The fully electric Kia e-Niro crossover made its debut at the Paris auto show on Tuesday. It has a range of 301 miles on the WLTP (worldwide light vehicles test procedure) and will go on sale in Europe late in 2018. We emailed Kia American reps, and they told us “we haven’t made any announcement regarding the Niro EV coming to the U.S., but the Niro is a very important part of the Kia lineup.” Translation: It’s coming.

Designwise, the e-Niro is different from the Niro in a few key ways. First, the tiger nose grille gets an integrated charging port, the air intakes are redesigned and new arrowhead-shaped LED daytime running lights now combine with blue trim headlights. It rides on new 17-inch wheels and gets a new back bumper with more blue highlights.

Inside, the e-Niro loses the gearshift and gains a rotary dial shifter. It gets buttons for seat heat and cool, electronic parking brake and auto hold functions. Blue trim is heavy on the dashboard, including the vents, and buyers can choose from fabric and synthetic leather, full synthetic leather or real leather (if you don’t care about the planet, you cretin).

It also comes with mood lighting, high-gloss black and blue accents and a rubber-covered space to put your cellphone. A 7-inch central screen covers nav and radio functions while another 7-inch screen behind the wheel displays range, charging status and the rest.

So, to get those 300-or-so miles, the e-Niro uses a high-capacity 64-kWh lithium-ion battery. Customers can specify a smaller, 39.2-kWh battery, which can be charged from 20 to 80 percent in just 42 minutes on a 100-kW fast charger. Acceleration for the 64 model is clocked at a reasonable 7.8 second to 60 mph; the smaller battery takes 9.8 seconds.

To keep you driving green, the e-Niro uses regenerative braking and gives the driver warnings on when to coast and brake to save fuel. Paddles on the wheel let the driver choose between three levels of deceleration regeneration.

So, no on-sale date for the U.S., though we bet it’ll be coming in 2019, and no pricing either. The current Niro range runs from about $24,000 to about $33,000. We’d guess an electric version would be high, but still in that range.

Also, Kia got Robert Deniro to do ad spots, so that’s pretty cool.

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