Kia EV6

Heard an interesting take on the electric car driving experience the other day from one professor Gordon Murray; he of the extraordinary McLaren F1 (which I never got to drive because I was working for Top Gear magazine at the time and one Jeremy Clarkson wrote a derogatory column about everything else you could buy for the price of the car) and, latterly, the T.50 -billed as fixing all the compromises the good professor was forced to accept in the former.

Basically, his argument is that, once you’ve got over that surprise elastic ping of acceleration off the line, the electric experience is, well, boring. Now, whilst it’s hardly surprising to hear this from a man whose preferred weapon of choice is the lycanthrope howl of a painstaking perfected, conventionally aspirated V12, I was, nonetheless, gladdened to hear his opinion: As in, Not Just Me, then.

In this context, Kia’s EV6 is quite interesting. It’s neither billed or priced as a performance car, yet has quietly and quickly built itself a reputation as one of the best electric cars you can buy.

When it comes to icing the body electric, both Kia and parent company Hyundai are on something of a roll at the moment. Sharing the same dedicated EV platform, both this EV6 and Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 are optical illusions, in that they look far smaller in photos than they actually are in the flesh -a testament to tidy design work.

However, whereas the Ioniq 5 boasts a futuristic fizzog and body work folded like the precision origami face of an early cartoon android, the slightly more staid Kia simply resembles a large hatchback which, on approach, swells to an SUV about the size of an Audi Q5. Still good looking, then, but more Ray Bans than ray gun.

There’s acres of space on board, with the absence of a transmission tunnel allowing for plastic caverns of storage space up front and good rear seat foot room to compliment the impressive head and legroom. Cabin materials fit and finish is about the best we’ve seen from Kia to date, and both front seat and driving position give no cause for gripes.

Even on the least expensive EV6 in the range, which I drove, equipment levels are high and sufficiently comprehensive that anything added as you climb through the grade structure you probably don’t need anyway, such as more tedious driver assistance intrusion and a head-up display when there’s already a digital speedometer under your nose.

All variants are awarded twin 12.3-inch touchscreens integrated into one sweeping dashtop sliver, within which my favourite slice of tech is the view from rear facing cameras which activate when you indicate; useful rather than irritating driver assistance for a change. Oh, and there are proper dials for the air-conditioning controls, which double up as radio volume and tuner at the touch of a button. A Good Thing.

The EV6 is available in pricier, twin-motor all-wheel drive guise, but this £41,695 entry level machine sports just the one motor driving the rear wheels. Despite this, it’s no slouch, and will hiss off the line quickly enough to arrive at 62 mph in only 7.2 seconds, and hum on to 114 mph. Three driving modes -Eco, Normal and Sport- do precisely what they promise, and, via flappy paddles, you can adjust the amount of regenerative braking to the point where single pedal driving is possible.

Given the size of this machine and the fact that it weighs in at only a few bags of sugar short of two tonnes, it handles remarkably well. Compared to the Ioniq 5, the undercarriage has been stiffened up somewhat to make the Kia decidedly more agile, mercifully not entirely at the expense of ride comfort. Even so, and though it’ll despatch sweeping A roads with poise and no little aplomb, this isn’t the car in which you’ll want to tackle your favourite B road -the poor thing’s sheer size and heft quickly getting the better of things. Be interesting to see how the forthcoming GT variant copes…

But a decent drive means nothing if you have to stop every 150 miles and nurse endless revolting beakers of Starbucks whilst the car inhales energy. Happily, this single motor machine’s 77.4 kWh battery boasts a range of some 328 miles between charges and, better yet, benefits from an 800 Volt charging architecture. So, find an as yet rare-as-hen’s-teeth ultra-fast charger rated at 220 kWh or more, and the EV6 will go from 10% to 80% battery capacity in only 18 minutes, with a 62 mile splash ‘n’ dash taking just four and half minutes. More prosaically, it’ll also suck up 10% to 80% from a 50 kW charger in 68 minutes. And you might even find a vacant one of those on your travels.

Here’s the thing though. EVs are constantly being bigged-up as ideal urban transport, but -even assuming the government ever gets its infrastructure act together- how many city dwellers can plug a car in outside their front door? I recently enjoyed a big stand-off with an electrevangelist who answered ‘60%’, which is clearly bollocks. He told me someone at a conference had stood up on stage and claimed this to be a true statistic. He also then told me that, in response, someone in the audience had promptly stood up and shouted ‘You lying c**t.’

All of which makes it hard to know how to rate this car. Solely against other electrics? Or just out there in the real, charging infrastructure-barren world with internal combustion competition? Either way, the EV6 has to be one of the best electric cars on the market.