Love em or hate em, electric vehicles (EVs) are changing the way the world gets around. Horse-drawn cart gave way to the internal combustion engine we know and love. EVs are now set to gradually phase out cars powered by the internal combustion engine. Don’t believe us? Just take one look at the Hyundai Motor Group (the parent company behind Kia and Hyundai), which just last year announced it will not spend be spending a single cent on internal combustion engine development, focusing on cars such as the Kia EV6 instead. This is echoed by other car giants, such as the VW Group. As sad as it is, the internal combustion engine is on its way out.
So what’s going to replace our beloved cars (and ruin our weekends as our ex-PM would have you believe)? Well, most majour car manufacturers have made it clear that EVs are the future by setting lofty sales targets and promising discontinue existing petrol or diesel powered models. This isn’t a political debate, rather it’s the reality of technical innovation and progress, akin to how the internet changed how we communicate with one another and get things done.
Australia is a vast country, and if EVs want to be successful locally, buyers will need to be convinced that they can be used on longer trips between our major capital cities at the very least. Enter purposely built EVs, such as the Kia EV6, which promise fast charging speeds and solid range.
To many, the Kia EV6 might look as about as comfortable out of town as an electric Golf cart. We set off on a journey into the future. an a real-world long range road trip from Melbourne to our closest capital city, Adelaide. So how did the 2022 Kia EV6 Air manage with something all Australians love: a big Aussie road trip across this great land of ours? Let’s find out.
The Car: 2022 Kia EV6 Air
The Kia EV6 is a dedicated EV, meaning it hasn’t been converted from a car ordinarily powered by an internal combustion engine, such as the Kia Niro or Hyundai Kona EV. Instead, it rides on Hyundai’s e-GMP platform. This platform is set to be used in other new Hyundai Group products, and also underpins the Ioniq 5.
The 2022 Kia EV6 Air is fitted with a rather large 77.4kWh battery and thanks to skinnier tyres and less weight, as well as the lack of the second motor found at the front in the EV6 GT-Line AWD, it has the longest range of any EV6. What’s the range you ask? Kia will say its 528km using the WLTP standard, quite a bit less than the distance we need to cover to Adelaide.
The EV6 Air is equipped with a single electric motor at its rear axle, which produces 168kW of power and 350Nm of torque, which is enough for a 7.3-second 0-100km/h sprint time. That’s more than quick enough for most buyers and its energy consumption is listed at 16.5kWh/100km.
What’s charging the EV6 like? Plugging in the EV6 to charge into a household powerpoint will take you around 36 hours to charge at a charge speed of around 2kW. Not a good idea and not exactly practical. A typical purpose-installed EV charger at home will take some 11 hours to charge the EV6 from 10% to full with a circa 7kW charge speed. We expect most EV owners to have one of these installed at home if, they live in a single dwelling.
The Kia EV6 can also use a 350kW fast-charger, which drops the 10% to 80% charge time to just 18 minutes, with the EV6 capable of drawing a maximum of 240kW from the charger. Think of them as fuel bowsers for EVs. These are the chargers we would have to use if we have any chance of reaching Adelaide in a day.
So, how much does the 2022 Kia EV6 Air cost?
Kia increased the pricing of the EV6 a few months ago sadly, meaning that all EV6 models became a little bit expensive. The price rise, pushed the base EV6 Air above $70,000 – with prices starting from $72,590 plus on-road costs, or around $79,000 drive away (depending on location).
Stepping up to the mid-spec GT-Line RWD costs $79,490, while the top-spec (for now) GT-Line AWD will set you back $87,590 – all before on-road costs.
Kia has struggled with the supply of variants locally, managing to source just 500 units during the initial batch of EV6s to come to Australia. Luckily, the EV6 can be bought through actual bricks and mortar dealerships, unlike its Hyundai Ioniq 5 cousin, which is only available online and often sells out within minutes. If you do order one through your dealership, expect to wait over a year for it, unless supply gets better.
