Kia EV6 buyers can now register to order their new electric car ahead of its arrival in the UK this autumn, with prices starting at just under £41,000. Prospective customers can secure themselves an early ordering slot with a fully refundable £100 charge, before the order books open in May.
Kia will not reveal the full specification of the car until then, but the South Korean company has announced prices for the new model – a sort of SUV/hatchback crossover that rivals the Polestar 2 and Tesla Model 3. And with prices starting at £40,895, it will undercut those more premium rivals.
The EV6 comes with a choice of two battery packs, with the entry-level 58 kWh pack joined by a 77.4 kWh ‘long-range’ pack. Kia hasn’t said how far the lowlier of the two will take you, but the company claims the long-range version will manage around 316 miles from a full charge.
EV6 customers will also have the choice of two- or four-wheel drive, and the drivetrain they choose will affect performance. The basic two-wheel-drive 58 kWh model will have 168 bhp, but the four-wheel-drive version gets two electric motors, which ups that to 232 bhp and allows a 0-62 mph time of 6.2 seconds. If you choose the long-range battery, you get 225 bhp in rear-drive guise and 321 bhp in all-wheel-drive format. That version will manage 0-62 mph in just over five seconds.
But if you want performance, the range-topping EV6 GT will be the one to go for. With prices starting at £58,295, the high-performance variant comes with the 77.4 kWh battery pack and two electric motors, giving it 577 bhp. That’s enough to get from 0-62 mph in 3.5 seconds before hitting a top speed of more than 160 mph.
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However, the GT model will not arrive in the UK until 2022, whereas the less powerful versions will turn up in October 2021. In essence, those cars will come with a choice of two trim levels – the standard EV6 and the mid-range GT-Line model (which starts at £43,895) – but Kia won’t be drawn on what those cars might feature.
That said, the company has announced a clever 800-volt charging system for the EV6, which allows the battery to be charged from 10 percent to 80 percent in just 18 minutes – as long as you can find a charger that’s up to the job. If you’ve got the rear-wheel-drive, 77.4 kWh model, such a charger will also add 62 miles of range to the battery in just four-and-a-half minutes.
Gallery: Kia EV6