Kia’s new EV6, driven

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/12/an-electric-kia-thats-faster-than-a-lamborghini-the-2023-ev6-gt-driven/

by hasseo • 4 years ago

35 95 4 years ago

Kaibeezy7• 4 years ago

So the performance version is way faster but less fun. For even more fun, I’d drive almost any car with a manual transmission over one of these appliances.

rasz• 4 years ago

Transmission? whers the fun in that? Try riding a horse like real men.

fragmede6• 4 years ago

A horse? Where's the fun in that? Try long distance running, from before horses were domesticated

pjc50• 4 years ago

Fun analogy: horses have about four distinct "gears" (gaits), and there's a certain amount of skill in achieving smooth transitions between them.

lionkor2• 4 years ago

Absolutely agree - I still drive my old mini one because its just way more fun than any car ive touched since then, other than pre-1995 porsches, i enjoyed some of those.

I wouldnt give the direct feedback of those controlsy and the manual control, for anything.

rsj_hn2• 4 years ago

1970s BMWs - 2002 style -- are great fun as well. 1970s was the golden age of German Auto Engineering.

interstice• 4 years ago

I have an old mini, 135i manual and ride a motorbike, you could say I’m an enthusiast. but I’d take an EV today if it weighed less than 1.5 tonnes, affordable, had awd and wasn’t essentially an SUV with no clearance.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with electric to my mind, but attaching a heavy and huge battery pack is like building a car with a permanently attached boat trailer. Takes the fun out of things a bit. Touch screens can also go.

Hopefully this changes in the next generation or two, I really would like to get away from gas.

fragmede6• 4 years ago

Is it really fun to lose the race to someone driving an "appliance"?

Kaibeezy7• 4 years ago

Totally fine. I’m sure they enjoy pressing the ‘go’ button.

jgilias• 4 years ago

Have you actually driven an EV though? The first time I drove one I was pretty surprised how fun it is.

Anything that doesn’t have two exhaust pipes doesn’t even come close to your median EV appliance as far as pure driving fun is considered.

saturn_vk3• 4 years ago

There's nothing fun in needing to move some stick in a mechanical contraption, especially when driving through a city

Kaibeezy7• 4 years ago

Source?

535188B17C93743• 4 years ago

I will never understand who needs cars this quick. The marketing of EVs seems to be all around 0-60 speeds, but 90% of the people I know are infinitely more concerned with price, charging speed, and range.

Tempest1981• 4 years ago

The same reason all cars seem to have 160 mph speedometers.

rapsey• 4 years ago

Because EVs are expensive they must appeal to the market who is willing to spend more and that market needs cars to be fun.

saiya-jin• 4 years ago

Fun as acceleration is not really the interesting part of car fun. That's tight cornering, well-balanced front and back, feeling of total control and precision of big chunk of metal and similar. I do mean on regular roads and not just tracks, there its even more crucial.

But this requires from manufacturer much more than just slapping a heavy battery and putting the power of it straight to the wheels... whole platform needs to be fine-tuned in many aspects to achieve this. In normal price category BMW delivers this better than most peers in their classical models like 3 series. I had one for 10 years, only 200 HP V6 diesel but it was an excellent car for the driver, I properly enjoyed every drive that wasn't about cities and traffic jams. I certainly never felt I needed more power. Also very well balanced mechanical connection of steering wheel to straight to front wheels gave the connection to the car that no modern electronic cars including Porsche can deliver (and EVs are not even trying in any of this regard).

There are problems with this though, most buyers willing to pay premium are in traffic jams and cities, so you are not getting most of the value brands like BMW deliver. Then you are only left with acceleration part (well not that much in those traffic jams). Also it requires driving skills that take years to build with just driving the car (certainly for me, I wasn't using full potential of the car for maybe first 5 years of ownership), unlike just slamming gas pedal and holding steering wheel for your life.

michaelt• 4 years ago

In that case, I can't understand why so many EVs are ugly-ass crossovers.

Who the hell has said to themselves well, the Ford Mustang is great, but it would be much more fun if instead of being a 2-door convertible, it was a practical family car and had 4 doors so you can help little Khaleesi into her car seat?

Who are these car designers saying the Lotus Elise is an iconic 2-seater roadster with a very low driving position, but you know what would be even more fun? A 4-door crossover with a much higher driving position, so our elderly and overweight customers can get in and out without straining their knees?

clouddrover4• 4 years ago

Then 90% of the people you know want a non-GT Kia EV6. There are different trim levels for the EV6 and you can pick the one you like the best:

https://www.caranddriver.com/kia/ev6

Complaining that you don't like the performance version is a bit odd. You don't have to buy it.

SilverBirch• 4 years ago

It’s their one trick, the operation of electric motors mean that you get Max torque immediately so they can put power down at the low end very effectively. So yes, we all know we want price, charge speed and range, but marketing is about selling what you have, not redesigning the product. It’s like the clip from mad men when they decide to advertise cigarettes as “Toasted”. You’d like to say they don’t cause cancer… but you can’t, so you say something else instead.

clouddrover4• 4 years ago

It’s their one trick

Two other tricks of the EV6 are:

- 18 minute 10-80% charge time in ideal conditions (which is very good)

- Vehicle to load capability. You can run appliances off the battery. If you're desperate you can charge another EV (but it will be slow).

fragmede6• 4 years ago

A car's 0-60mph time has been used to advertise how quickly a car accelerates long before Tesla was even founded.

xaerise• 4 years ago

With that much torque things will break faster...

