Kia's first-ever dedicated electric vehicle is already proving to be a smashing sales success. In Europe, that is. The South Korean automaker has announced it's opened factory orders for the Kia EV6 at dealers across the continent. The response so far speaks for itself. There are 33,000 prospective customers and that includes 7,300 reservations. Over 26,000 customers have already indicated a strong level of interest in making a purchase.

This is extremely impressive considering that production has to officially begin and these consumers haven't even seen a pre-production model in the flesh. Kia says it's already secured 300 percent of the expected EV6 sales volume for this year alone.

"It's extremely encouraging as Kia looks ahead to the future of electric mobility with the new EV6, based on our new dedicated EV platform.", said Jason Jeong, President of Kia Europe. "The high number of customers who have already put their name down for the EV6 highlights the strong demand and we are confident that the launch of the EV6 will be also very successful."

The EV6 is a global model that rides on the carmaker's new E-GMP EV-only architecture. Two configurations are currently on offer: the standard range with a 58.0-kWh battery and the 77.4-kWh long-range model. Both can be had with either rear-wheel or all-wheel drive. A fairly high level of feature customization is possible with numerous tech and design options. Kia Europe hasn't provided a breakdown of the most popular features and configurations, but our pick would be the supercar-smashing GT trim.

Available only in AWD, it packs 576 horsepower and 538 lb-ft of torque, good enough to for a 0-60 mph acceleration time of 3.5 seconds and a top speed of 161 mph. The lower two trims are the Base and GT-Line, both with 225 hp standard in RWD. AWD versions see an increase to 320 hp thanks to a motor at each axle.

So, when will Kia open EV6 orders for America? Likely very soon because later this month Kia is hosting a virtual media event in New York City's Time Square. Aside from the EV6, topics will include Kia's new logo and other future electrification themes.