Kia has built three fast ones and given them all a soundtrack

Kia has taken the three electric cars in the middle of its range, put a second motor on the front axle of each and handed the results to the people who did the EV6 GT. The EV3 GT, EV4 GT and EV5 GT are on sale in Europe now. UK prices are "to be revealed in due course", which is Kia's way of saying October at the earliest.

The recipe is identical across all three, which is the interesting part. Each keeps the 81.4 kWh battery the ordinary long-range car already uses — no bigger pack, no clever chemistry — and adds a 70 kW motor at the back. The EV3 and EV4 make 292 PS and 468 Nm; the EV5 gets a stronger front motor and makes 306 PS and 480 Nm. Nought to 62 takes 5.7, 5.6 and 6.2 seconds. All three are limited: 106 mph for the small pair, 112 for the EV5.

What they cost you is range. The EV3 GT does 311 miles where the single-motor 81.4 kWh EV3 manages 375, and the EV5 GT drops to 296. The EV4 GT hatchback holds up best at 314. Nobody buys a GT for the range, but a fifth of it is a real number, and on these cars the battery is not getting any bigger to cover it.

Charging is untouched and remains one of the better things about this platform: 31 minutes from 10 to 80%, 30 in the EV5. The AC figures come with an asterisk. Kia quotes 7 hours 15 minutes on 11 kW and 3 hours 55 on 22 kW, but this is a European release and 22 kW is a European number. Three-phase supplies are rare in British homes, and Kia has previous here: 22 kW is on the EV2's options list in Europe and not on the British one. Plan around 11 kW until Kia's UK specification says otherwise.

Now the noise. Every GT gets Virtual Gear Shift and Active Sound Design, which between them simulate a gearbox and pipe an engine through the eight speakers, rising with speed, acceleration and torque. Lift off above 100 km/h and you get a "coasting" sound whether or not you have switched the fake gears on. You can file this under gimmick if you like, but it is a crowded gimmick now — Abarth, Ford and Hyundai all do it, and Hyundai's N division has proved it can be genuinely good.

The chassis work sounds more serious than the soundtrack. Stiffer springs, thicker anti-roll bars, brakes recalibrated, and Preview Electronic Controlled Suspension, which reads the road ahead with a camera and adjusts each damper in milliseconds. There are three drive modes, three stability control settings, torque vectoring that will hold a slip angle, launch control and a performance timer. Kia says the suspension was signed off on British roads among others, which on a car with 20 inch wheels and 40-profile tyres is the reassurance you want.

Inside, all three get semi-bucket suede sports seats with neon-green stitching, a GT steering wheel, sports pedals, a black and neon cabin and Harman Kardon audio. The EV5 keeps the Pet Mode every EV5 has, which holds the cabin temperature, locks the doors and puts a message on the screen while you nip into the shop. The boots shrink a little where the suspension needs the room: 413 litres in the EV3 against 460, and 377 in the EV4 against 435. The EV5's 566 is unchanged and the biggest of the three.

Then there is the line in the notes for editors, which is the only genuinely UK-specific thing in the whole release: the EV4 Fastback GT will not be offered here. Kia gives no reason. The fastback is the longer-legged of the two — 537 km on the European cycle against the hatchback's 505 — so it is not the engineering that ruled it out. Whether British buyers have taken to the shape is the more likely explanation, and the answer to that is sitting in Kia's own sales figures rather than in this release.

Which leaves a line-up that makes more sense than it first looks. The EV3 GT is the small quick one, the EV4 GT is the low one, the EV5 GT is the one with the boot, and all three are the same car underneath. Whether that is a range or a badge applied three times is a question the prices will answer.