The Kia is available in six colours: ‘Yacht Blue’, our test car’s ‘Snow White Pearl’, ‘Glacier White’, ‘Steel Grey’ and ‘Aurora Black’ are $520 extra, while ‘Runway Red’ is the only no-cost extra.
Kia has loaded the EV6 with a reasonable amount of standard equipment. The EV6 Air gets comes with LED headlights and tail-lights, 19-inch machined alloy wheels and Nexen 235/55 R19 tyres
Inside, there are two 12.3-inch digital screens – one is for the infotainment system which includes sat-nav, along with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and the other is for the driver’s instrument cluster. Up front, you’ll find three USB ports (one type A and two type C), plus two USB-C ports for rear occupants in the front seatbacks, two 12V power outlets (in the front and boot), wireless phone charging, and a relatively basic six-speaker sound system, dual-zone climate control and even a powerpoint under the back seats which can be used to power pretty much any consumer appliance you wish. It also has 19-inch alloy wheels and Kumho/Nexen 235/55 R19 tyres compared with the GT-Line’s 20-inch alloys and 255/45 R20 Continentals. The Air misses out on features including vehicle-to-load exterior adaptor, head-up display, eight-way electrically adjustable seats, powered tailgate, heated and ventilated seats, privacy glass, sunroof, heated steering wheel, metal scuff plates, alloy sports pedals, ambient lighting and remote smart park assist.
The EV6 Air is also packed full of safety features such as autonomous emergency braking (car, pedestrian, cyclist and junction turning), lane-keep assist, blind-spot collision warning and avoidance assist, including rear cross-traffic alert too, driver attention monitoring. Parking sensors front and rear and a rear-view camera with dynamic parking guidelines round off the safety package.
Planning, and more planning
A few months ago we decided to bite the bullet and take an EV well out of its comfort zone on a long distance road trip. We settled on Adelaide as the destination, a total of 754km away from Melbourne, which according to Google Maps would take around 8 and a half hours. Right off the bat, we chose the cheapest model of the Kia EV6 lineup – the base EV6 Air, as its the EV6 model with the longest range. We didn’t want to take any chances.
We carefully planned our itinerary, aiming to set off from Melbourne with a full charge and to use Chargefox’s ultra-fast charging network along the way. With the EV6’s range of over 500km, this should be easy right? With just one stop along the way? Wrong.
EVs are rather efficient around town, where they usually don’t go over 100km/h, and manage to capture lost kinetic energy during braking back into the battery. On the open road and at higher speeds, EVs use more energy than around town, unlike petrol or diesel cars, which usually achieve their best economy out of town.
We decided to test the EV6’s economy at freeway speeds by taking the EV6 onto a local freeway and setting the cruise to 100km/h. During the cruise, the EV6 used around 19kWh per 100km. Looks like the range would be closer to 400km than 500km at freeway speeds. Buyers beware!
We decided to play it safe, assuming that the EV6 would use around 20kWh/100km at 110km/h, giving it a range of only around 380km on the open road.
We settled on two charging stops, with three legs to our trip.
- Melbourne to Horsham: 300km
- Horsham to Keith: 200km
- Keith to Adelaide: 230km
I found myself constantly second guessing myself, running numbers again in my head – but I was resolute we could make Adelaide with two short charging stops using ultra-fast DC chargers. Still, it wouldn’t take much to throw a spanner in the works and make our trip a misery. One faulty charger, one broken connector and we would be forced to spend over a day charging off a household socket to get us to the next charger…
That would be rather frustrating in itself and would cause a domino effect of flow-on issues, too. We would have missed our accomodation, making a short weekend hop impossible. As Friday midday approached, we hoped for the best, expecting the worst.
Melbourne to Horsham
We left Melbourne with a full charge, four occupants and boot full of stuff, with the EV6 showing an impressive 530km range till empty. Navigating the streets of Melbourne to join the freeways heading west showed just how successful the EV6’s localised ride and handling program has been. Around town the EV6 rides beautifully, isolating occupants from imperfections in the road very nicely. Getting onto the freeway towards Adelaide showed how even with the single electric motor at its rear axle, the EV6 Air has more than enough power to get up to speed swiftly.
