Citroen C5 Aircross vs Kia Ev4

What's the difference?

So, what did my family think about the Citroen C5 Aircross Sport?

I love how it looks and its updated safety list. It’s fairly spacious inside and has a great boot space but it’s lacking a lot of family-orientated practicality in the back seat. The lack of individual storage and amenities is noticeable when you have a kid or two but even as an adult, not having a cupholder for your coffee/drink on a trip feels odd.

The multimedia system and reversing camera need to be improved, too. Overall, it will suit a small family which is out of the baby stage but can’t yet justify upgrading to a larger SUV. It gets a 6.5/10 from my family. 

An electric sedan is really shrinking the buyer pool, which is why Kia has such gentle expectations for the EV4 in Australia. But it's a lovely driving EV with plenty of perks, and the design alone will brighten up Australia's roadways. For my money, I'd either be going for the cheapest one that's sharp value with plenty of kit, or the flagship GT-Line that gets the big battery and the works in terms of equipment. The Earth for me sits in no-man's land.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

Note: The author, Andrew Chesterton, is a co-owner of Smart As Media, a content agency and media distribution service with a number of automotive brands among its clients. When producing content for CarsGuide, he does so in accordance with the CarsGuide Editorial Guidelines and Code of Ethics, and the views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.

The facelifted model sees a sportier front with the grille redesigned to highlight the double chevron badge.

The bonnet curves around the badge, as do the two long LED strip lights that connect the headlights. The bonnet also sports new divots that give it a gruffer edge.

The wide profile at the rear and new three-pronged tail-lights create some interest.

The black plastic moulding that runs along the base of the car could look unfashionable on a lighter colour but on our blue paintwork, it looks good. As does the contrasting black roof!

The interior trims are finished in a combination of synthetic and Nappa leather but boast a two-tone colour which might not land with everyone. Particularly given the navy portions seem to be glittery in certain lights.

Sitting at 1859mm wide, 1695mm high and just 4500mm long, the overall exterior design is sporty but cute. It should appeal to those who want a nice-but-not-loud-looking car and something that is easy to park.

The slippery-looking unit that adorns this page is the EV4 sedan. There’s also a hatch, but it comes out of Europe, while this one comes out of Korea, and that would likely make the hatch far more expensive than this bad boy. It's under study, apparently, but yet to be confirmed.

Anyway, to steal a hackneyed football analogy, for mine this is a game of two halves. I actually really like the front end. It looks sleek and slippery and there’s a real presence from the swollen arches.

I am, however, a little less sold on this rear end, which looks sharp and blocky and almost like it has been bolted on. Also annoying is the fact that it looks like it should be a liftback, with the boot hinged up above the rear windscreen. But nope, it's hinged below it, so you still get a dinky little opening to squeeze your stuff through.

Kia's international designers are pushing the boat out at the moment, and they deserve credit for making things different. Whether it sinks or swims with the general public, though, will be the real test.

Inside, it's all pretty traditional Kia, with all three models sharing the twin 12.3-inch digital displays, along with the little climate panel in the middle. Kudos to Kia for keeping some physical buttons, too. I'm less sold on the use of some cheap, hard plastics, even in the top-spec cars.

The interior is spacious for a medium SUV but the back seat knocks off some points for family practicality. So, let’s start in the back.

Despite there being plenty of headspace for my 168cm (5’6’’) height, the legroom is cosy behind my driving position.

Meaning a 0-4 rearward facing child seat will encroach on front passenger space. It’s probably best suited to a family which is out of the baby stages but it was cumbersome fitting my big harnessed-booster seat in there, too.

It has ISOFIX child seat mounts on the outboard rear seats and three top tethers but two seats will fit best. The floor is flat, which offers far more comfort for a middle seat passenger and I love how the seats can be individually shifted.

The amenities and storage in this row are sparse. You get directional air vents, reading lights, netted map pockets and shallow storage bins in the doors.

Siblings may squabble over the single USB-A port on a long road trip but more than that, there are no cupholders or drink bottle holders back there or even a centre armrest.

That said, the 182mm ground clearance made it an easy car for my six-year-old to get in and out of; plus, the stadium-like seating and wide windows meant he had an awesome view this week.

Now for the front. It has ample amenities, storage and tech. You get plenty of head- and legroom, plus with the panoramic sunroof the cabin manages to feel airy, too.

Individual storage is great with an extra deep middle console, glove box, two cupholders, bins in each door and two very handy utility trays situated near the toggle-type shifter.

Charging options are much better up front, too, and you can choose between a wireless charging pad, two USB-A ports and a 12-volt socket to charge your device.

It's super easy to connect to the wired Apple CarPlay and there’s wired Android Auto for those users.

