Starts at $39,600
Rank
What's New for 2025?
The Niro EV holds the line on pricing this year while adding standard rear seatbelt pre-tensioners across the board. The base Wind trim gets a larger 10.25-inch instrument cluster and a rotary transmission controller, while the better-equipped Wave trim adds a blind-spot collision avoidance system, a 10-way power front passenger seat, a head-up display, HomeLink buttons for the rearview mirror, and optionally rear parking collision avoidance and a remote parking feature.
FAST FACTS
"As is often the case with Hyundai-Kia products, you can take your pick between two distinctly styled versions of the same basic vehicle — in this case, the Kia Niro EV or the Hyundai Kona Electric. The main difference under the hood, as it were, is that the Niro EV comes standard with the longer-range, 250-mile-plus EV powertrain that delivers better acceleration, while the Hyundai offers a shorter-range version that's cheaper to start. Since we don't recommend the base Kona Electric, we appreciate that the Niro EV takes that configuration out of play, but with a price pushing $40k to start, it's not the value play you might expect. Oddly, the Kia's peak charge rate is even lower than that of the Hyundai."—Ranked #3 out of 4 Subcompact Electric SUVs
Publisher and Donkey-in-Chief
Josh has been reviewing cars professionally since joining Edmunds.com fresh out of grad school in 2008, personally driving most new cars on the market every year since. He also served as the project manager for Edmunds' expert vehicle rankings from their inception in 2018, building the product out from the back end to the front end. Josh is a card-carrying member of the Motor Press Guild and a lifelong car nut who has tested, compared and critiqued a ridiculous number of cars in his career.
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