Kia Says The EV6 Is Better Than Its Hyundai Ioniq 5 Sibling

Jan. 29, 2022 10:20 AM ET by Nikesh Kooverjee Electric Vehicles / 8 Comments

This is civil war!

The Kia EV6 will be entering the budding market of dynamic but practical electric family cars in earnest this year. Joining it will be its close relative, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 which shares the same platform but with some distinctive differences. In the USA, Hyundai's electric hatch enters the market at an impressive $32,200 while the EV6 starts at $34,400.

According to Kia Australia's head of product planning, Roland Rivero, the brand isn't all too worried about the Ioniq 5's competition. Down Under, the variation between the two products and the standard specification is similar to that of the USA models, yet Rivero argues that Kia's EV proposition is a much more preferable one.

"Subjectively speaking, it looks better inside and out, we do have a bigger battery, which means a bigger range, and we have a vehicle-to-load capability in the cabin, which is convenient for charging laptops and devices on the go," he said. The all-wheel-drive EV6 comes fitted with a 77.4-kWh battery pack versus the Ioniq 5's 72.6 kWh. This affords the former a range of 310 miles while the latter will only be able to cover 256 miles.

Rivero adds that the EV6 being sold in Australia has had a set of unique handling characteristics tuned into it that you wouldn't find in any other region. This is thanks to the division's local ride-and-handling program. Through this, it was able to transform the EV's driving characteristics to favor the Australian market.

Using the Hyundai E-GMP architecture, both the Kia EV6 and Hyundai Ioniq 5 employ a front MacPherson strut and rear multi-link suspension. Rivero explains, "Just judging by driving European and domestic [Korean] spec, if you're forced to take another region's [tune], I feel like that's also a compromise. That's something we didn't do, we didn't compromise. We formulated Australian spec and I hope you'll appreciate that initial step we took."

Graeme Gambold, head of the aforementioned handling program adds, "The difference's quite significant. The driving dynamics are quite a long way from both the domestic and European tunes, which are extremes, and we're somewhere in the middle. So the ride is quite suited to our conditions, while the domestic and European tunes weren't." Okay, but has the EV6 been in a Spidey film? Checkmate.