Somehow, it's been more than two months since I've written an update on my 2024 Kia EV6. And part of the reason for that is until fairly recently, I hadn't actually been driving it all that much.
No, it's not because the car's been in the shop or anything like that. Nor is it because I don't like the EV6—very much the opposite. I've just been busy with other things. Over the past two months, I've been on the road for InsideEVs fairly nonstop, going to South Korea, Nashville and Texas for work. And when I've been home, I've been driving a bunch of other stuff for work, like the BMW i4 M50 and a set of vehicles you'll read about very soon for our big end-of-year awards package. (Yes, one of them is a Tesla Cybertruck, and yes, I have thoughts about it.)
Now I'm back for a while, thankfully, and I've had a lot more seat time in our 2024 EV6 Wind All-Wheel-Drive. My wife put a lot of miles on it in the interim and she'll tell you it's the best car she's ever owned. I concur; at 4,400 miles, I still really enjoy the EV6 and look forward to driving it every day. But even a truly great car has areas where it can improve, and after driving all those cars—some of which are direct competitors to mine—I have a better sense of its weaknesses as well.
The EV6 Continues To Impress
First, let's start with the good stuff after four months of ownership:
I'm very eager to see how the EV6 does in a real upstate New York winter, but when it's warmer out, the car is still a range and charging monster. On a full 100% charge on my home ChargePoint plug, I continued to see north of 300 miles of range on a moderate-weather day. That remains impressive to me on a dual-motor EV.
I've decided to start following my own advice (testing an EV from a press fleet is different from owning one long-term with your own money) and charging it in the garage to 80%. Lately, with temperatures cooling down, that gets me to about 230 miles of range—right in line with 80% of my EV6's EPA-estimated 282-mile maximum range. As most battery experts will tell you, keeping a car around 80% at most is good for long-term health, and while my car is a lease, I would be very open to buying it outright when I'm done. Even if I don't, if you care about sustainability it's good to leave the car in good condition for the next owner.
That lowered range may scare some people, but EVs are interesting because they teach you to think about your energy use and consumption. Nearly all of our daily driving is around the immediate area in our little town, and we still don't even have to fully charge the car every night. I almost never need more than 200 miles of range. (Hell, part of me now wishes I had waited a bit and just gotten a dirt-cheap used Chevrolet Bolt EV, but I don't have any regrets here.)
It's very easy in the car's main menu to adjust your maximum charging levels for home AC or DC fast-charging. I have always kept the latter's maximum at 80%, but I also don't fast-charge it all that much. If I know I need to drive a lot—or if I have a trip to New York City that I want to knock out in one go—I will simply set it back up to 100% the night before the drive. See what I mean about thinking about your energy use?
We wanted a decent amount of cargo space for Home Depot runs and such, but we didn't need some giant SUV; That the Kia is a kind of tall wagon works well for our needs. In Sport Mode, the car is at least on par with my old Subaru WRX in terms of speed, and this chassis makes it entertaining enough on a good back road. I do think it needs better summer tires, which I'll cover here soon and hopefully deal with next year.
Owning this EV has been remarkably drama-free. I recently dealt with what turned out to be a failing battery on my gas Mazda—colder weather, it probably hasn't been driven enough, the usual stuff. And I found myself deeply annoyed at the long mental checklist I ran through to figure out why it wouldn't start. This is what people mean when they say they won't go back to gas cars after driving electric. That experience, while not without its many charms, begins to feel archaic in quick order.
Finally, the EV6 has delivered on the main reasons I wanted to buy a Hyundai Motor Group E-GMP car: It's a superb combination of range, charging speed, performance, style and practicality.
But there's one area where Hyundai Motor Group needs to up its game, and that's software.
Let's Talk Tech
We'll start with table stakes here: software, just as much as battery costs, has been the bane of the auto industry's existence for years now.
