Kia EV6 GT: Almost Perfect!

, Its so good.. I love it. Ive enjoyed it. The time Ive driven in it has been awesome, but I could not recommend it because there is one thing that is a deal breaker. Its a pretty classic deal breaker.. So lets talk about the Kia EV6 GT., So Ive started seeing a lot of EV6s around on the road.. I got really curious about it.. This is the GT version, so its the slightly fast well a lot faster, sportier, more fun to drive version of the EV6., But Id seen these around and I got curious about it so getting to actually drive. It was gon na be really eye opening and Id. Never thought I would like a Kia this much., I think, thats, what it comes down to that this is a really really solid and unbelievably fun vehicle to drive., So lets get into the good things and youll see what I mean by the deal breaker in a Second., So you can see by the shape what the EV6 is. Its a hatchback, its four doors, its got a decent amount of space and its fully electric. And then, like I said there is a regular EV6 thats, not the GT. So a couple ways to be able to tell that youre looking at a GT version is these vertical slats and these design details up here in the grill.. These are also vertical design. Details. Theres a little bit more aggressive angles. The rear diffuser looks a little better, but the easiest way is the neon green.

. So these brake calipers 21 inch wheels its on winter tires right now, but the neon green definitely GT., And then it has the same shape as the regular EV6, which I really like.. Its kind of a teardrop shape and, in general looks quite nice.. Its kind of a Model Y height. That might be its most direct competitor a little bit lower than Mustang Mach E GT., But then also back here, youve got the sporty spoiler so thats. Another way of seeing youve got the GT.. This part here sort of tilts up and acts a little bit like a spoiler and then youve got EV6 over here and GT down. There. Honestly, I think its a great looking car. Ive seen a lot of actually a lot of satin ones on the road. Theres. This satin gray color. This red one here is called: can you read that Runway Red, pretty classic cherry red but lets get more into the details., So, first of all its a hatchback.? This is the key for it. Ive. Seen some of these keys that have this forward and backward out of parking spaces. Ive not been able to get them to work? Unfortunately, but the rest of the key is pretty solid. Hold here to open the hatch back and well get a look at those lights and getting into the back of the EV6. Theres a good amount of space.. So a pretty classic telltale sign a way of knowing that the car thats electric that youre looking at wasnt built from the ground up to be electric, is if it doesnt have extra features over the gas powered version.

Like this one. It has a tiny front trunk. A little 20 liter front trunk, but honestly, I think the space in the back here of the EV6, its a little less than the GT, because its got a bigger rear motor. But I would say that this is pretty good. Still. Too. Move the tire mobility kit and show you tiny slot down here for charging cables and a good normal amount of room for groceries. These all fold flat. For a 65000 car. It would be cool if these would …. Oh lets see if I can … Okay, they wont come back up automatically, but thats a good amount of space. Thats, a good amount of space.. There are no lights in the trunk, but you do get that button to close it. And heres a better look at the rear at the lights, which I also really like., Nice taillight bar all the way across here.. This is the blinker, and this is the electric charge port, which I do have to go into the car to open, which I wish there was a button on the key for it. But right here anyway, push that. And its a normal CCS port, which is probably a good time to address the elephant in the room, which is this cars biggest downfall, which is its range. Phone AI Im. Sorry, I didnt quite catch that.. Could you please say that again, I said its probably a good time to address this cars biggest downfall, its range.

sighs, So the EV6 GT has more powerful motors and is faster and sportier than the regular EV6, but it didnt get a bigger battery pack. And so With its 77 kilowatt hour battery, it has a max range of 200 miles: 200 miles.. It does have 350 kilowatt charging.. It is a pretty accurate, 170 to 200 miles on a full battery. If you charge to 100 every time but thats about half of what I would hope to get for 65000 200 miles so thats the challenge here.. This is the shape of a really practical, everyday type of car, which the EV6 is. Its got. The backseats and well go inside in a second, but its got the performance and the fun and the sportiness combined with practical, just minus the practical range to do any sort of road tripping.. Maybe you can do commuting every day. Ive done commuting and I have a 30 mile commute and its gone well before the end of the week.. I have to recharge so thats, something to think about. Its a deal breaker for me.. I couldnt recommend or buy this, but now knowing that lets get into some of the more interesting details. Here.. So its got these door handles that pop out, like that., We can get in nice little entrance, and here we are in the cockpit of the EV6 GT. Theres, a power button, here. car beeping, It does say EV and thats your power. And then this is your Drive shifter to shift to drive or to park, break hold parking cameras and music.