The motor delivers its power smoothly, slowly at first then giving its all after a few seconds so as not to overwhelm the rear tyres with all its torque. Around town, you’ll still win a lot of traffic light races, as the EV6 surges forward with an unbroken flow of power.
On the freeway heading west, the EV6 settled into a cruise, using the expected 20kWh/100km we expected it to. At higher speeds the EV6 had a beautifully planted feel, with wind and road noise well hushed. The composed suspension meant that even larger bumps were barely felt and the EV6 left uneven road surfaces in its wake. Overtaking was a doddle too, with the EV6’s solid thrust of power more than enough to get around slower drivers.
Watching the range drop more quickly than expected could be unnerving for many, but again, thanks to our planning we expected this. After a solid few hours of driving, we managed to roll into Horsham with around 20% of the charge left, around what we were expecting. Finding the Chargefox charger was relatively easy, even if the location was a little unorthodox. It was in a quiet part of town, in a childcare centre carpark.
Excitedly, I plugged in the big and heavy DC ultra-fast charger connector and hit charge on the Chargefox app only to be left with… A charging error. It seemed the charger wasn’t working. Panic set in – we would be begging a local motel to run an extension cord to our car so that we could charge for 24 hours…
Luckily, after three attempts, the EV6 finally started charging. We witnessed a peak charge speed of only 150kW, much less than the charger’s full capacity. Still, our battery managed to hit 85% in around 18 minutes. After grabbing a bite to eat after charging (sadly there was no Maccas near the charger), we hit the road to our next waypoint Keith, across the South Australian border.
Horsham to Keith
The EV6 is powered on into the night with its strong LED, auto high beam headlights making easy work of country roads. Words cannot express how planted the EV6 feels at speed – it feels vault-like in its solidity. We hit some rubbish rural roads, and the EV6’s body control was exemplary for a vehicle weighing around 2,000kg, unladen. The bump hits, the EV6 goes up, and then settles immediately.
The driver assistance systems worked brilliantly, too. The lane assist worked a treat, holding the EV6 in its lane beautifully most of the time and the radar cruise didn’t throw up any issues either. The EV6’s road sign recognition came in super handy too, always showing what the speed limit was thanks to a forward facing camera reading the speed signs.
Watching the range drop and Keith getting ever closer on Waze, we couldn’t help but be impressed by the EV6’s interior and driving experience. Planning issues aside, this was the best car we had yet to take a road trip in. It was just so quiet and so comfortable inside. Sitting upon front, the driving position was spot on, with a well contoured seat designed for longer trips, perfect ergonomics and tonnes of space to stretch out. The screens in their dark mode didn’t dazzle the eyes at night and showed key information intuitively.
The EV6 Air’s black interior with light grey cloth headliner and brushed fake-aluminium accents might not feel as premium as the Ioniq 5’s or even the EV6 GT-Line’s but it feels super modern, clean and neat. The elegant dash, and dual large screens look fantastic even a night. This interior feels special, even if the materials aren’t the most premium – just take a look at the rear door plastics or some of the plastics lower down on the dash.
The EV6 also features a dedicated semi-digital screen below the left large touchscreen, with two dials for the infotainment and climate controls, meaning there is no need to dive into long menus to control simple functions like the heating or the volume.
After a driver swap, we jumped into the back seat to see how comfortable it was back there. The EV6 has a long wheelbase which allows those in the back to really stretch out forwards, even if the rear seat isn’t set too high off the floor. Rear headroom is a little limited too, sadly. You can tell Kia tried to pack in as much battery under the occupants, making the EV6’s interior appear a little claustrophobic overall, with a high floor level and low roof-line.
A word about the EV6 Air’s boot and front trunk: the boot will deliver 490L with all the seats in use, and a massive 1,270L of luggage space with seats folded. Handily, the EV6 Air features a small storage space under the bonnet with 52L in storage which is perfect for charging cables and other small items.
