Kia teases EV6 electric car based on E-GMP platform

Kia’s EV6 heralds battery electric future for South Korean automaker

The Kia EV6 has been teased a lot over the last few months, but today Kia Corporation revealed the first official images of the car. This is the company’s first dedicated Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) based on the company’s E-GMP electric vehicle architecture.

Kia recently underwent a logo and corporate branding redesign, with the new brand visuals reportedly created to look like a handwritten signature. and the EV6 appears to lead a new design philosophy which should carry forward to the company’s full range of electric vehicles.

Kia’s EV6 front design

As part of the company’s brand transition, Kia’s new dedicated battery electric vehicles will be named according to a new global naming strategy. All BEVs will start with the prefix ‘EV’ to keep it simple for consumers. This is followed by a number which corresponds to the car’s position in the line-up.

While technical details haven’t been revealed, it might be worth looking to Hyundai’s just revealed IONIQ 5 for clues to where Kia is headed. The IONIQ 5 offers two battery sizes—58kWh and 72.6kWh in rear wheel drive and all wheel drive configurations, with power from 125 kW (170 PS) to 225 kW (305 PS). We expect the EV6 to also share the IONIQ 5’s 800 volt electrical architecture.

We’ve lightened the side profile image below to show a little bit more detail, but Kia’s designers haven’t left a huge amount of detail in this image file. By all accounts, the EV6 should be a handsome car. We see some Audi influences in the front headlight design, and the broad hip-line nicely hides the bulk of a liftback tailgate. The slim rear lights echo the current trend of full-width light graphics, with a nice hark back to Maserati’s 3200GT.

The EV6 is set for an online worldwide reveal in late March 2021.

Kia’s EV6 in side profile

The rear taillight design of the EV6