Kia plotting pure-electric city car

Kia will create a new battery-powered city car that will be specifically aimed at urban commuters who no longer want to take the bus or train in the wake of the coronavirus.

The Korean car-maker revealed it is readying the zero-emission city car in a recent interview with

"People want to feel safe today. We saw that very clearly from a survey that was done after coronavirus in China, which showed people had moved from public transportation to private transportation," said Kia's European chief operating officer, Emilio Herrera.

“That was very clear – 34 per cent of private use before the crisis to 65 per cent. So 65 per cent of people in China would choose their private car. The reason is because they feel safe in their car and they feel unsafe in public transportation. I think if people had a choice in London, they’d choose to drive their own car.”

Said to be 100 per cent electric, Kia Europe's boss said that its baby EV would have a "small range" as it will only operate in an urban environment.

Along with the option of buying outright, the plug-in Kia city car could also be offered on a subscription mode like the recent Citroen Ami EV.

"Our project is looking at what we call L6 and L7 cars in the sector, the type of cars such as the Ami," Herrara said.

"It’s something we’re investigating at this point in time because we believe it could be an alternative to public transportation, providing we can deliver it at a very similar cost to public transportation.

“So that means a subscription model, or you can rent it for a week or month, so it needs to be pretty flexible like public transportation. We’re really looking at very low monthly prices for subscription, so it can really compete – and the Ami is one of the vehicles we’ve looked at."

Lowering the cost of the development of the baby EV, Kia could piggyback off Hyundai's planned small car collaboration with LA-based EV car-maker Canoo; using the same scalable architecture and pure-electric powertrain.

Even if that were to happen, Herrera claimed that the Kia - not Hyundai/Canoo - would lead the development of the small car.

“We could eventually share the platform with Hyundai, but the idea is to have a dedicated platform from Kia that we could eventually share with Hyundai," he said.

“The idea with this project is for it to be global, not just for Europe. It will have the synergies of scale to ensure that this vehicle would be available at a very cheap price for consumers.”

The senior Kia Europe exec would not reveal a timescale for the baby Kia, but the Brit mag suggests a concept for it could appear as soon as early 2021 with the production version on sale globally as soon as 2022.