If the Stinger sports sedan helped change the way you look at Kia, just wait til you see the mess the new EV6 makes of some of the biggest names in European supercar history.
To help illustrate exactly how ridiculously rapid its new EV6 crossover is, Kia lined the top-spec 577 hp GT version up for a quarter mile (0-400m) drag race with some seriously potent gas-engined machinery.
The other cars are the Lamborghini Urus SUV, Ferrari California, Porsche 911, Mercedes-AMG GT and McLaren 570S. Okay, so they’re not most extreme cars each of those carmakers builds, but by anyone’s standards they’re extremely rapid vehicles.
Read More: Kia EV6 Debuts With A Porsche Taycan Beating 0-62 MPH Time Of 3.5 Seconds
But in every case except one, they’re not as rapid as the Kia. We’ll not completely spoil the surprise by telling you which of the cars manages to nose ahead of the EV6 at the finish line, but rest assured, even that barley pulled a foot of clean air between its filthy exhaust tips and the zero emissions Kia’s front end.
What we know about Kia’s new electric crossover
The range-topping EV6 GT sends 577 hp and 546lb ft of torque to its four wheels via two motors, enabling it hit 62mph (100km/h) in 3.5 seconds and reach a top speed of 162mph (260 km/h). That makes it faster than Porsche’s Taycan 4S, but not the Turbo or the quickest versions of Tesla Model S, which were notable by their absence from this race.
But with this kind of performance you could still take plenty of scalps, and cause much embarrassment when the other driver realises he’s been dusted by a Kia. Yesterday I wrote a story saying that merely being ridiculously fast wasn’t enough to make an electric car exciting, but I reckon I could enjoy making some mischief in the EV6 GT.
Read: Neck-Snapping Acceleration Isn’t Enough To Make Electric Cars Feel Exciting
Other, less crazy versions of the EV6 are also available, if you’re happy merely humiliating hot hatches and sports sedans. The non-GT all-wheel drive EV6 has 321 hp and 446lb ft of torque and gets to 62mph in 5.2 seconds, while the base single-motor rear-wheel drive car packs a way more modest 168hp with Kia also offering a 226 hp version that needs 6.2 seconds to reach the 62mph mark.
The EV6 goes on sale in several countries this year. In the UK, for example, prices starts at £40,895 ($56,000) for the base car, rising to £58,295 ($79,900) for the GT. But US buyers will have to wait until 2022 to get their hands on the supercar-slaying Korean EV.