music playing, No, no no.. So, okay, some things that I love here and some things that I dont.. First of all, theres a little bit more GT happening.. There is a GT button on the steering wheel, which will change, drive modes and Ill talk about the driving in a second., But theres also youll notice. These really sporty GT bucket seats, which are very comfortable theyre, really nice., Theyre also heated, along with the steering wheel with three different levels and thats, also great., But generally this neon green thing is how you know youre looking at a GT – and I do really like These seats. Shout out to the back seats, which are also heated not ventilated, but theres. Also a full size power outlet back there and good enough leg, room good, materials., Its a Kia. I mean youre gon na be pretty used to the classic glossy plastic, brushed metal but fake plastic, again plastic here, a lot of plastic up here and some rubberized materials.. This is probably where youd say you dont wan na spend 65 grand on a car like this, but I do think its well put together its just, not expensive. Materials.. Now we got ta get to this part.. This is the auto focus part. The technology in the car and how you interact with it., I could give this whole system like a B or a C Up here. Its gon na remind me a lot of the IONIQ 5.

So this is a relatively responsive piece of software, its your computer.! You do have this screen behind the steering wheel, which is great too 84. 176 miles. sighs. This is the Achilles heel.. I mean Ive seen as high as like 213 miles, I think with 100 battery., But you can dig in the settings here.. The navigation is decent and it will navigate you to chargers and you can do a whole bunch more.. I say this because, yes, this car has Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, but its not wireless. Okay, So theres a nice little spot for the wireless charger here.. You can pop your phone in there.. It fits a huge phone.. This is an S23 Ultra.. This turns orange when youre charging.. It turns green when its done charging.. But then this is my navigation and it doesnt beam it up here wirelessly.. Instead, you would have to use one of these two cables down here, which means your phone is gon na end up down in this tray and, as you drive around it kind of slams around in there, which is not ideal.. So you could do that and itll charge your phone wired and youll get it up here, but this is like the natural place to pop your phone when you get in the car, so its kind of unfortunate that it doesnt have wireless CarPlay, Android auto.. Nevertheless, the software is capable. Its got even these crazy settings that will do the sound that the car makes as youre driving so how it responds to the accelerator pedal.

The exact sounds that it makes. It can do this rumbling sound if youre into that.. The bottom line is theres a lot here and its fine, its fine in the layout.. I wish there was the wireless CarPlay element, but that works for me.. You also get your parking cameras here and you do have a little walk around camera., So you do get a white one, no matter what color your spec is: fine, whatever its functional it works.. This is a very wide angle: camera, but its also functional you get used to it., So yeah generally pretty good software.. This part, though, a little annoying I will say, because by default you can see that says, volume power and when I change this, its a volume knob for your audio., My phones connected thats gon na be volume. HVAC controls. I must go in and hit this little notch here to switch it to HVAC controls.. Now this is a temperature selector. So this little knob has two different functions depending on. If you hit this touch target or not., It makes sense and you can get used to it. Its just this little touch target is kind of small, so sometimes Ill jump in the car and think Im doing one thing, but if I miss then Im doing the Other thing and suddenly the volumes way up when I want to turn it up with the heat.. You know a little bit of nitpicky, but this is the type of stuff that I think you could probably improve with a few more real switches or real buttons.

