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Low-key facelift aims to keep fashionable electric family SUV near the top of the pile

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Until not long ago, trailblazing electric cars from Kia and Hyundai weren't very exciting. They’ve looked like their conventional counterparts (which was entirely the point), they left keen drivers a little cold and, other than in the broadest sense, they didn’t pioneer any new technology. But the Kia EV6 represented the marque shifting gears with its EV line-up and leaving behind the compromises of platforms that need to also accommodate an engine.

Since launching just three years ago, it has sold more than 210,000 units worldwide - and while cheaper alternatives from the likes of Volkswagen, Skoda and Tesla have a bigger share of the UK market, the sheer number of them you see on the road is testament to its popularity. 

Thankfully, Kia's new-age design language doesn’t include too many fake grilles. This top one is ornamental, but the one lower on the valance actually does cool the battery.

It seems like only recently that we were first getting aquainted with this futuristic saloon-coupé-SUV-fastback, but such is the unrelenting pace of progress in this industry that Kia has already seen fit to treat it to a round of updates.

The aim is mostly to bring it into line, technically and visually, with the newer Kia EV9 flagship SUV - and EVs 3, 4 and 5 that will follow over the coming months. But surely bosses will have been nervously mopping their brow as a tidal wave of rivals launched over the past couple of years with comparable charging speeds, ranges and material quality - so there will be an element of attempting to recapture a competitive edge here, too.

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Plus, like all distinctively styled 'mass-market' cars, the EV6 has become something of a victim of its own popularity, and has arguably lost a smidge of the visual drama that got us all talking when it was revealed, so what harm can zhuzhing up the design do?

Not that this is one of the more dramatic facelifts. The Kia EV6’s face has indeed been lifted (full-width light bar, redesigned headlights, tweaked splitter), but that’s your best bet for immediately distinguishing the latest version of this big-selling family EV from the original, aside from the new wheel designs, colour options and even less obviously fettled rear end.

The headline of this update, though, is an increase in usable battery capacity from 77.4kWh to 84kWh, giving the most efficient EV6 a commendable official range of 361 miles and making it comfortably one of the longest-range electric crossovers on sale. Charging speed is up a touch, too, from a 239kW maximum to 258kW, theoretically allowing a 10-80% top-up in just 18 minutes.

Throw in some subtle but noticeable changes to the cabin and a few technical enhancements, too, and there's reason to suspect that the ever-changing electric SUV market is once again destined for a bit of a shake-up.

DESIGN & STYLING

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Kia EV6 review 2024 02 side panning

Opinions on the Kia EV6's exterior design are divided. Some really rate the car’s unusual detailing, especially at the back. Others struggle to appreciate it.

At the very least, though, Kia should be commended for coming up with a distinctive-looking car. The EV6 doesn’t hide its alternative positioning or seek to look ‘normal’ and it makes full use of the benefit that freedom brings.

EV6 is covered with unusual shapes and surfaces. The sloping rear and wraparound tail-lights might be its most peculiar features. Distinctiveness is good, of course, but the blindspot created by the rear quarter panels isn’t.

It rides on the EV-specific Electric-Global Modular Platform, or E-GMP, and, as with the Volkswagen Group’s MEB, the battery pack is carried within the floor of the car and powers one big motor in the rear and an optional motor in the front. All versions share the same suspension layout: MacPherson struts at the front and a five-link axle at the rear.

Being modular, the chassis is set to spawn smaller and larger EVs with a range of bodystyles. Since it’s a dedicated EV platform (as opposed to one that can underpin both EVs and ICE cars), there is no need to reserve space for an engine and the EV6 makes full use of that with a short bonnet and a long wheelbase with a generous passenger compartment.

Kia has also resisted the temptation to stick a huge phoney grille on the front. While the top section of the car’s ‘face’ is ornamental and supposedly evokes Kia’s normal ‘tiger nose’ grille, the lower air intake is functional, feeding air to the battery cooling system and channelling it across the flat floor for aerodynamic benefit.

