Renault Clio vs Kia Ev4

What's the difference?

I'm going to reveal something of myself here - I used to be a RenaultSport Clio owner. This is what the purists call what we now know as Clio RS, and I find myself constantly corrected yet unrepentant. It was a 172 - a nuggety three-door with wheels that looked too small, a weird seating position and a 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine that was big on torque as long as you belted it.

It was a classic and you could still see the links back to the epoch-making Renault Clio Williams, that blue and gold Mk 1 Clio we never saw in Australia that redefined the genre. The current Clio has been around for four years now and I even drove this current RS Clio at its launch in 2013, memorable for the sudden bucketing rain that drenched the circuit and made things very interesting indeed.

This Clio was a big change from the cars that went before - slimmer-hipped, less aggressive-looking and with a 1.6-litre turbo engine, five-door-only body and (gasp!) no manual, just Renault's twin-clutch EDC transmission. It was a hit, at least with enthusiasts. Back then it was the dawn of a golden age in small hot hatches. But that was then, this is now. With a small power bump and a couple of features thrown in, is the ageing RS still at the pointy end?

Kia admits that, even a handful of years ago, a car like the EV4 likely wouldn't exist in Australia. With a forecast of 70 sales a month, or 840 a year, it won't come close to the brand's biggest all-electric sellers, and senior executives and product planners alike would have been wondering if it was worth the effort.

But times have changed, and so have regulations, and Kia is happy to roll the dice on as many EVs as it can get its hands on to lower its fleet emissions in the wake of the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES).

If you'll forgive the long and rambling intro, I'll now get to the point. Long live the NVES, because the EV4 is a good (if a little bizarre-looking) thing. It's quite lovely to drive, will cross vast distances in its long-range guise, and will undoubtedly make our roads a more visually interesting place.

But would you have one over the Tesla Model 3 or BYD Seal? Read on.