The built-in satellite navigation is straightforward but that’s where the simplicity ends. I did not find the multimedia system or the digital instrument panel to be terribly intuitive to use and the touchscreen controls can be laggy.

I’m sure you could get used to it over time but I felt flustered.

For this size SUV, the boot space is great at 580L with all seats in use but you can bump it up to 1630L if you fold the back row.

The floor can be adjusted to make a level load space or dropped to give you greater depth for bulkier items and there is a temporary spare tyre underneath the floor.

There are luggage tie-down anchors, a cargo blind and I always like having a powered tailgate. 

At 4730mm long, 1860mm wide and 1480mm tall, the EV4 sits between the Model 3 and the Seal in terms of its outright dimensions. Kia says the EV4's wheelbase and interior packaging has been designed to maximise backseat space, which I must admit, there is plenty of.

Sitting behind my own 175cm driving position, I had miles and miles of leg room, and enough head room, though there is some kind of optical illusion that occurs in the backseat of the EV4 – even though you definitely have enough space, the dark materials of the GT-Line still leaving me feeling a little claustrophobic somehow.

Something else not to be sneezed at is the inclusion of the household-style power plug in the back. My laptop died while I was taking notes on my test, and I plugged it straight in and powered it up. Super handy.

At the back, there is 490 litres of boot space, which is about middle ground. The Seal is more like 400 litres, but the Model 3 offers more.

Sadly the EV4 is yet another EV that does not have a spare wheel of any kind. Instead you have to make do with a tyre repair kit.

In modern Kia EV style, the EV4 arrives in three trim levels — the Air, Earth and GT-Line — and then in Standard Range or Long Range battery sizes.

The range opens with the Air, which is a pretty sharp-feeling $49,990 before all of your on-road costs. Kia says drive-away pricing is coming, but how much it will be is still to be figured out.

That money buys you the Standard Range battery, which we will come back to in a moment, along with 17-inch alloys, flush-finishing door handles, LED lighting, rain-sensing wipers and heated wing mirrors.

Inside, there are two-tone cloth seats, an artificial-leather steering wheel and dual-zone climate with rear vents, while tech is handled by Kia’s loveable dual 12.3-inch screens (one for your entertainment, and another for your diving info), with a smaller 5.0-inch screen between them that handles climate settings. There’s wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a six-speaker stereo and four USB-C connections, too.

All EV4 model grades get two vehicle-to-load (V2L) connections (so you can plug things in with a normal household plug), with one in the backseat and the other as part of the exterior charger – though the latter is an accessory on the Air. All also get access to the Kia Connect app and over-the-air updates, too.

Stepping up to the Earth ups the spend to $59,190, which is a gigantic financial leap, but you’re mostly paying for the bigger battery and longer driving range, as well as 19-inch alloys, cloth-and-synthetic-leather seats, a powered seat for the driver, and Kia’s very cool and comfortable mesh headrests.

Finally, the GT-Line tops the range, and is yours for $64,690. It gets a more polished look, courtesy of the exterior plastics being swapped out for gloss-black detailing, and it rides on its own 19-inch alloy design. It also gets a sunroof, a powered boot, dynamic welcome lights and projection headlights.

Inside, there’s a heated steering wheel, full synthetic-leather seats, relaxation seats to get comfy when charging, and ambient interior lighting. You also get ventilated front seats, a better eight-speaker Harman Kardon stereo and wireless device charging.

That is a big, broad pricing spectrum, and something tells me Kia has worked very, very hard to get that entry-level model below $50k, where it can compete with the likes of the BYD Seal ($46,990) and Tesla Model 3 ($54,900).

The C5 Aircross Sport has a 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbo-petrol engine with a maximum power output of 133kW and 250Nm of torque. It’s not super grunty but there’s plenty here to keep you up to speed on the open road.

It is a front-wheel drive and has an eight-speed auto transmission but the gear changes can feel a bit jerky at lower speeds.

All EV4 models are front-wheel drive, with a single front-mounted motor producing 150kW and 283Nm, fed through a single-speed gearbox. That’s enough, Kia says, to knock off the sprint to 100km/h in around 7.5 seconds. The Air is the fastest, at 7.4s, while the heavier Earth and GT-Line claim 7.8s. Top speed is a claimed 170km/h.

Ah, this is where it earns back some points!

I was very impressed by the efficiency of this because the official combined cycle fuel figure is 5.7L/100km and my real-world usage came to 6.2L! That’s fantastic for this sized SUV and for a turbo.

With a fuel tank of 53L and based on the combined fuel figure, you should be able to get a driving range of around 930km, which is good for those families who like to do road trips.

