‘We want the car,’ said Yaser Shabsogh, Kia’s UK commercial director to news agency headlineauto. ‘We have the technology so we want it so we can demonstrate it. It gives us a real branding opportunity.’

The Soul EV is likely to arrive in the UK in just over 12 months' time – eight months or so after the combustion-engined models.

‘We are still working on our strategy for the EV,’ said Shabsogh. ‘We haven't decided yet whether we are going to sell the battery or lease it.’

If the car is sold as a complete package Shabsogh anticipates a price of at least £20,000 before the Government's low emission vehicle grant of up to £5,000.

‘It is not going to be priced to try to stimulate demand,’ Shabsogh said. ‘We won't be selling hundreds of them – maybe a couple of hundred, mostly in the key metropolitan areas. But the biggest question at the moment is not where we will be selling them but the support for these cars – the servicing and charging networks.’