Kia EV6 GT ‘like our Stinger EV’, the first of many fast EVs
High-performance GT models will play an integral role of future Kia electric vehicles – starting with the Kia EV6.
In announcing the EV6 crossover – the first ground-up electric car from Kia – Kia confirmed the pinnacle of the range would have a dual motor setup capable of blasting to 100km/h in 3.6 seconds.
It’s by far the quickest in the broad EV6 lineup and is a genuine performance model that helps differentiate it from the Ioniq 5 from sister brand Hyundai with which it shares so much.
The two share the same E-GMP architecture, very similar EV drivetrains and the same 800V electrical system – but for now only the Kia gets a very high performance version, part of a plan announced earlier this year to build a Kia family of fast EVs.
Driving all four wheels, the EV6 GT’s two motors produce a combined 430kW and 740Nm, which is more than some highly-fancied sports cars. The just-announced V8-powered Chevrolet Corvette, for example, makes about 369kW/637Nm while the most affordable of Porsche’s vast 911 lineup manages 283kW/450Nm (the most powerful Turbo S beats the EV6 with 478kW/800Nm).
Think of the EV6 GT as an evolution of the performance story kicked off with the Stinger, a V6 twin-turbocharged rear-wheel drive sports sedan that in some ways filled the void of V8-powered muscle cars in Australia.
“GT is an important element of our strategy moving forward,” says Kia head of global brand Artur Martins.
“We had it already in the internal combustion engines … in Stinger … and other models. It’s part of our strategy today and it will be an important part of our strategy moving forward.”
Martins described the EV6 GT – which is confirmed to come to Australia late in 2021, as with the rest of the EV6 lineup – as “like our Stinger EV”.
“If you look at the car and the proportions and the performance, definitely it will be like kind of the Stinger of the EV for us.
“We expect the EV6 to have this role of being the ambassador of the future brand and also the representative of how we want to position ourselves and how we want to move towards becoming an EV brand.”
Martins didn’t detail the sorts of GT models that will be available as it fleshes out its electric car portfolio, but the brand sees performance models as a differentiator from other brands, including Hyundai.
“EVs in the past were seen as boring cars and not very attractive from a design perspective and not very exciting to drive, we want the Kia brand to be perceived as a dynamic brand,” says Martins.
“Regardless, if you’re driving an EV or an internal combustion engine we want that DNA to be brought across all the products of the brand, or at least the ones that make sense, of course, and that will be a strategy for us moving forward.”
But Martins said those EV GT models were about performance road driving rather than attacking a race track, something Porsche has built into its Taycan.
“It’s no so much about high performance but really exciting driving experience. You can benefit a lot from the power of EV cars mainly with the torque …
“That experience and being able to overtake for example faster in terms of safety is also something that also consumers expect and this is part of our strategy also.”
