Kia EV6

With EVs being the current flavour, almost every manufacturer is trying to showcase their technological prowess in this area. Kia has decided to get in on the action now with their best seller CUV internationally, the EV6. The EV6 is Kia’s flagship EV offering that they plan to get in India via the CBU route and for the moment they plan to get in just 100 units. But does the Kia EV6 have what it takes to be a halo product and sell all the said 100 units? We drove the car around the Buddh International Circuit to get a feel.

The heart of the EV6, like in most other EVs, is a permanent magnet synchronous motor. The EV6 will come in two configurations, rear wheel drive and all-wheel drive with us driving only the latter. The AWD variant gets two motors with a combined output of 320.5bhp and a massive 605Nm of torque and those big numbers are transferred to all four wheels via an automatic transmission.

On the Formula One track, the EV6 felt at home right from the word go. One can shift the driving modes via the button on the steering wheel and we immediately went into Sport mode. Even the braking has two modes to choose from, Sport and Normal and it’s obvious what we selected. We got just three laps to experience the car so it was just a brief experience. Now we expected the car to be quick, but the EV6 showed us properly what pinning the driver into the seat experience feels like. The EV6 accelerates hard and we managed to do a 0-192kmph run on the longest straight and boy the EV6 can move. Kia claims a 0-100kmph time of 5.2 seconds and we don’t doubt it at all.

Performance is immediate and relentless at all speeds except if you want to accelerate from 192kmph which is the EV6’s top speed. The braking is just as impressive and slowing down from top speed just before a corner is no problem at all. The brakes bite hard and inspire plenty of confidence. 

And then we come to the handling; the EV6 had another surprise for us in this department. Based on the E-GMP platform, the chassis is as stiff as it can get. Suspension duties are handled by McPherson struts at the front and a multi-link rear so nothing exotic, but it’s the set-up that counts. The EV6 is set-up beautifully and while we cannot talk about ride quality, the handling is definitely something we can vouch for. There is plenty of mechanical grip and what further helps is how neutral the handling feels. There is a hint of body roll as you put it into the corner but it’s almost negligible. The EV6 grips hard and then as you put down all the 320 plus horses exiting the corner, the tail steps out even with all the electronics switched on. That just tells you that Kia has made sure that the EV6 gets playful handling should the driver be up for some. The steering too, is excellent and talks back, giving vital information. It’s got the right amount of heft and feel that syncs well with the suspension set-up. So what you have here is a family car that will be just as happy going to the mall as it will be hitting a racetrack.

And now we come to the range, even with a temperature of 45+ degrees at the track and going flat out, the car still managed to show a range of over 300km. Kia says the EV6 is capable of 528km on a full charge but that’s under the international WLTP cycle and Kia thinks it will be more or less the same once the ARAI figures come out. But even if the EV6 manages anything between 400 and 450km, it will be an excellent figure.  Charging the EV6 is just as quick as its acceleration. With a 350kW charger, the EV6’s 77.4 KWh lithium-ion battery can reach 80 per cent of its charge in just 18 minutes, while a 50kW charger will take about 73 minutes. Kia will be installing fast chargers at its dealerships and they will give us more dough on the charging infrastructure plans closer to launch.

Step inside and you are welcomed by some radical interiors. What hits you first up is the curved dual display which consists of a 12.3-inch touch screen infotainment system and an equally large instrument cluster. The sleek imprinted dashboard looks great and despite the all-black interiors the cabin actually feels airy. What also looks great is the floating centre console which has a good looking faux aluminium insert on it. The seats that you see in the image are leatherette but once deliveries begin, expect them to get black suede with vegan leather bolsters with the latter being applied to the steering wheel as well.

The front seats are large and well-bolstered and kept us in place even under hard cornering at the race track. At the rear there is ample legroom and headroom and with a width of 1890mm and a flat floor, it can seat three people abreast fairly comfortably. However, the centre has a narrow squab and the armrest behind your back won’t be comfortable for too long. What could also be better is the under-thigh support. But, speaking volumes about the EV6’s practicality is the boot space which at 520 litres is humongous and should you decide to move a house the seats fold to make way for all of 1300 litres. Overall, the EV6’s interiors look great, it’s spacious and the only thing that goes against it is the abundance of plastic in a car in this price range.

The EV6 is pretty loaded when it comes to features. So you get augmented reality HUD, suede seats with vegan leather, sunroof, wireless charging, adaptive driving beam, powered tailgate, vehicle to load feature where you can power other things with the car’s battery, dual-curved display, heated and ventilated seats, 14-speaker meridian sound system and Kia connect with as many as 60 features along with a 360 display.

On the safety front, you get eight airbags along with ABS, EBD and the works. But what you also get is camera-based ADAS. The ADAS suite includes forward collision avoidance, lane-keep assist, blind-spot collision avoidance, rear traffic avoidance, smart cruise control and more. 

The Kia EV6 looks to be an extremely impressive product from Kia Motors and there is no doubt it has all the potential to be a halo EV product. Sure it could do with lesser plastics in the cabin but then it more than makes up for it in terms of space, design and equipment. It also looks fantastic and goes like a bat out of hell offering genuine sportscar performance along with what we think is a fairly usable range. But, all this is definitely going to come at a cost and being a CBU means we will be paying almost double of what it actually costs. The EV6 will be priced upwards of Rs 50 lakh when launched. We think Kia’s relatively subtle target of a 100 units should be lapped up in no time but what’s more important to note is that the EV6 makes for a brilliant starter pack and a sign of good things to come from Kia.

Photography: Kaustubh Gandhi