. I think IONIQ 5 learned the same lesson.. It is what it is., But lets talk about driving.. So this has turned out to be probably the most fun EV you can drive under 70 grand.. I say that because the only other option there would be like Mach E GT Tesla Model Y. The TITAN is – is every bit as fun, but its very expensive.. So thats gon na come down to your performance figures and how capable this Kia is. Ive been very impressed.. This is, first of all, dual motors all wheel, drive 580 ish horsepower Im talking about zero to 60 in low to mid threes and it pulls.. It really keeps pulling just a blast to drive. And then, on top of the straight line, performance, very balanced and very fun, and engaging to actually move around.. So youve got this drive mode button here on the steering wheel.. You can hit that and see that it switches between these three drive modes – sport, eco and normal. – But if you wan na have a little bit more fun, I mean this changes, a bunch of settings all types of things like the suspension dampening softening accelerator pedal responsiveness.. But as soon as you, wan na have a little more fun theres, this GT button over here. Press that GT button. Everything turns the neon green.. So you might not have noticed this, but you can see these little things. Lighting up here. Theres a lot of ambient lighting all around the car.

For these three modes, its eco, normal. Those are blue. Sport turns everything red, but then neon green GT is gon na, be your full power. Traction control turns off by default and it lets you have a little bit more fun with the way this car can approach its own limits and its sick.. Now the one other thing you can get outta this GT button is a personalized MyDrive mode. And the cool thing about that is you get to choose every single little thing so steering response acceleration response suspension.. So I have everything in SPORT, but you might want to do SPORT, but with a softer suspension or with a little bit more traction control. All these types of things can be adjusted in your own driving mode and thats. The one that I drove in the most often. Thats, also the one thats gon na, get you roughly 200 miles of range. Eco can get you a bit more and it does appear to turn off the front motors in eco, but it doesnt do a ton as Far as total range you can get. So its a car. You have fun in and then have to charge very quickly. In its sportiest setting in the GT mode, the car, it seems to shrink around you.. It feels smaller than it really is. Even though visibility is great and theres a glass sunroof and everything., I just mean it feels very nimble and tight and quick.

, And then you saw GT mode, has traction control off or at least reduced, so it allows for some slip. Some under steer some playfulness.. I love it for back roads cause it really lets. You stay on the power more through curves and play with a little bit. But thats, unlike the sport mode, which is closer to a lot of other cars which cuts power limits any slip, and most of the time keeps you planted when the wheel is turned.. Either way its great to have both and the bigger brakes on the GT are also great.. Maybe my only nitpicky driving complaint is that steering is kind of video gamey cause theres, not a ton of actual feel, but also the firmest suspension. Setting is just a little bit bouncy, sometimes just a little bit.. There is also a drift mode.. I didnt try it. Its in New Jersey on winter, tires Im not trying to do that on a public road, but its there.. Oh also such a minor detail, but on the steering wheel this is volume up. This is volume down, makes perfect sense.. This is previous track, and this is next track.. I think thats backwards., But you know what thats the idea. Thats, what a lot of people are. Looking for in a car right, Let me just open the front trunk real quick, so I can at least show you it. The combination of practical and fun, practical and fun.. I think, with this Kia, you get 75 of the practical and a 90 of the fun, and I think they maybe could have gone to the actual maximum of practical if they had designed this around having maybe a little bit more storage space up at the front.

. I mean thats literally almost nothing., You could fit a bagel in there, maybe, but the fun part is pushed about as far as I think you could have at this price, its awesome.. So if Im thinking about who should buy this car, who would I actually recommend this car to not a lot of people would want to drop 65 grand on a Kia lets be real., But the people who would spend 65 grand on this are also going to Be considering things like the Mach E GT, the Tesla Model, 3 Performance or Model Y Performance things in this price range that are high fun and high practical.. All of those will have more range than this dramatically. Every single one by at least 100 miles. And so thats gon na be the achilles heel of this GT, is its so much fun and its just such a pain to charge two thirds or 60 more often than the others.. I really wish. I could love it more, but thats the thing thats holding it back. Thats the thing Kia, its the thing, its so close. Please make a version with 110 kilowatt hour, battery or something.. This is 77 and you charge it up to 100 every day and it does its thing, but please make a high battery pack version please., Okay, its my only request. Thats it thanks for watching.