New Kia EV6 review: the best electric SUV on the market?
Kia's big-selling electric crossover has just been given a refresh both inside and out in order to keep pace with increasingly efficient and appealing competition.
Key among the EV6's changes are a full-width light bar, redesigned headlights, a new steering wheel, refreshed colour options, and a subtly restyled rear end.
Among the visual changes, Kia has also thought to update the car's technology. This means its usable battery capacity has increased from 77.4kWh to 84kWh, which means it now sports an all-electric range of 361 miles.
Charging speed has also been increased from 239kW to 258kW, which should allow for a 10% to 80% top up in 18 minutes.
But are all of these updates enough to keep the EV6 at (or close to) the top of its class? Time to find out.
What immediately strikes you about the new EV6 are the changes made to its exterior design. It's more technical, sufficiently modern and remains as distinctive as it always was, but has lost none of its familiar appeal to loyal buyers.
This has been achieved thanks to intriguing new headlights, new front and rear bumpers as well as new alloy wheel designs and new colour options. We'll leave it to you to decide how successful the redesign has been, but we think it is one of the better looking electric crossovers on the market.
Underneath, the changes are just as subtle but still contribute to a much more pleasant driving experience. Because Kia has increased usable battery capacity from 77.4kWh to 84kWh, electric range has gone to 361 miles, making the new EV6 one of the longest-range electric crossovers on sale.
Charging speed has also been increased from 239kW to 258kW, which theoretically tops the battery from 10% to 80% in just 18 minutes.
Inside, Kia has worked hard to improve quality, technology and overall usability. For example, there is now a fingerprint scanner on the centre console which can be used to configure each of the car's settings to the respective driver's preferences. That's something you don't get on a Volkswagen ID 4, BMW iX1 or Audi Q4 E-tron.
What you do get on those cars, however, is wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which has been absent from the EV6 ever since it was introduced. In other words, it has been absent for too long. Kia has now introduced these services for this generation.
In terms of overall quality, the interior has taken another step up. The ugly, cheap gloss black plastic used in the old car has been replaced by aluminium-style material with a metallic matt finish. It looks much smarter and feels a lot nicer to hold.
It's not all good news inside, however. Because the air conditioning controls sit on a touch-sensitive panel, the icons which control it are not very easy to use on the move, particularly because they don't offer haptic feedback. What's more, the rotary dial used for the gear change is both oversized and ugly, and the introduction of bonging ADAS functions has only added a layer of annoyance.
But what is this car like when you get behind the wheel? Let's start with performance. If you choose the entry-level single motor car, you get 225bhp and a 0-62mph time of around 7.0sec. Step up to the 320bhp dual motor car and the time is slashed to 5.3sec. The top-specification GT car doesn't arrive until 2025, but you can expect it to get to 62mph in around 3.5sec and have up to 580bhp.
No matter which car you go for, however, its power is delivered smoothly, controllably and consistently without making you feel sick. Even the standard car will make for rapid cross-country progress.
When the going gets twisty, it's steering the light and precise enough to make you want to drive it enthusiastically, but stops short of being over-excited or twitchy. The fun you can have on a country road is enhanced by the fact that you sit quite low in the car, because it feels smaller and you get a much better sense of what is happening around you.
How about ride quality? Despite riding on alloys up to 20in in diameter and weighing 75kg more than the car it replaces, the EV6 does a good job of smoothing out bumps and imperfections, is impressively quiet and composed in most situations. Only at a high speed cruise can things get a bit noisy, but overall it's a relaxing and refined machine.
Overall, the EV6 is a good car made better. Kia knew it didn't have to 'fix' the EV6, rather tweak it so that it remained a contender for the best electric SUV on the market. And now that these updates manifest themselves as tangible improvements to efficiency, looks and quality, it lives up to that billing.
