Kia EV6 named European Car of the Year

The Kia EV6 has taken top honours in the European Car of the Year award.

Beating 60 other newly released vehicles, including rival EVs like the Mustang Mach-E and Hyundai Ioniq 5, the EV6 was voted the overall winner by 61 judges from 23 European countries.

Kia’s first fully electric vehicle based on its new Electric-Global Modular Platform, the EV6 is a crossover designed for comfort, accessibility, and oh, it’s pretty fast.

It will take less than 3.5 seconds to get to 100 km/hr from a standing start.

It’s an affordable rival to the likes of a Tesla Model 3 and Polestar 2, which was NZ Autocar’s 2021 Car of the Year winner.

The EV6 is heading to New Zealand. When? It’s expected the first examples will be unloaded from the boat in the next few weeks. Though it has already been delayed once before.

The model is also “sold out” in Australia. An explosion in demand for the car has compelled Kia to stop taking expressions of interest.

On this side of the Tasman, Kia says interest is also booming. However, they are not able to say how many cars are on their way here.

Interestingly, Kia offers EV6 owners 1000 kW-hours of free charging in America, which is good enough for nearly a dozen full charges.

We asked Kia New Zealand if a similar owner deal could work in our market. We didn’t get a firm ‘yes’, nor did we get a ‘no.’ In any case, it seems the EV6 might come with some sweet package deals for Kiwi buyers.

“Retail pricing including the overall ownership package are in the process of being finalised right now and we will announce these as soon as possible,” a Kia NZ spokesperson said.