In one aspect, the Kia EV6 feels rushed through and barely considered. Seriously Kia, how many minutes did it take you to settle on ‘EV6’ for the first in a series of bespoke electric vehicles? No messing around creating a sub-brand like ID, EQ or Ioniq here, just does-what-it-says-on-the-tin, call a spade a spade and an EV an EV, simplicity.
Now, Kia insists the name was chosen precisely due to its simplicity, because they didn’t want to add any further confusion to the already complex terminology surrounding electric cars. Sure, why not?
Anyway, we’ll forgive Kia because the firm has clearly devoted its time to the really important stuff: in every regard bar the name, the EV6 feels like the result of extensive consideration, planning, research and development. Which it is, because as the first bespoke electric Kia built on the Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP native EV platform, this is a very important car.
“It’s a showcase for what we want to stand for,” says Sjoerd Knipping, the firm’s European product chief. “It’s very well thought through why EV6 is our first model on E-GMP. For sure, in 10 years we’ll be talking about EV6 as the model that changed the Kia brand.”
Pretty bold stuff, but the EV6 is a pretty bold car, and much of that is down to that E-GMP skateboard electric architecture, which among other things features an 800V architecture that allows for high-speed charging at up to 350kW. If that sounds familiar, the E-GMP is also used to underpin the sister firm's Hyundai Ioniq 5. Which is a similar size to the EV6 and shares battery, motor and lots of other technology. But don’t mistake the EV6 as a badge-engineered Ioniq 5.
“They are so closely related that they share a platform and that’s about it,” says Knipping with a laugh. “Obviously there is lots of shared technology to have the economies of scale, but if you look at them from a design and positioning point of view they’re totally different. This is a challenge that lots of car groups have, and this is a very good example of how we’ve managed to differentiate the brands.”
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How's that for a new 'architecture'.
And why go on about the name? EV6, 7 or 8 is fine, we all know where we stand.
Other than that, this thing will surely fly off the shelves. Kia have done a great job with their rebranding, and the 7 year warranty is the cherry on top.