Think like: It is not the speed that kills, it is the sudden stop.

Like the VW automatic transmissions. Here in Europe, no one will trim VW with diesel and automatic transmission because the torque will kill the transmission.

neallindsay3• 4 years ago

Nobody needs that much acceleration, but it helps drive home the fact that EVs have real advantages over combustion cars beyond not destroying the environment. And while you’re not going to stomp the pedal to the floor at every green light, instant torque is very nice.

bamboozled2• 4 years ago

I like EVs but isn't mining for Lithium still destroying the environment ?

trabant00• 4 years ago

You can't really successfully market based on your weaknesses, now can you? Price, charging speed and range are all inferior to ICE vehicles and will be for some years still. And you also can't ignore the democratization of supercar acceleration that electric brings. It's the strong point of electric, why would they not show case it?

kleiba• 4 years ago

Germans.

Swizec• 4 years ago

Since you are limited by top speed on public roads, the important variable becomes average speed. You improve that with good acceleration and fantastic brakes.

See also: People buy power but use torque (acceleration).

bydlocoder• 4 years ago

I don't really know but guess more powerful electric motors don't cost that much more than less powerful. With ICE cars going from reasonable 200hp to say 600hp requires lots of stuff - large displacement at high RPM or turbos, better cooling and gearbox. It seems that with electric cars this kind of power is essentially free.

UkiahSmith• 4 years ago

Have you ever merged onto an expressway behind someone doing 20mpg? It's terrifying.

Acceleration makes merging onto expressways safer.

pulse7• 4 years ago

In the current situation where EV prices are at least 10K USD higher than non-EV equivalents you pay up-front more than you save (gas vs. electricity) in the next 5 years... It is currently economically better to buy non-EVs...

bryanlarsen3• 4 years ago

But cars last a lot longer than 5 years. And most people buying a used car are going to care about running costs a lot more than people buying new cars, so I expect the used EV premium to be substantial.

Any TCO analysis for keeping a new car for 5 years is going to be dominated by the trade in value. That's going to be a lot higher for EV's than gasoline cars, so I assert that you're better off financially buying an EV even at a $10k premium.

bryanlarsen3• 4 years ago

The primary reason that EV's have a fast 0-60 is that it's related to a spec that you and most people care about: charging speed. Supporting a high charging speed is expensive. But once you've got a high charging speed you've got most of what you need for a high discharging speed. And then you have most of what you need for a fast 0-60.

If it costs a few hundred extra to support a fast 0-60 and you can charge $10k-$20k extra for the feature....

stefan_• 4 years ago

I think the root cause is just the market asking for oversized battery packs. That enables both the large instant current capability and high charging speed, without requiring too much additional cooling (it's all spread out). You still need to add the oversized current driving capabilities in the electronics that you wouldn't strictly need for fast charging, which is DC and bypasses most internal electronics anyway.

e12e• 4 years ago

Few probably need this - but it could be at home on the autobahn - were you'd want to be able both drive at high speed, and change lanes/overtake other cars at high speed.

WirelessGigabit2• 4 years ago

I read this a lot. Until you're in the USA and you're on an on-ramp that immediately merges. Then having < 5 seconds to 60 is nice for everybody's safety and comfort.

Grazester2• 4 years ago

...just don't merge? Something tells me with such a window to merge in you are probably looking into to mirrors and not accurately estimating the distance of the car from you either. Also don't rely on this because the road condition is not going to guarantee you get up to the needed speed in time(cold tires or undesirable road surface conditions). You don't need a sub 5 second car to safely merge.

forgotpwd163• 4 years ago

This model seems more sport oriented so the people targeted at are probably more concerned with speed, handling, etc than charging, range, etc. Price is universal concern though.

TheHappyOddish• 4 years ago

Same price as a model Y performance, 60% of the range, and they don't mention the full charging speed (although it appears to be similar, the model Y with the new batteries appears to be 15m 10-80%).

Also, same 0-100 speed.

The years tick on, people keep arguing that the traditional manufacturers are launching the Tesla killer "any day now", and they still can't beat the golden triange.

Gys• 4 years ago

A day's driving the EV6 GT left me more convinced than ever that the most expensive, most powerful version of an EV is often not really any better than the cheaper version.
Partly that's down to cars having too much performance for the public road, and it's always more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slowly. And more powerful versions of EVs always suffer in terms of range efficiency.

rgrieselhuber• 4 years ago

Faster to steal too?

uxp100• 4 years ago

Nah, EV (and new ICE) kias and Hyundais can’t be stolen as easily as the 2014(?) to 2021 models (where the non keyless entry models lack immobilizers and alarms on that little window) Better have a garage though, since if it has a Kia badge, it will have its windows smashed anyway.

Kia’s new EV6, driven

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