Software problems are partially why General Motors had such a rough 2023 on the EV front. They're why Volkswagen's in-house tech arm seems to be perpetually on fire. They're why expensive new EVs ship with key features still missing. Even the Lucid Air, which I would argue is perhaps the best EV that Americans can buy right now, is not what I'd call a leader in software and user experience. And the whole car business is still pretty bad at over-the-air software updates.
But some brands are better than others. I borrowed a Rivian R1S recently that got some significant OTA updates while I was driving it. No such luck with the Kia EV6, I'm afraid; most "updates" are to the navigation system and entertainment setup only, a point of contention with many owners. No crazy new features added all of the time like on a Tesla or a Rivian. Several updates have to be done at a dealership using a physical upgrade. I don't foresee any plans to give the pre-facelift EV6 the newer software setup on the EV9 and the upcoming 2025 EV6, which is disappointing.
The Kia Connect smartphone app is... fine. It's the first car I've owned that has such a capability. It can do some neat things, like show my state of charge, control my charge limit settings, locate the car remotely, lock and unlock, heat or cool it remotely before I get in and track my maintenance schedule. But the novelty wears off quickly. For one, it'll reliably show how much of a charge I have, but almost always reads "0 miles" for the actual range. And while there's an option to schedule maintenance or repairs at my local Kia dealer, I've tried that feature twice now and have never heard back from the shop. Whether that's a software problem or an example of the infamously bad Kia dealer experience is unclear. But if you can't rely on your dealers to follow through, the feature is useless anyway. I'm glad the app exists but it all could be vastly better than it is.
Automated driving assistance is similarly whatever. My EV6 has the Highway Driving Assistance 1 setup, which is basically lane-holding radar cruise control where you have to keep your hands on the wheel when it's on. After experiencing General Motors' utterly superb Super Cruise in a recent test of the Chevy Equinox EV, and positive experiences with Ford's BlueCruise, I'm on team "hands off or go home" at this point. Kia is tepidly bringing the conditional Level 3 Highway Driving Pilot system to the EV9 at some point, but on the whole, the Koreans' autonomy game feels rather behind the curve—at least as far as consumer vehicles are concerned.
Similarly, the navigation just isn't all that great—certainly not anywhere near up to par with the class-leading Google Maps integration built into the Android-based systems used by GM, Volvo, Polestar and others. "Trust but verify" is my rule with the Kia's navigation; it's sent me to some weird places and in weird ways. Of course, I could get around this if I used Apple CarPlay, but that feels like cheating.
I will say that voice controls on this car are absolutely excellent, up there with the best. The navigation system, while flawed in terms of results, always gives me a good set of options based on what I ask it to do. It's a very natural and intuitive system that's better than many other aspects of the user interface here and a big point in the Kia's favor.
But ultimately, I'd say the EV6 (and its Hyundai and Genesis cousins) continue to offer some of the very best charging, range, battery and motor setups in the business. For range and fast charging, they're still my favorite options this side of a Porsche Taycan. It's also why route-planning and charger-finding are so good on these cars.
However, they have some work to do to catch up on software. Say what you want about Tesla these days, but it still probably does this the best with Rivian right behind it. And GM seems to really be getting things together on that front as well.
Would I Buy The Kia EV6 Again?
I'm happy to say the answer to that question is "yes." To me, things like software features, automated driving tech and smartphone apps are additive, not core reasons to buy a car. I'm sure a lot of buyers feel the same way. And for the price (and the deal I got) I haven't found anything that beats the combination of specs, style and everyday capability that the EV6 has.
After all that time on the road, I'm very happy to be back in my own car. And that feeling hasn't worn off yet. I need to get my high beams adjusted upward because they're clearly aimed too low and I'm convinced the Meridian sound system isn't working as it should, so I need to get a few things checked out. Maybe a Kia dealer will even deign to call me back someday. But overall, I haven't had to deal with anything serious.
In my next installment, I'll be bringing you the showdown we've all been waiting for: the EV6 vs. a true upstate New York winter.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
