Almost all decline comes from EV
The success of the Kia EV3 does indeed come at the expense of the Kia Niro EV, according to the figures. Nevertheless, the Niro is not doing badly either, and some of the new Niros are still electric.
For a long time, the Kia EV3 seemed poised to become the most popular car in the Netherlands. If that had succeeded, Kia would have repeated its trick from 2021, when the roughly similarly sized Kia Niro was the public’s favorite in the Netherlands. The difference: the EV3 is always purely electric, while the Niro attracts both (predominantly private) hybrid buyers and (business) electric drivers. It’s even more impressive that the EV3 achieves similar numbers, because for both the Niro in 2021 and the EV3 in 2025, we are talking about just under 11,000 cars.
It is clear that the EV3 also meets a need, but at the same time, this could partly be the need for which the Niro already provided a solution. After all, the cars are roughly the same size and price, with a starting price of €38,995 for the Niro EV (64.3 kWh, 460 km range) and €36,995 for the EV3 (58.3 kWh, 436 km range). The big question, therefore, is whether the Niro EV still has a right to exist now that the EV3 is here, and for that, we will take another close look at the figures.
It was, of course, already known that the EV3 performed better than the Niro in its first full year. The electric Kia EV3 is, after all, in second place in the sales rankings for 2025 (after the Skoda Elroq), while the Niro dropped from second to seventh place. In raw numbers, 10,970 EV3s were sold in 2025, and still 6,280 Niros. Last year, the Niro found 10,951 Dutch buyers, so the decline is already clear.
Decline mainly due to EV
If we look at Niro sales by drivetrain type, the expectations appear to align well with reality. Although sales of all powertrains declined, the majority of the decrease is attributable to the electric Niro. In 2025, 4,123 fewer Niro EVs were sold, while the total number of Niros sold decreased by 4,638.
Hybrid/Electric Ratios
All of this naturally affects the sales mix of the Niro. In 2024, almost half of the Niros were fully electric; in 2025, that figure was only 20.3 percent.
Kia Netherlands, however, states that it is not alarmed by these figures. The importer calls the sales decline of the Niro EV in light of the EV3’s arrival ‘more than logical’ and also notes that a significant portion of Niros are still fully electric. This share, according to the importer, is ‘in line with our expectations’.