The EV6 GT remains to be a heavy automotive, and its 2,185-kilogram curb weight is felt via the corners when pushed rapidly. If really let free, we suspect physics would quickly overcome the efforts of Kia’s engineers. Plainly, and regardless of its big energy, this isn’t a automotive designed for monitor use. Kia says as a lot itself, conceding that, whereas the GT was examined on the Nürburbring Nordschleife, it “has been developed very specifically for road use.”
As such, you most likely don’t have to know {that a} “secret” drift mode switches off the entrance motor, tells the traction management to take a couple of minutes out, and allows you to slide the Kia with a prod of the accelerator. Fun for a few minutes on non-public land, however considerably pointless for the opposite 99.9 % of the time.
Photograph: Kia
Inside, the GT shares a really comparable cabin to an everyday EV6 geared up with the GT-Line choices pack. It is snug and pretty quiet at low velocity similar to some other EV. However, wind noise generated by the wing mirrors (a hangover concern from the usual EV6) is louder than we’d like from a automotive costing slightly over £60,000.
The cabin is engaging and the GT-exclusive semibucket seats present further assist, however aren’t as snug because the softer, squishier chairs fitted to the usual automotive.
The twin 12.2-inch curved dashboard shows are the identical as within the common EV6, and so too are the touch-sensitive controls under them, displaying icons for media and local weather however not on the similar time. Kia has tried to cut back muddle right here, however in doing so has a system that frustratingly doesn’t present any local weather controls in any respect except you prod at a touch-sensitive button to modify from Media and Navigation to Temperature. It then returns to the previous after a couple of seconds as a substitute of leaving the heating and cooling controls in place.
Kia’s wi-fi telephone charger is grippier and extra dependable than some others we’ve seen, however the lack of wi-fi Apple CarPlay, a obtrusive omission within the current vanilla EV6, stays unlucky. Practicality is on par with its siblings, with the identical cabin and space for storing because the common dual-motor variant, which means simply 20 liters of storage underneath the hood.
Kia says it got down to produce a grand tourer paying homage to snug, big-engined automobiles of the Seventies. The EV6 GT actually has loads of efficiency, and the suspension and differential adjustments present the corporate has put actual effort into driving dynamics in addition to straight-line tempo. But the 262-mile vary fails to dwell as much as the GT billing.
And whereas superfast charging by way of the automotive’s 800-volt tech will go some option to alleviate vary anxiousness, we want Kia had held again on outright efficiency and as a substitute opted for a extra long-legged mix of velocity and vary.
