Kia EV6 — 510+ km, 0-to-100 km/h in 3.5 Seconds, 800V Charging

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Kia is not messing around. Its EV6, whose specs were revealed earlier today, offers several things to brag about.

To start with, Kia claims a single-charge range of over 510 km (317 miles) from the version with the largest battery pack.

It also has up to 800V charging, which allows ultrafast charging from 10–80% in just 18 minutes.

If you want quick acceleration, the performance model, the EV6 GT, gets you from 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) in just 3.5 seconds — which is quicker than any non-criminal needs to accelerate ~100% of the time. Top speed of that model is 260 km/h (162 mph). Though, to be honest, I don’t think anyone should ever drive that speed unless they are a professional race car driver, so I never understand why companies highlight this.

If you don’t get the GT version, you’ve got a 0-to-100 km/h time of just 5.2 seconds (long-range option) or 6.2 seconds (standard-range version).

The EV6 also comes with a special ability to power something other than itself.

“The car’s charging system is more flexible than previous generation BEVs thanks to an Integrated Charging Control Unit (ICCU). The ICCU enables a new vehicle-to-load (V2L) function, which is capable of discharging energy from the vehicle battery. The V2L function can supply up to 3.6kW of power and is capable, as an example, of operating a 55-inch television and air conditioner simultaneously for more than 24 hours. The system is also able to charge another EV, if needed.”

Those are some very cool features.

“With more than 35% charge left in the battery, the EV6 can tow items weighing up to 1,600 kg. Together with the V2L function, EV6 owners can take everything they need on an outdoor adventure with friends and family and do it all with zero emissions.”

This is just the beginning for Kia. It is the first EV built on a true EV platform at Kia. “The EV6 is the first dedicated BEV produced by Kia using the all-new Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP), and forms the first part of Kia’s transition to the new era of electrification under the new brand slogan, ‘Movement that inspires’.”

That said, Kia’s overall electrification goals are weak. While Volvo is aiming to be 100% fully electric by 2030, GM is aiming for that by 2035, and Volkswagen is aiming to be 50% pure EV by 2030, Kia’s plan is to have 40% of sales coming from a mixture of pure electric, plug-in hybrid (PHEV) and hybrid electric (HEV) vehicles to make up 40 percent of Kia’s total sales by 2030, with 1.6 million sales of such vehicles. That’s weak, very weak.

As far as pure EVs alone, Kia is planning for 880,000 annual sales by 2030. That’s barely more than Tesla is expected to sell this year, in 2021. Tesla is aiming for 20 million pure EV sales a year by 2030. How can Kia think 880,000 annual sales by 2030 are adequate?

So, with Kia, we have this continual dichotomy — it makes great electric vehicles and could be a leader in the market, but its ambitions are very weak and depressing.

With regards to the aforementioned E-GMP, Kia plans to have 7 new models on the market by 2026, and it plans to have a total of 11 new pure-EV models on the market by then. The remaining 4 models will be based on existing models.

Back to the EV6, it comes with one of two battery packs, a 58 kWh pack or a 77.4 kWh pack.

“The 77.4 kWh battery pack is paired with a 168 kW (229ps) electric motor powering the rear wheels, and for AWD models a 239 kW (325 ps) electric motor powers the front and rear wheels. …

“The 58.0 kWh battery pack is paired with a 125 kW electric motor powering the rear wheels, and for AWD models a 173 kW electric motor powers the front and rear wheels.”

The Kia EV6 will also be capable of getting over-the-air software updates. “The EV6 also features an augmented reality (AR) head-up display system, which projects driving information onto the base of the windscreen in the driver’s line of sight. The system displays alerts from the car’s Advanced Driver Assistance System, details of vehicle speed, and turn-by-turn navigation instructions.”

If you are interested in the fun new electric model, you may be able to reserve one starting today. Reservations opened in certain markets today, with the ability to actually purchase the vehicle in the second half of the year.

At the moment, the EV6 will only be produced in South Korea.

More details on the EV6 and its origins can be found here.