Tesla Model Y vs Kia EV3 vs Geely EX5: Do You Actually Need to Spend Tesla Money?

Two of the three most-viewed Tesla comparisons on this site over the past fortnight were Model Y against Kia EV3 and Model Y against Geely EX5. That tells you what Australians are actually asking, and it is not "which electric SUV is best". It is a narrower and more useful question: do I have to spend Tesla money to get a good electric SUV?

The answer, on our own numbers, is genuinely surprising in one dimension and entirely predictable in another. Here is the whole picture.

Start with the number that should not be true

The Kia EV3 Air Long Range costs $53,315 and carries an 81.4kWh battery for 604km of WLTP range.

The Tesla Model Y Long Range AWD costs $68,900 and carries a 75kWh battery for 600km.

The Kia goes 4km further and costs $15,585 less. It also out-ranges the $58,900 Model Y RWD by 138km while costing $5,585 less than it. If range per dollar is your metric, the comparison is over before it starts, and it is not close.

Two honest caveats before you read too much into that. The EV3 is front-wheel drive and the Model Y Long Range is all-wheel drive, and the EV3 is a substantially smaller car: 4,300mm long against 4,792mm, on a wheelbase 210mm shorter. You are not comparing the same vehicle, you are comparing what a given amount of money buys. But on the specific question of how far a car goes on a charge, the small Kia wins and the win is large.

The full line-up and pricing

The last column is list price divided by WLTP kilometres, which is a crude measure but a revealing one. The Geely EX5 Complete and the Kia EV3 Air Long Range tie at $88 per kilometre of range. The Tesla Model Y RWD is the worst value on that measure at $126, which is 43 per cent more than either of them.

Notice too that the Geely Inspire costs $4,000 more than the Complete and goes 25km less far, on the same battery. The same pattern appears in the Kia range, where the $63,950 GT-Line goes 41km less far than the $53,315 Air Long Range. In both cases the higher grade carries bigger wheels and more equipment, and the consumption figures confirm it: the EX5 goes from 160Wh/km to 169Wh/km, and the EV3 stays at 149Wh/km but loses range to the same physical causes. Across all three brands here, the cheapest long-range variant is the longest-range variant.

Efficiency: closer than the price suggests

Tesla built its reputation partly on efficiency, and it still leads here, but the margin has narrowed to the point of being a rounding error against the Kia.

*Modelled at 30c/kWh home charging. Public fast charging costs considerably more.

Over 15,000km a year, the gap between the Model Y and the EV3 is about $36. Between the Model Y and the EX5 Inspire it is about $126. These are not numbers that should decide a $20,000 purchase-price difference, and it is worth saying so plainly rather than letting an efficiency win imply a cost win it does not deliver.

All three are efficient by the standards of the field. Our range calculator will show you what winter and highway speed do to each of these WLTP figures, which is a far bigger variable than the difference between them.

Space is where the money goes

This is where the Tesla earns its price, and where the Geely has to be understood carefully.

The Geely's 302-litre seats-up boot is the weak point of an otherwise very strong value case. It is less than half the Kia's and roughly a third of the Tesla's, and for a car 4,615mm long that is a poor return on its footprint. Fold the seats and it transforms, opening to 1,877 litres, which beats every seats-folded figure we hold for the Kia. So the EX5 is a good car for carrying large things occasionally and a mediocre one for carrying a family's luggage with everyone aboard.

The Model Y's 854 litres remains the outlier of the whole segment. Of the 284 on-sale electric rows where we hold a boot figure, only 30 reach 735 litres or more, and most of those are vans.

On towing, the Model Y takes 1,600kg braked, the EV3 Long Range cars 1,000kg and the EV3 Air Standard Range 500kg. We hold no towing figure for the Geely EX5, which is no data rather than a zero. Check with Geely if you tow. Our towing and payload calculator runs the full sum on the cars where we do hold the numbers.

Charging and performance

The Tesla is the quickest to charge and the quickest in a straight line. The Model Y Long Range accepts 250kW and claims 10 to 80 per cent in 14 minutes, while the RWD takes 175kW for 16 minutes. Kia quotes 31 minutes for the EV3. The Geely EX5 peaks at 100kW, the lowest here, which is the most meaningful practical compromise in its value proposition: on a long trip you will wait noticeably longer at every stop.

On pace, the Model Y RWD does 0 to 100km/h in 5.9 seconds and the Long Range in 4.8. The Geely EX5 is next at 6.9 seconds from 160kW, which is genuinely brisk for the money. The Kia EV3 is the slowest across the board at 7.5 to 7.9 seconds from 150kW, and unlike the others it offers no faster version at all.

Safety and warranty

This is an unusually clean safety comparison. All three hold five-star ANCAP ratings awarded in 2025, so all three were assessed against the same generation of protocols. That is rare in a comparison spanning a $27,000 price range, and it is worth stating clearly: on the published rating, the $41,990 Geely is as highly rated as the $68,900 Tesla.

Warranty follows the pattern you would expect. Kia offers seven years with unlimited kilometres and eight years on the battery. Geely offers seven years. Tesla offers five years with eight on the battery, the shortest vehicle cover here by two full years.

So which one?

Buy the Kia EV3 Air Long Range if range is what you came for. At $53,315 it goes further than every other car in this comparison including both Teslas, it is nearly as efficient as the Model Y, it carries the longest warranty, and it holds a 2025 five-star rating. The only reasons not to are its size and its 460-litre boot. Ignore the GT-Line unless you want its equipment specifically, because it costs $10,635 more and goes 41km less far.

Buy the Geely EX5 Complete if the budget is the constraint. At $41,990 with 475km, a 2025 five-star rating and a seven-year warranty, it is the most car for the least money here by a wide margin. Go in knowing about the 302-litre boot and the 100kW charging cap, and buy the Complete rather than the Inspire, which costs $4,000 more to go 25km less far.

Buy the Tesla Model Y if you need the space or the charging network. Its 854-litre boot, 1,600kg towing rating and 250kW charging are all genuine advantages that the other two cannot match at any price in this comparison. What it is not, on these numbers, is the range champion or the value choice.

Put any two of them side by side on our Model Y against EV3 or Model Y against EX5 pages, or see the full field in our electric listings.