The EV6 GT is a fast car pretty much whichever yardstick you use to measure it with. In terms of standing-start pace, it’s considerably quicker than any commensurately priced EV that we have yet tested (the Porsche Taycan RWD Performance Pack Plus and BMW i4 M50 included). Compared with combustion-engined cars of a similar price, the 3.6sec 0-60mph and 8.0sec 0-100mph benchmarks it set really are quite something (BMW M2 manual: 4.5sec, 9.7sec).
When you come to fully uncork it for the first time, though, the performance doesn’t actually startle you. While Kia’s GT driving mode does indeed sharpen the car’s throttle response, it doesn’t bring it to the point of hypersensitivity. And it doesn’t tee up the kind of launch control fireworks you can get from combustion cars, either: of revving motors, or of spinning driven wheels allowed to over-rotate just enough for the perfect getaway. Like other 4WD EVs, the EV6 GT just gets on with it – no doubt because, where torquey electric motors are concerned, rather than breaking traction only to then struggle to re-establish it, that’s simply the quickest thing to do.
The car does indeed feel supercar fast up until about 60mph, and then, while still very potent, a little more sports car fast to 100mph. But the 11.8sec standing quarter mile time it posted was still quick enough to beat the Mercedes SLS AMG we tested in 2012, and put it only a tenth behind the Nissan GT-R from 2017.
But what else is there about it that might excite you? Kia aimed for a more textured, involving performance character with the GT than with other EV6s, it says, but it doesn’t seem to have innovated that hard. Kia gets a certain amount of credit for giving the driver full, paddle-based regen control, as well as a fairly powerful set of brakes that marshal the car’s weight effectively and give you confidence to carry speed even when battery regen is dialled down.
But, aside from being fast, the EV6 GT can feel a little unintuitive if you don’t get it set up just so. Somehow, an EV this fast feels odd with no battery energy regeneration dialled in on a trailing throttle – a bit like a high-compression performance engine with no high-rpm engine braking might.
Suffice to say, you do have to experiment, through as many strange drive modes as well-judged ones, to find a running calibration that feels just right – and even then it may prove elusive to some.
Track Notes
The EV6 GT had plenty of apparent dynamic composure and handling precision when driven quickly around the Millbrook Alpine Hill Route but, like a great many EVs, it relies squarely on its electronic traction and stability aids to produce both.
You can clearly feel the systems neutering the motors, and then feeding authority back to the throttle as you straighten the steering wheel. Turn them off and, typically, it’s very easy to cue up quite brutal throttle-on understeer in tighter turns.
Unless, that is, you use the car’s drift mode, which seems to dial back its front motor almost entirely during cornering, and use the e-diff to shunt torque to the outside rear wheel with little or no apparent traction control.
The result feels like driving on ice. On dry Tarmac, the rear axle can be punted to big angles with surprisingly little power or speed, and no initial weight transfer to break it loose. It’s so easy it’s almost unsettling. Good for a laugh rather than truly rewarding.