The Kia Niro is a small SUV that can run on electricity or gasoline. It has a new look that matches other Kia cars, but the technology inside hasn't changed much.
The Kia EV3 is a new electric car from Kia that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It has a boxy shape and is designed to be practical and eco-friendly, making it a good option for those looking to reduce their carbon footprint.
A kilowatt-hour (kWh) tells you how much electricity a battery can store. It helps you understand how far an electric car can go before it needs to be charged again.
Electronic range is how far an electric car can go before it needs to be plugged in to recharge. It's important to know so you can plan your trips without running out of power.
An electric vehicle, or EV, is a car that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. This makes them cleaner for the environment because they don't produce exhaust fumes.
The Polestar 2 BST edition is a special version of the Polestar 2, which is an electric car. This edition is designed to be more powerful and sporty than the regular model.
'Beast mode' is a fun way to say that a car is really powerful and can perform very well, especially when driving fast or aggressively.
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It's EV News briefly for Sunday 25th of January, everything EV in less than five minutes.
Here we go, Kia's Nero's been facelifted, it just looks like all the other Kia's now.
So the EV3, the EV9, that slab-sided, kind of blocky, chunky look with the black cladding, that's what the Nero looks like now,
but they're not updating the actual technical, so it's got the same modest 8.9 kilowatt-hour battery.
You'll be lucky on 40 miles of electronic range for the plug-in hybrid version.
All EV version will knock on 300 miles, though.
And now, externally, looks like one of the Kia family.
So obviously the Nero is going to be sticking around a bit longer.
Porsche of Canada, switched on plug-in charge and at Tesla sites as well.
If you're enrolled in the Porsche charging service, it's all authenticating in the background and payment when you are done.
BMW's iX3 is actually doing really well.
We know it had a lot of orders in the early days, but BMW, although they haven't said that it's sold out for this production year run,
have added a second shift at the Hungarian plug.
You can still place orders for a delivery this year with the iX3 with its 500 miles of range WLTP, 800-volt Neuer-class of goody-goody-goody-good stuff.
It's very, very popular.
They say a third of the buyers knew to BMW.
Bentley's new EV has been spotted.
It's off of the sketchpad and it's onto the roads, and there's less camouflage on it now.
It's smaller than a Bentley Bentayga, by the way, and it used PPE,
which is the premium platform electric from the mothership at Volkswagen.
And that's the good stuff.
That's the Porsche Cayenne.
It's the Audi Q6 e-tron.
So, high voltage, but obviously Bentley, a smaller bit of the business,
saving some money and technical risk there as well.
This will be more of an entry into the Bentley brand, probably for more affluent,
maybe some urban buyers as well, Ford in the U.S.
Say that their only option was to build cells in Michigan using Chinese IP.
They couldn't do it any other way.
It's a Ford factory with Ford employees and Ford to pay in the bills,
but they have had to license the intellectual property from CATL,
the world's biggest battery maker for LFP, lithium-ion phosphate.
Jim Farley, the firm's boss, there was the only way that they could do it.
They didn't want to bring in ready-made cells or ready-made battery packs.
They want to get into the engineering and work out chemistry
and manufacturing and processes, but they didn't have the IP to do it.
They've had to license it from China.
Californians bought, say, 80,000 new EVs in the fourth quarter of the year.
So, whilst the U.S. as a whole went from almost 11% down to 6% EV
from Q3 to Q4, as the federal tax credit came away, and pretty much halved.
California went down, but by not as much.
Obviously, the budget from earlier this month proposed $200 million in incentives,
and there's also some money from the Energy Commission there,
which supports at-home charging in multi-family buildings as well.
Norway's fast-charging race is kind of entering cruise control, if you like.
Norway has now got 10,670 DC fast charges,
but the rate of installing them is slowing,
and the focus is moving on to maintenance, reliability, amenities of the sites as well.
The overall service, there's now more EV charges in Norway
than there per car, per single car, than there ever has been.
Off-peak rapid charging is getting cheaper in the UK.
Average price, 45 pence now, so it's not fair to rapid charge.
You have to pay more tax.
It's deeply unfair to tax repay at home,
but if you can charge off-peak, maybe even in the evenings or overnight,
you save yourself a lot of money on DC fast charging.
And Polestar want to go back to beast mode.
There are Polestar 2 BST editions,
but Polestar saying that with all the competition coming in,
M cars from BMW and the N brand from Hyundai,
they will bring beast mode back to future Polestar's.
That's briefly.
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About this episode
Kia's Niro gets a facelift, aligning its design with the rest of the Kia lineup, though its battery specs remain unchanged. Porsche introduces plug-in charging at Tesla stations, while BMW's iX3 sees increased production due to high demand. Bentley's new EV is spotted on the road, showcasing its smaller size and shared platform with VW. Ford reveals they licensed battery tech from CATL for their Michigan plant. California's EV sales remain strong despite a national decline, and Norway focuses on maintaining its extensive charging infrastructure. Polestar hints at reviving its 'beast mode' for future models.
It's EV News Briefly for Sunday 25 January 2026, everything you need to know in less than 5 minutes if you haven't got time for the full show.
Patreon supporters fund this show, get the episodes ad free, as soon as they're ready and are part of the EV News Daily Community. You can be like them by clicking here: https://www.patreon.com/EVNewsDaily
