All Hail Kia: Could This Funky Electric Van Be NYC’s Next Taxi?

Kia showed a PV5 taxi prototype at the New York auto show, and it’s ready to take on the Big Apple.

We’ve got a thing for Korean vans. We have a not-so-secret crush on the Hyundai Staria, and have our fingers crossed hoping it might come to the U.S.-badged as a Chevrolet. So, yes, we were super-pleased to see this Kia PV5 done up as a New York City taxi cab.

Hyundai had a PV5 on its stand at the 2026 New York auto show—not just any PV5, mind you, but one done up as a wheelchair-accessible van in partnership with BraunAbility. (We tried out the BraunAbility Chevrolet Traverse a couple of years ago, and learned a lot about what it takes to make an ordinary vehicle wheelchair accessible.) The PV5 taxicab is a “production ready concept” intended for real-world testing, and one of the reasons it was at the New York show was so that the NYC taxi commission and local livery companies could give it a closer look.

The PV5 is a battery-powered minivan with a single motor powering the front wheels. In Korea, it’s available with either a 164-hp motor fed by a 51.5 kWh battery pack or a 192-hp motor with a 71.2 kWh battery. The latter returns 250 miles on the highly-optimistic WLTP cycle, which would likely translate to around 200 miles of EPA-rated range. It uses a commercial version of the E-GMP platform with a 400-volt architecture. That means it can’t do the super-fast charging we’ve come to admire in Kia and Hyundai’s 800-volt EVs, but Kia says the PV5 can fast-charge—which we interpret as 10–80 percent—in roughly 30 minutes.

The PV5 is currently sold in South Korea and Europe, with firm plans to bring it to Canada in the not-to-distant future. That last factoid is telling: Canada’s vehicle safety standards are largely identical to the U.S., so if the PV5 has been crash tested for Canada, it should meet our safety standards as well (and since it’s an EV, emissions is not a concern).

Could the PV5 work as a New York taxi? Although 200 miles of range should be adequate, we would think an 800-volt EV with a 15-minute charge time would be better suited to a Manhattan hack. Then again, most sources agree the average New York cab does about 180 miles per shift, so faster charging may not be necessary. And while the taxi concept’s blue-and-white interior looks nice, it’s going to need something in a more vomit-proof style. Still, we can envision this yellow PV5 with a bit more Bondo and overspray, horn blasting as it cuts off a Chevrolet Suburban to grab a fare at the corner of 57th and 8th.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

Incidentally, this isn’t Kia’s first attempt at a New York taxi. Back in 2007, Kia showed off a prototype of a cab based on the Rondo (pictured below), complete with an L-shaped driver’s partition, a built-in child seat, and a swing-out front passenger seat for the mobility impaired. It did not go well, as evidenced by the number of Rondo taxis one does not see on the streets of Manhattan today.

More than that, we’d love to see the PV5 come to America in both standard and wheelchair-accessible form (especially the latter, as most accessible vehicles are fuel-inefficient minivans). Bring it, Kia, because—Hey! We’re vannin’ here! We’re vannin’ here!