KIA EV6 sets new standard in its class

/ 7th March 2022 /

On the last Saturday of every year, or the first of the new year if that's closer, I announce my own Car Of The Year Awards and the Kia EV6 stood out this year.

Having driven the Kia EV6 at the European launch in Marbella in early October, my choice for 2022 was a simple one. This is a cracking car, for my money the best battery-electric vehicle on the market, even though it sits very much in the mid-range in terms of price.

Last month, my colleagues and friends in the Irish Motoring Writers Association and the Association Of Professional Motoring Press (I'm not a member of either organisation) jointly awarded the EV6 the title of Irish Car Of The Year 2022, in association with sponsor Continental tyres.

Then, last week, 59 jurors from 22 countries also chose the EV6 as European Car Of The Year 2022.

You might think this is a sop to the rapidly growing market for electric vehicles, but in fact six of the seven finalists were electric cars.

For a lot of us, I suspect, performance greatly influences our decisions, because the acceleration in EVs is so compellingly fast, with even family saloons now as quick off the blocks as hot hatchbacks and sports cars a decade ago. The EV6 tested here takes 7.3 seconds for the 0-100kph sprint but, in the model with a more powerful motor, that can be achieved in just 5.2 seconds.

The other main consideration when judging electric cars is range. The smaller the battery, the cheaper the car, and that makes a lot of sense for the urban motorist, who doesn't need to have 500km in the battery when he or she drives a round trip of 20km a day. For that reason, and I stress this, the EV6 is over-qualified for anyone who basically wants to tootle around the city.

The WLTP-certified range of the entry-level Earth model, which rides on 19-inch wheels, is a whopping 528km; this GT-line version sits on 20-inch wheels, and range drops to 506km. In warm Spain in October, that's more or less what we were getting.

The Kia EV6 was named as the Continental Tyres Irish Car of the Year for 2022 Pictured is L-R Anthony Conlon and Cathal Doyle, joint chairmen, Irish Car of the Year Committee, Ronan Flood, Kia Ireland and Tom Dennigan, Continental Tyres Ireland- PIC PIC JULIEN BEHAL PHOTOGRAPHY

That's why I always like to take the same car out again in Ireland to see how it fares in our conditions, as well as to test if the right-hand drive model has any quirks not evident in the left-hand drive.

There was a diminution in range, thanks to colder road surfaces and air temperature, but this still is one of the most reliable electric cars you'll drive for accurate range prediction. It also can be recharged very quickly.

Indeed, if we ever get an expanded and more reliable infrastructure of fast public chargers, its 800-volt charging capacity means you'll top up from 10% to 80% in just 18 minutes on a 350kW charging unit, or add 100km of range in just over four minutes.

Like most electric cars, much of what you do can be controlled by an app, from setting the start of home charging to the hours of night-rate electricity, to turning the heater on half an hour before you want to leave.

Cleverly, the battery also operates as a power source, with a socket in the passenger footwell, which means you can recharge a laptop while you drive, or recharge an e-bike or e-scooter for more localised mobility once you have parked.

Besides this practicality, I find the EV6 one of the most attractive cars on the road in any category, albeit a little more surly in the black of my test car compared with the vibrant red or deep mature green of the models available to us in Spain.

The interior is terrific, with a lovely wraparound screen with two 12.5in displays, that can be tailored to your needs. The flat-bottomed steering wheel has the knobs for the cruise control, voice command, phone, and so on, while the elevated centre console has a phone charge pad, cupholders and the radial automatic gear selector.

At 520 litres, boot space is perhaps a little more niggardly than expected in a car of this size, but more than adequate at 1,300 with the rear seats dropped.

The price of petrol nudged above €2 a litre in one Dublin garage this week, and with the war in Ukraine now also likely to contribute to rising fuel and energy costs, we're all going to have to do some serious sums.

Pitting the price of going electric against the savings on running costs (cheaper overnight charging, less maintenance than a combustion engine) the drive to electric is going only one way and there's no better example than the Kia EV6.

KIA EV6 GT-LINE MODEL DRIVEN (GT-LINE): €54,345 ENGINE: 168kW electric motor POWER: 266hp BATTERY: 77.4kWh TRANSMISSION: Single-speed automatic ELECTRIC RANGE: 504km CONSUMPTION: 16.5-17.2kWh/ 100km 0-100KPH: 7.3 seconds TOP SPEED: 185kph CO2: 0g/km €120 tax DIMENSIONS: 4680mm (L); 1880mm (W, excl mirrors); 1550mm (H)