It's here that the EV6 has most tangibly been restyled for 2024, with new lighting designs and sculpting that more closely match the newer EV9, and the upcoming EV3, EV4 and EV5. The overall effect is to give a cleaner, more purposeful look - though it's a subtle tweak and we're told there's no functional benefit in an aerodynamic sense. 

And the downside of carrying that battery pack under the floor? It eats into the available cabin height, so although the EV6 isn’t really an SUV, it needs to be a little taller than most hatchbacks in order to offer enough passenger space.

As well as the usual benefits of an EV platform, the E-GMP, and by extension the EV6, has a few more tricks up its sleeve, most notably its 800V electric architecture. This enables charging at up to 350kW without needing impractically thick cabling and has previously been found on only the Porsche Taycan and Audi E-tron GT.

The car’s other party trick is reverse charging. Officially called vehicle to load (V2L), this can supply up to 3.6kW through an adaptor with a three-pin socket that connects to the charging port. That’s enough to power a fridge during a power cut or even to top up another EV.

As is common with Kias, you don’t get a lot of choice in the model range or options, and all EV6s have a 84kWh battery pack. There are just three trim levels: Air, GT-Line and GT-Line S. Every EV6 has a single 226bhp motor at the back, but GT-Line and GT-Line S cars can be ordered with an additional front motor for a total of 320bhp and all-wheel drive. Early next year, Kia will bring back the 911 Turbo-baiting, 577bhp EV6 GT range-topper, too.

INTERIOR

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Kia EV6 review 2024 09 dash

The inside of the Kia EV6 calls up similar conflicting feelings to the outside, mixing hatchback and SUV cues. Getting into the driver’s seat, you drop down, car-like, but you don’t sink down quite as low as you do in, say, a BMW 3 Series saloon or a hot hatchback. At the same time, you have a legs-out driving position as if you were sat down fully recumbently, because the whole floor is quite high.

The steering column comes at you at a steeper angle than you might expect, given how you’re sitting. But you look out at a short bonnet and over a seemingly low scuttle in a way that’s vaguely reminiscent of being in a mid-engined supercar. It’s slightly unusual – not unpleasant, just different.

The driving environment is unusual. It’s at once quite open thanks to the seemingly low scuttle and floating centre console but it also evokes the feeling of a traditional sports car, with a high console and the instruments and controls canted towards the driver

Thanks to its architecture, the EV6 has a flat floor, but rather than making an MPV-like airy cabin with a minimal centre tunnel, Kia has chosen a very driver-focused cockpit with a tall centre console. It houses the drive selector, a wireless charging pad, controls for the heated seats and steering wheel, and more storage space than you could shake a Renault Espace at.

You could argue that not creating a completely open cabin is a missed opportunity, but the effect contrasts nicely with the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which goes all in on the airy lounge vibe. The result is that the Kia feels like the more low-slung sporty option, while the Hyundai is more upright and relaxed, neatly differentiating these mechanically similar models.

Space in the rear is generous, with limousine levels of leg room. However, because of the high floor, taller adult passengers will sit with their knees in mid-air and their thighs unsupported, which can be tiring over long distances, and there isn’t much room under the front seats for feet, either. As a result, the space isn’t quite as comfortable or usable as the raw numbers would suggest. It’s a similar story with the boot: there is plenty of floor space, but because of the battery, the floor itself is rather high, and outright loading space is restricted in some ways.

Criticism of the EV6’s interior since it launched has hardly been uproarious, but we can celebrate this facelift's banishment of the centre console’s cheap-looking gloss black plastic in favour of a smart new matt finish and the introduction (at last) of wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto: this space-age, minimalist cockpit need no longer be blighted by a trailing phone cable. The steering wheel is now electronically adjustable, too, and there’s a fingerprint scanner that can be used to set your preferred seating position and climate settings.