Let’s talk about range for a moment, because it's bloody impressive. Not quite the best out there, but the furthest any electric Kia has ever travelled between charges.

There are two battery options, a 58.3kWh NCM battery in the Standard Range, and a 81.4kWh unit in Long Range models. The Standard will deliver 456kms in driving range, but the Long Range ups that to 612kms, both on the WLTP cycle. 

The EV4’s 400-volt architecture does slow down charging a little, though, with DC fast charging capped at 128kW. That means going from 10 to 80 per cent in around 30 mins when using the fastest chargers. If you’re using a 50kW charger, it’s up to almost an hour and 20 minutes for the bigger battery, which is a long coffee stop.

Plugged in at home, provided you have an 11kW wallbox, it’ll take just under five and a half hours, or just over seven hours, to go from 10 per cent to fully charged, so an overnight charge no matter the battery size.

Despite its city-friendly size, the C5 Aircross Sport is just as happy cruising on the open-road as it is in an urban environment.

The ride is smooth enough once you get up to a steady speed but the suspension can feel harsh on a bumpy road.

Also, the auto stop-start function can make it feel sluggish to respond, so I disabled this on most trips.

There is plenty of power so you'll feel confident overtaking or getting up to speed on the open road. However, you have to be a little more aggressive with the accelerator when you’re hitting hills.

The steering can, at times, feel vague when you’re at lower speeds but is otherwise responsive.

The cabin space is quiet and nice to be in on the highway and you’ll be able to chat with your passengers with ease.

What I like most about this though is the visibility – the windows are large and I feel like I have a clear view most of the time, which isn’t always the case in an SUV.

Parking this is a cinch with entry to tight car parks helped by a 10.7m turning circle!

However, the 180-degree view camera isn’t great and near hopeless at night time. A clearer image would be welcome but front and rear parking sensors ease the annoyance.

I learned something new and exciting (well, to me, at least. You might be very bored) from Kia's ride and handling guru on this launch. And that is that the tuning frequency for common city road imperfections, like bridge expanders, is actually the same as for the bigger, bouncier undulations you get on country roads. And so you can tune to prioritise one or the other, not both.

In real terms, it means a car that feels custom-built for the city, gliding over urban roads with mega comfort (which is exactly what the EV4 does), feels slightly less at home out of town, where there is more obvious movement in the cabin.

Bored yet? Ok, the point is that, while never uncomfortable, the EV4 feels right at home in the city, which is where it's expected to spend most of its time, but weirdly firmer on longer adventures. 

This really is easy, city EV motoring, done well. There's no alienating floatiness to the ride, no lifeless lightness to the steering, it's comfortable, quiet and – despite no headline-grabbing power figures – more than potent enough to get you up and moving.

There's nice weight to the steering, and though the front tyres gave up their grip a couple of times when pushed with some steering lock on, there isn't much in the way of aggressive body roll, and it all feels pretty confidence inspiring. 

The power is most effective from around 10km/h to 80km/h, before the urgency starts to fall away – it's slower to respond at freeway speeds – but that too just leans into its city credentials.

There's really not much to complain about here. It feels well sorted, and quite fun to drive. There is nothing that really stands out as spectacular about the drive experience, but nor is there anything to complain about. It's just really solid motoring, which isn't always guaranteed these days.

There’s no ANCAP rating on the EV4 yet, but the brand says it's confident it will adopt the five-star scores issued in Europe. All models get seven airbags, like active cruise control, AEB autonomous emergency braking (meaning it will anchor up if it senses an accident), front and rear parking sensors, an active blind spot monitor that will take evasive action if it senses a collision, and lots, lots more.

Only the GT-Line switches up the standard safety kit offered on the other two grades, adding a surround-view monitor, a camera that shows what’s happening in your blind spot, powered child locks and a reverse parking aid that will brake for you if it thinks you're going to hit something.

The on-going costs are super-reasonable on the C5 Aircross Sport, with a five-year/unlimited km warranty included.

You can also choose to pre-purchase a three- or five-year capped-priced servicing plan, both significantly cheaper than the pay-as-you-go option. 

On the three-year plan, services are $1100 or an annual average of $366.

It’s a flat $2000 for the five-year plan, (averaging just $400 per service), which is very competitive for the class.

Servicing intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever occurs first.

The Aircross also comes with a five-year roadside assistance plan that is offered through Digicall Assist, for added peace-of-mind.

Kia ownership proposition is simple, and pretty strong. You get a seven-year warranty no matter how far you travel, an eight-year warranty for the high-voltage systems, again no matter how far you travel, and capped-price servicing. Pre-paying your service costs will set you back $688 for three years, just over $1300 for five years, or just under $2000 for seven years.