The Duomo Cathedral in Milan in Italy took six centuries to build. Six Hundred Years. Today, it stands tall as the third largest church in the world and one of the most beautiful buildings to grace God's green earth. It must have been made for that much work.
Designing a car isn’t the same as sculpting a religious building, but it’s still a time-consuming process. Kia’s Senior Vice President and Chief Design Officer, Karim Habib, understands that all too well. Habib has a long career in automotive design, having spent years at BMW and Mercedes-Benz and briefly worked at Infiniti before taking over at Kia.
He’s the man who’s partly responsible for Kia’s controversial new logo. Soon, his unique take on design will shape every car that comes out of Kia’s factory. You’ll know his previous work from the Carnival, the K5, and the updated Sorento. But it’s Kia’s electrification that’s most interesting to Habib from a design perspective.
“For me, as a designer, the great thing about EVs for design is that you have to have big wheels because the car is heavier,” he told me. “You have to have a long wheelbase because you need as many batteries as possible between the wheels. And you have short overhangs because you don't have the engine in front of the front axle. So when you start with that, those are the basic ingredients that only premium manufacturers could afford in the past.”
Karim and I are sitting and chatting on a couch a few miles from the heart of Milan, Italy, near the Duomo. It’s Design Week, an event that Kia—and Karim—deems to be crucial to Kia’s design. With the event heavily focused on style, it’s a great way to introduce the latest products to discerning buyers.
Here’s where Kia gives us a closer look at the upcoming EV3—a tiny subcompact EV that’s not much bigger than the current Seltos. We saw the first EV3 concept back in October, but this one is nearly production-ready; Kia says it’s as close to production as it can get but is still a prototype. The interior is still unfinished. Visually, it looks a lot like the updated EV6, and even more like the recent EV9. Only smaller.
Best of all, the EV3 is coming to the US.
The EV3 features a unique take on Kia’s “Opposites United” design language, which Karim penned nearly five years ago. While other automakers—like their corporate cousins at Hyundai—avoid family-like designs that span multiple models, Karim believes brand recognition is critical for Kia moving forward. He wants you to be able to point to his car in a crowded parking lot and recognize it as a Kia.
“Continuity is important. We're a smaller brand than Hyundai, so it's important for us to be recognized for a certain set of values and experience that people get when they come to Kia,” he explained. “So the product palette will change that perception, but we still want to have a commonality that underpins it. And of course, design is there to represent the brand values—you represent the brand as an object. So that's why consistency is important to us.”
The EV3 is the latest iteration of Kia’s design language to date. The sleek, upright LED lighting elements give the SUV a clean, modern look, while its boxy shape (which has become commonplace in car design) is arguably better suited to a smaller SUV than, say, the three-row EV9.
The same goes for the cabin. Clean, simple lines surround two 12.3-inch screens and a few hard buttons (like the volume knob, thank goodness), flanked by eco-friendly materials like wool and faux leather. Kia has ditched leather in all of its electric vehicles, and the company is looking at other eco-friendly materials. Mushroom leather, for example.
“Continuity is important… It's important for us to have recognition of the particular set of values and experiences that they gain when they join Kia.”
Karim uses terms like “rigor” and “authenticity” when describing the EV3. And while the pint-sized EV is by no means rugged, he does point to ionic off-road vehicles like the Land Cruiser, Land Rover, and Jeep for inspiration. The idea, Karim says, is to ensure Kia’s EV design remains as relevant today as those historic SUVs.
SUVs are clearly Kia’s main focus. The company sells a lot of them. The EV6 was its first foray into electrification, and the EV9—even in its early stages—has proven to be a huge success. The EV3 will soon be the only affordable electric SUV in America, as Kia targets a starting price of around $30,000.
But Kia still cares about performance.
Remember the EV4 sedan concept from October? That car is also headed to production (potentially alongside the EV3) and Karim wants to keep the brand’s “Opposites United” design language consistent there. But with a greater emphasis on performance.
“With the EV4 concept, we also have [those design elements]”When you put horizontal headlights on a corner, the car automatically feels wider,” he explains. “So putting vertical headlights was a bit of a challenge, we weren't sure if it would make the car feel narrower or taller. But we managed to put them low enough that it still gives a nice dynamic quality. There were some challenges, but I think we found a way to make it work.”
The Kia EV4 could be the next Stinger—or a slightly smaller sports sedan like the Polestar 2 and Tesla Model 3 Performance. Either way, it will carry the Kia design language found on the EV3 and EV9. Although, of course, it won’t be a copy-paste.
“That [design] “The principle, I hope, is based on the same idea, but the implementation must be different,” Karim said.
Like anything, good design takes time. Karim and Kia believe that. And amid a design renaissance that could propel the company into the next decade and hopefully well beyond, Kia has no plans to rush things.