We still wish there were a few more buttons, though. There’s a handsome new steering wheel with a few toggles and switches for the cruise control and audio, but the climate control is still the preserve of a part-time touch panel that can’t easily be operated on the move, because the icons are small and don’t give any haptic feedback. Plus, the gear selector is still an oversized and slightly fiddly rotary device, rather than a chunky, tactile stick or toggle. What price nonconformity?

Due to some recent regulatory changes, the EV6 now also requires a fairly extensive pre-flight check to ensure you’ve deactivated all the warning sirens and intrusive ‘aids’. You will likely forget one or two and then be reminded by blasting bongs a few miles later. Irritating, but you will have it set up to your preference in seconds after a few drives.

 

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

Kia EV6 review 2024 21 rear panning

The EV6’s fundamental specifications, pleasingly, are unchanged: a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive powertrain opens the line-up with 225bhp for £45,575, and Kia will pop another motor on the front axle to give 320bhp for £52,075. Until the refreshed 577bhp EV6 GT returns early next year, the £57,175 AWD GT-Line S (to which this early Euro-spec car is almost identical) caps the range, ticking all the options boxes (excluding, strangely, an efficiency-boosting heat pump, which adds £950) and probably packing as much power as you could reasonably hope to deploy.

It will still keep pace with a stabbed rat off the line, but it doesn’t have the tiresome, jolty delivery of many high-powered EVs and stops short of delivering that regrettably familiar sort of scrabbly, sickening acceleration. It digs in hard and rears up under load, then meters out its generous reserves considerately, reeling in the horizon in a smooth and easily controllable manner, rather than booting you down the road and making you feel queasy.

It’s quick enough to keep you interested in a straight line but it’s also enjoyable in corners, with fine roadholding, good body control and a clear rear-drive dynamic vibe.

It makes for highly pleasurable and relaxing yet still relatively rapid cross-country progress.

At the lower end of the line-up, the 225bhp Kia EV6 is not only more powerful than direct rivals from the VW Group but it’s also lighter. It’s just under two tonnes, whereas the equivalent Audi Q4 E-tron and Skoda Enyaq iV are 100kg heavier.

That’s reflected in the acceleration times. Taking 6.9sec to reach 60mph, it’s more than a second faster than the Audi. The 7.3sec 0-62mph time we measured is exactly as claimed by Kia. A standard-range, low-powered Ford Mustang Mach-E is a fraction quicker still. The Kia’s acceleration tails off less at faster motorway speeds than the Enyaq’s, too.

On the road, the instant shove makes it pleasingly brisk in all situations, and the accompanying mild motor whine gives a reasonable sense of speed. You’ll need the dual-motor version if you want indulgently explosive power, but this sort of performance feels very healthy indeed for a family car, especially when it arrives instantly.

Like other Kia and Hyundai EVs, the EV6 has steering wheel paddles to adjust the level of regenerative braking through six settings. Level 0 has no regen and lets the car coast with seemingly no friction at all. Level 1 is similar to engine braking in a manual petrol car, and Level 2 and 3 further ramp up the regen.

There is also Kia’s ‘i-pedal’ setting, which enables full one-pedal driving. In addition, there’s an adaptive mode that uses navigation and radar cruise control to vary the level of regen automatically. Giving the driver this much control over regen preferences is the right route to good drivability in any EV and it’s easy to find a setting you’re comfortable with.

Drivers who prefer to use the brake pedal to mete out the regen, meanwhile, will find decent pedal progression here once into the meat of the travel, but at the top of the pedal the brakes can be a bit grabby. Outright braking performance as tested was poorer than in the Enyaq iV, but only fractionally.

RIDE & HANDLING

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Kia EV6 review 2024 23 rear cornering

The EV6 has always held the road well, and that hasn’t changed. The steering remains a touch clinical in its unfeeling lightness but is quick and precise enough to inspire a more exuberant driving style,
even on the sorts of narrow, high-sided lanes where the car’s generous footprint might otherwise count against it.

