Kia Ev4 vs Mercedes-Benz X-Class

What's the difference?

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 X was an opportunistic shot at a market segment new to Benz. With even apprentices able to afford to buy a well-specced Hilux, it's become harder to separate the foreman from the kids. I, like Mercedes, thought this would be the boss's car. Mercedes saw the gap and went for it, thinking it could grab sales from top end utes from VW, Toyota and Ford, while maybe saving a few folks from buying a RAM or an F150.

The problem is, the target market knows its utes. And in a rough-and-tumble workplace, the perception is that if you've spent up big on this Merc, you've actually just paid too much for a Nissan Navara. Still, like those flawed movies I enjoy, the X-Class is a fine thing - and I don't blame Mercedes for trying. It just costs too much, and yet isn't Mercedes enough to justify that price.

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.

Despite being a Japanese ute in drag, the X-Class isn't immediately rumbled as resembling a Nissan, which certainly should count in its favour. Everyone who asked about it had little idea it wasn't a Daimler from the ground up, until you pointed out various details. Up here in the higher reaches, it's a really quality-looking thing, with beautiful paint and enough differentiation to make it look like a Merc. The headlights do seem a tad small next to the rest of the Mercedes range, but the whopping great three-pointed star in the grille leaves no one in doubt. 

It's fairly tasteful in silver, too, and with a few carefully chosen options it looks pretty tough.

Once you're inside you see where it starts to get confused about itself. The hard, scratchy plastic dash pokes out from behind a huge slab of metallic trim. The centre console is clearly a brother from another mother, as is the overall dash layout. The cabin lacks the thoughtfulness and quality of a Mercedes design - you can't just slap on those signature air vents and expect to get away with it. Every piece that comes from Mercedes appears glued on, and it's jarring. 

This might have been less of an issue if the car was significantly cheaper and not likely to be purchased by people who are familiar with the brand.

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.

I really can't imagine how anyone signed off on the most annoying features of the X. Front-seat passengers get a solitary, shallow cupholder (the second one is unusable), and big door bins that could hold a bottle if you didn't mind it getting smashed from sliding around (they're unlined), and nowhere to put your phone. Like, nowhere, except maybe the glove box. Even the centre console bin is shallow and not much good for anything, apart from as an armrest.

The front seats are reasonably comfortable but the rears are way too high (in the name of a better view) and rammed hard against the rear bulkhead. The rear doors are also pretty narrow, so entry and egress can be a bit of a challenge if you're large or toddler small. Once you're in the seats, legroom is limited and headroom marginal. At least you get air-conditioning vents, but you don't get an armrest in the rear. On a nearly $80,000 ute. Even the dark-ages Colorado has one of those.

Anyway, that's enough said about the interior flaws.

The tray is a big boy, but it's worth knowing that the roller cover does rob a bit of space, as it does on any ute. The optional tray liner looks good and with Mercedes-Benz stamped in it, reminds you again what you've got. All told, it's 1581mm long, 1560mm wide (1215mm between the wheelarches) and you can load up nearly a tonne of people and things into the X350. You can also tow a massive 3500kg braked and still be able to carry a payload of 490kg. Gross vehicle mass is 3250kg (tare is 2190kg).

The X-Class range starts at the $45,450 X220D manual dual-cab and reaches all the way to the $87,500 X350d Edition 1. One step back from that is the $79,415 X350d Power dual-cab with all-wheel drive. That nets you 19-inch alloy wheels, an eight-speaker stereo, climate control, around view camera, reversing camera, keyless entry and start, front and rear parking sensors, electric front seats, sat nav, auto LED headlights, fake-leather interior, heated and folding rear vision mirrors, power windows and a full-size alloy spare.

An 8.0-inch screen hosts Mercedes COMAND system, complete with rotary dial and the weird scratchpad. COMAND is not as good as its German rivals and for some reason doesn't have Apple CarPlay and/or Android Auto, which is a mammoth oversight for a car of this type and cost.

Our car also had the lockable roll cover for $3295, the $1551 styling bar, a tow bar ($836) and, presumably, tow-bar wiring ($462).

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.

The X350d has something very Mercedes about it - the engine and transmission package. With 3.5-litres of turbo-diesel V6, you get 190kW at 3400rpm and a thumping 550Nm between 1400 and 3200rpm. These kind of figures at least put it up there with the brawnier VW Amarok.

Feeding the power to all four wheels is Mercedes' own seven-speed automatic. A centre diff apportions power front to rear and you have a choice of three modes - automatic, high range and low-range.

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.

The X350d did pretty well in the week I had it - the official figure of 8.8L/100km was never going to happen but with a long motorway run to the Blue Mountains and the rest bashing about town, the 10.5L/100km I did achieve without trying was not bad at all. The 80-litre tank should give you a decent range of 750km, or thereabouts.

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.

One of the weirder things to make it into the X-Class is the world's second most irritating column stalk, which is asked to pack in indicators, headlights and wipers. Thankfully, the world's most irritating column stalk, the Mercedes automatic shifter, wasn't inflicted on the X-Class. But the obvious problem is the key, which clearly isn't a Mercedes unit - even the star is ill-fitting and will probably fall off after a while. This is not a premium experience.

Thankfully, the big turbo-diesel wipes away a lot of the complaints about this car not being Mercedes enough. Brawny and super quiet (twin balance shafts will do that), the X is a very easy car to live with. While not especially lively, it's easygoing in the city and very refined.

On the open road it cruises almost silently and the ride is way above what you might expect from an unloaded tradie-mobile. It doesn't feel as high as some utes, which makes it feel a bit more car-like, and will no doubt appeal to some who might have to swap in and out of a traditional SUV and into the X, for whatever reason.

It is by far the most civilised ute I've ever driven and was worlds away from the Colorado I drove last week, to the point where I could almost - almost - see a justification for the unbelievably hefty price tag.

Credit for the refined ride and handling goes to the coil-spring rear end, much maligned in some quarters. While that style of suspension is not the ultimate in load-lugging, it's way more comfortable for passengers and, given the likely buyer profile, probably more agreeable than a cart-sprung rear-end.

I would cheerfully drive long distances in the X and it feels like it could go anywhere.

The Mercedes-Benz finally starts to puts its nose ahead of its competitors on the safety front.

The X350d has seven airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, forward collision warning, low speed forward AEB, pedestrian detection, lane-keep assist and around-view cameras, trailer-sway control and hill-descent control.

It also has three top-tether and two ISOFIX points.

Its five-star ANCAP safety rating was awarded in 2017.

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.

Mercedes offers a three year/200,000km warranty for the X, which isn't too bad. It also throws in roadside assist for the duration. Also worthy are the 12 month/20,000km service intervals. 

A basic capped-price service scheme will hit you for $1950 (pre-paid) or $2,555 if you pay when you front up for each of the three services covered. The servicing isn't super-cheap, as you can see, but at least you know what you're up for.