Before we knew it, we arrived in a dimly lit part of Keith and plugged into the Chargefox ultra-fast charger with around 38% range left. After a solid 15 minute charge and a quick stretch of the legs, we hit the road again, on our last leg to Adelaide.
Keith to Adelaide
After a solid day of driving, the fatigue started to set in as we jumped into the driver’s seat once again for the final stretch. With the battery at 85% once again, we had plenty of range to make it to our destination. The EV6 had really impressed us with how it drove thus far, but perhaps it surprised us the most on the last leg into Adelaide. Before long, we crossed the Murray and headed into the Adelaide hills. The range fell sharply on the long uphill stretches but remember, what goes up must come down. When we exited the freeway, we hit a lovely stitch of winding road down from the Hills into the centre of Adelaide.
Here, the EV6 felt more like a sports car than an SUV, with its low slung centre of gravity, cleverly tuned dampers and precise steering. With its perfect RWD balance through corners, it was a lot of fun to throw through corners, even with three rather grumpy passengers with me. The lack of gears to worry about, the instant thrust from the motor, all put the cherry on the top of what was an excellent road trip.
Pushing the EV6 hard did show that the Air’s skinny (for an EV) eco tyres gradually lose grip, as they fight tenaciously to keep two tons heading the way you want them to. Most owners will seldom venture this far into the EV6’s otherwise superb dynamics envelope. With Kia’s first proper EV this good to drive, we think the EV6 is just the tip of the iceberg of further EVs which will redefine what driver’s cars are all bout. All this from a Kia, who would have thought?
As the city’s yellow lights grew more and more common, we found ourselves rolling into our accomodation in the late evening, having spent a total of 40 minutes charging during our trip. Not a terrible result considering the distance covered and proving long distance driving in an EV is viable, provided there are fast chargers available to you.
Finally, after a solid nine and a bit hours on the road, we arrived at our accomodation and plugged straight into a regular domestic powerpoint to try to add a few more % to the battery’s current 30% state. Here’s hoping more and more places will start installing 7kW wallbox chargers to help guests add a little more juice overnight, without having extension cords dangling out of hotel rooms.
2022 Kia EV6 Air: Final thoughts
We really loved our trip in the EV6 from Melbourne to Adelaide and can safely say, with the right planning, and with a stop or two to charge at a (hopefully working) ultra-fast charger, EVs can easily handle the good old Aussie road trip.
Here are some key stats from our trip
- Total km driven: 743km
- Total kWh charged on the way: 88kWh
- Total cost to charge: $52.00 (88kWh x $0.60 per kWh)
Ultra-fast charging has certainly crept up in price recently, meaning that driving an EV long distance isn’t as cheap as it once used to be. Nonetheless, the electricity bill for our trip is below the cost of the amount of diesel used in an equivalent car, such as a diesel Kia Sportage. With a litre of diesel costing around $2.00, and the Sportage using 6L/100km, the trip would have cost around $90 to cover.
The EV6 remains one of our favourite EVs and is truly one of the most convincing electric vehicles on sale. It has a superb driving experience, is loaded with tech and was genuinely so comfortable to drive long distances in. It’s an exciting car for Kia, with head turning good looks that are more than backed up by how capable the EV6 is.
Will it entice owners of petrol and diesel cars to make the switch to electric? Absolutely. The EV6 is breakthrough car not only for Kia but for Australia, going head to head with the Tesla Model Y in the very hotly contested mid-size SUV segment. What our country really needs is more fast-charging infrastructure to make weekend getaways enjoyable, without the fear of getting stuck on a long charge or waiting in line to charge.
We can’t wait to revisit this trip in the future to see how things have changed but for now, the Kia EV6 has passed its long range test with flying colours. It didn’t leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere, didn’t take forever to charge and was superbly comfortable. Brilliant is what it was, and we can’t wait to see where the future takes us from here.
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