristic, innovative car, but it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.
“It is an immense honor for everyone at Kia that the EV3 has been awarded the 2025 World Car of Year title. This award highlights Kia’s global leadership in providing design-led, technologically advanced, sustainable mobility solutions and how the EV3’s class-leading attributes redefine the user experience for customers worldwide,” noted Ho Sung Song, President and CEO at Kia.
A panel of 96 international automotive journalists from 30 countries are in charge of choosing this award.
This follows up on the Kia EV9 winning the 2024 World Car of the Year award last year.
Overall, since 2020, Kia has won the following awards from the World Car of the Year crew:
- Kia EV9 – 2024 World Car of the Year
- Kia EV9 – 2024 World Electric Vehicle
- Kia EV6 GT – 2023 World Performance Car
- Kia Telluride – 2020 World Car of the Year
- Kia Soul EV – 2020 World Urban Car
Kia EV3 Selling Very Well
As noted a couple of weeks ago, the EV3 is the 2nd best selling EV in Spain so far this year, the 3rd best selling EV in Ireland, the 4th best selling EV in the UK, the 5th best selling EV in Finland, the 6th best selling EV in Sweden, the 9th best selling EV in Denmark (where the EV3 was “Car of the Year” last year), and the 11th best selling EV in Norway. In short, the EV3 is doing very well across Europe.
It should also do very well in South America, Asia, and perhaps even Africa and North America in time. There are few models I’m more interested in tracking in the coming years. It’s truly an attractive, compelling small electric vehicle that should be popular the world over.
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