Kia EV6 GT Review: 478kW, 3.5 Seconds, Thousands Cheaper Than the Ioniq 5 N

Compare it to an EV and the Kia EV6 GT looks expensive. Compare it to a BMW, which is the only fair comparison, and it’s a genuine bargain.

Kia’s flagship performance EV just picked up a bigger battery, sharper suspension tuning for Australian roads at a price rise of exactly $70. The facelifted EV6 GT sends 478kW and 770Nm through both axles, hits 100km/h in 3.5 seconds, and does it for $99,660 plus on-road costs. I’ve had one for a week to see whether the numbers hold up on the road.

Pricing and what’s new for 2026

The 2026 update is bigger than the pricing suggests. Every EV6 grade now runs the same 84kWh battery, up from the outgoing 77.4kWh pack, and the range gains flow straight through the lineup. New Star Map headlights and tail-lights, a redesigned steering wheel, an updated centre console and fingerprint recognition on GT-Line and GT round out the changes.

Kia Australia also retuned the GT’s suspension specifically for local roads, adding stiffer anti-roll bars and softer front springs to sharpen grip and steering feel. None of that cost much. Each of the four grades rose by just $70.

The GT sits at the top of that range, and it’s the only one on test here. It’s the variant Kia built to be driven hard, not the one built to be sensible.

Warranty is standard Kia: 7 years and unlimited kilometres on the general vehicle, with the battery and other high voltage EV components covered separately for 7 years or 150,000km, whichever comes first.

Size and chassis

The EV6 GT measures 4.7m long, 1.89m wide and 1.55m tall on a 2.9m wheelbase. That’s smaller in every dimension than its platform-mate from Hyundai, the Ioniq 5 N, and it rides on a shorter wheelbase too. For a car that looks this wide and low, it’s a genuinely compact package.

Ground clearance sits at 155mm, courtesy of MacPherson struts up front and multi-link independent suspension at the rear. It rolls on 21-inch machined alloys wrapped in 255/40 R21 Michelin Pilot Sport rubber. Braked towing capacity is 1,800kg, unbraked 750kg, with a 100kg tow ball download.

Powertrain and battery

Pop the frunk and you get 20 litres of storage and nothing resembling an engine, because there isn’t one. The business happens beneath: permanent magnet synchronous motors on both axles, 175kW and 370Nm up front, 303kW and 400Nm at the rear, for a combined 478kW and 770Nm. That’s good for 0 to 100km/h in 3.5 seconds.

Powering it all is an 84kWh battery running at 697 volts nominal and weighing around 484kg, slightly heavier than the pack in the lower grades. That extra mass is cooling and battery management hardware, not extra cells. A battery working this hard needs to shed heat fast.

WLTP range is 450km. Charging tops out at 10.5kW on three-phase AC or 350kW DC. I plugged into an 800-volt charger rated around 150kW at 53 percent state of charge and watched the rate swing between 80kW and 160kW, a fluctuation the car itself flagged as a charger fault rather than a car fault, and the behaviour backed that up.

Battery preconditioning lives in the EV settings menu and is worth switching on 20 to 30 minutes before you reach a fast charger. It visibly warms the pack and gets you closer to peak charge rates sooner.

Inside the cabin

The GT’s interior is unapologetically racy. Suede-like Alcantara trim and perforations run across the seats, steering wheel and dash. The wheel itself is flattened top and bottom rather than a full circle, and it’s more comfortable in hand than it looks.

GT and drive mode buttons sit on the wheel. Paddle shifters control regen braking down to Kia’s i-Pedal one-pedal mode, a notch behind Tesla’s for outright strength but close enough. The driver’s display changes character with drive mode too, restrained in Normal, considerably racier once you hit the GT button.

Kia’s dual 12.3-inch curved display remains one of the sharper infotainment setups in the segment. It’s quick to respond and easy to search, backed by a secondary touch-and-dial panel that toggles between climate controls and infotainment shortcuts, a clever piece of design that solves the usual problem of touchscreen-only climate controls.

Material quality leans high-tech rather than plush. There’s woven, technical-looking trim on the upper dash instead of soft-touch leather, and shades of Audi in the way the dashboard wraps around and angles back toward the passenger. The front seats are proper reclining buckets, firm through the bolsters, with no adjustable headrest and no lumbar support. They’re built to hold you in place through a corner, not cushion you on a long haul.

Rear seat space is better than the coupe-like roofline suggests, with a long bench, decent width and enough headroom that a six-footer clears the roof by a few fingers. Heated rear seats, rear air vents and two USB-C ports are standard back there. The boot trades wagon practicality for sportsback styling. It’s still useful, with tie-down points and a power tailgate, but the underfloor storage is close to nothing.

How it drives

This is where the EV6 GT earns its badge. I drove it almost entirely in Ultra Performance GT mode, and it’s direct, confident and genuinely exciting through corners.

A limited-slip differential on the rear motor and those Michelin Pilot Sport tyres do a lot of the work. There’s no lag off the line and no hesitation mid-corner. It’s one of the most entertaining cars I’ve driven in a long time, EV or otherwise.

Performance comes with trade-offs, and the biggest is ride comfort. GT mode firms the suspension to the point where you feel every seam in the road through the wheel, exactly what a performance car should do, but it’s not comfortable over a long, straight highway stint. Switch to Normal mode and the ride softens noticeably, though at that point you’re better off buying a GT-Line. The bucket seats tell the same story: brilliant lateral support under load, less forgiving on your lower back after three or four hours in a straight line.

Push it hard and efficiency drops to around 25.9kWh per 100km, thirsty for an EV but exactly what you’d expect given how the car was being driven. What’s more impressive is how quiet the cabin stays despite the firm ride and grippy tyres. Kia has done the NVH work properly here.

Against the competition

At just under $100,000 drive-away, the EV6 GT looks expensive next to most EVs on sale in Australia. The Tesla Model Y Performance undercuts it by $10,260 with 343kW and a longer 580km range, and the BYD Sealion 7 Performance starts at $63,990. Against those, the Kia is the priciest and least efficient option on paper.

Line it up against the car it actually competes with on feel, and the story flips. Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 N matches the EV6 GT’s 478kW and 770Nm output with boost engaged, but costs $117,990 before on-roads, $18,330 more for the same peak numbers. Judged against the performance-focused European ICE cars this car is clearly gunning for, the EV6 GT is close to a bargain.

It hasn’t translated into sales. The EV6 was outsold by its cheaper, Chinese-built EV5 stablemate by nearly 14 to one in 2025, proof that dynamic ability alone doesn’t move volume in this market.

The verdict

Kia knows exactly who this car is for, and it hasn’t tried to soften it into something else. It’s fast, involving, and genuinely fun in a way most electric performance SUVs still aren’t.

Chinese rivals are still chasing outright power figures. Kia is quietly building the driver’s car underneath them, and the more of these it sells, the faster that platform improves and the cheaper performance EVs like it get. On this evidence, it’s a race worth watching Kia run.