Indeed, this is a deceptively big car, but because it’s so dynamically malleable (and possibly because you seem to sit lower in the body than in other electric SUVs), it feels smaller and thus easier to enjoy.
It rides well, too, and not just for a weighty electric SUV. Even on 20in alloys (and considering that it’s 75kg heavier than the old twin-motor range-topper), it does a nice job of rounding out rougher sections and softening speed bumps, and it’s generally impressively quiet and composed. Things can get a bit rumbly at a high-speed cruise, but it’s not bad enough to really dent the EV6’s enhanced long-distance touring credentials.

On a motorway, I rest my hands on the wheel in a relaxed way, but Kia’s lane keeping system clearly prefers a white-knuckle grip, because the EV6 constantly nagged me to keep hold of the wheel.

Ride comfort and isolation

There’s a predictable price for that remarkable dynamism and, given the title of this section, you can guess what it is. Adaptive dampers are available on the full-fat EV6 GT, but on the ‘regular’ models they’re not even an option. And the passive ride and handling compromise that Kia’s chassis engineers have chosen for the car is definitely tuned on the sporty side.

It’s not crashy thanks to good damping and generously sidewalled tyres, so it’s not uncomfortable as such, but it always feels busy and firm, whether you’re in town, on rural roads or on the motorway. The trade-off will be worth it for some people and less so for others. As with the interior, this is a pronounced point of differentiation compared with the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which is much more comfortable and luxurious-feeling, but also more ponderous to drive.

Cabin noise is filtered out very well. The EV6 proved a few decibels quieter than the Skoda Enyaq at 30mph, 50mph and 70mph, so it’s an effortless long-distance car, with the exception of the seats, which may not suit everyone. Some testers found them perfectly comfortable but others thought the base was too soft and the adjustable lumbar support too harsh.

MPG & RUNNING COSTS

Kia EV6 review 2024 01 front tracking

The Kia EV6 ought to be one of the easiest EVs to live with because it has a big battery and is one of only a few EVs that can use the fastest rapid chargers. Its 800V architecture allows for charging speeds of up to 259kW, which in theory can top up the battery from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes. On a more common, 50kW public charger, that takes 73 minutes.

As for servicing, Kia prescribes a routine workshop visit every 20,000 miles or 48 months. If something were to go wrong, the EV6 has a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty - but the battery, whose capacity is also warranted up to 70% of its original factory state – is warrantied up to eight years. 

CAP expects extremely strong values for the EV6 in the first year. After that, it’s level with rivals, but still very good.

VERDICT

Kia EV6 review 2024 26 front static

And so to the clichéd conclusion: the EV6 wasn’t broke, so Kia hasn’t fixed it. This remains a highly recommendable and, crucially, desirable family car, just usefully improved to keep it on a level pegging with many of its innumerable rivals – and a good way ahead of many others.

It avoids one significant pitfall by having a substantially different character from the mechanically similar Hyundai Ioniq 5. It’s a much more dynamic car to drive than the Hyundai – and most other full-sized EVs, too, short of a Porsche Taycan. That’s also reflected in the car’s driving environment, which doesn’t go for the lounge-on-wheels style of some EVs but instead has a more traditional executive car feel, while still reaping the packaging benefits of the EV architecture.

Spec advice? A rear-driven GT-Line is brisk enough and provides a happy medium of kit and price. The only option is a heat pump, which is a good idea if you want to preserve range while keeping warm

The practical bases are likewise well covered. The Kia EV6 has a long range and is ready for the fastest public chargers. It could steer better and the various dashboard interfaces could be more easily navigable, but those don’t stop it from being one of the most impressive EVs on sale.

Felix Page

Felix Page
Title: Deputy editor

Felix is Autocar's deputy editor, responsible for leading the brand's agenda-shaping coverage across all facets of the global automotive industry - both in print and online.

He has interviewed the most powerful and widely respected people in motoring, covered the reveals and launches of today's most important cars, and broken some of the biggest automotive stories of the last few years. 

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce PhantomTesla RoadsterAriel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren SennaRenault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.

Matt Prior

Matt Prior
Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car. 

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes. 

Kia EV6 First drives