The E-GMP platform is the basis for brilliance; this car lends its maker every reason for confidence.

Price: $111,990

Powertrain: Twin electric motor with 77.4kWh lithium ion battery, output 239kW/605Nm, all-wheel drive, single speed. Energy use 18 kWh/100km, cited range 484km.

Vital statistics: 4695mm long, 1890mm wide, 1550mm high, wheelbase 2900mm.

We like: Quality of engineering and build, performance and range, polished dynamics. 

Not so much: Ioniq 5 interior is better executed; single motor versions seem better value.

BETWEEN my home and the main road there’s a railway underpass; a couple of kays further on, there’s an actual crossing.

These are of great concern to Kia. So, too, the school zone I regularly driving through. Without fail, the EV6 would warn me that I was nearing these.

I mean, it’s nice to know it cares, it really is. But, here’s the thing. Having taken the same route for the past two decades, I’m pretty cognisant of the challenges. Plus, I understood – as Kia’s system seemed not to – that the underpass being, well, an underpass, presented no risk of a vehicle versus train moment.

There must be a way of curtailing its good intention. I could not, for the life of us figure out, how to make it so. This became a point of minor irritation; more with myself than with the car. I accept it’s smarter than me, because it’s likely smarter than most other people, too. It’s a VERY clever thing. But I knew it could be quietened because, as oxymoronic as it sounds, even though this was my first EV6 experience, I’d driven it before. And driven the same route in silence.

Yup, time to mention the ‘H’ word. Despite every effort made locally to impress that they are separate, there’s no denying the DNA. Yes, Kia and Hyundai Motor Group operate independently, not just here. Everywhere. But Hyundai is the parent company of Kia Motors and while the latter is not second tier in any way, without Hyundai funding, there wouldn’t be an EV6. Or, yes, an Ioniq 5.

The E-GMP platform underpinning this car and others coming behind the family’s three badges – Hyundai itself, Kia and Genesis - was a hugely expensive undertaking, well beyond the resources of the subsumed marque.

The point is, no-one loses this play. It doesn’t matter which badge you favour – and currently Kiwis still lack access to Genesis, though assuredly that won’t always been the case – you’re accessing stand-out looks and state-of-the-art tech.

An 800-volt electrical system that allows for both ultra-rapid and bi-directional charging, otherwise known as vehicle-to-load (V2L) means – with the help of a special plug – you can use the batteries to run electrical equipment. Not many EVs have this.

Another bonus is ultra-fast charging. Find a charger capable of 350kW – not easy, as there are just a handful, all for now in the upper to mid North Island, though more are coming - and more than 100 kilometres’ range can be added in just five minutes. And you know that’s an accurate expectation; the conjoined Koreans seem to offer some of the most precise range figures of any maker.

 Ioniq 5’s street cred needs no enforcing. It won the 2021 New Zealand Car of the Year. Enough said, surely? Though it arrived too late for the ’21 event, EV6 is running for the same award in 2022. ‘Which is better’ is bound to be asked. On that score, it’s Big Mac versus Whopper.

I know the derivatives that book-end the Ioniq 5 line-up - the flagship Limited that most closely compares to the EV6 GT-Line tested now and the more modest, much cheaper rear-drive entry car. I feel I have a reasonable handle on what Hyundai has to offer from their side of the dual garage.

How different would the ‘KN’ – apparently that’s the global feedback on the new badge, with the merged ‘I’ and ‘A’ being misconstrued as a third single letter – be? A lot. Thought it might deliver a big dollop of ‘same-again’ quickly vaporised.

 Truly. It’s a credit to each brand as to how different they’ve made their respective flagship products, and not just in in look. Now with identically-sized batteries, identical outputs and almost identical performance – and step-off ferocity – and, yet, they’re not the same.

 It’s important but not crucial EV6 delivers slightly longer range; the difference is just 30kms. Warranties on both sides are comprehensive. More relevant is that EV6 kits much the same, but for $6010 less. It’s a saving worth thinking about, even though it’s all relative. As six-figures asks, these kissing cousins are either way still pricey.

Styling is such a subjective thing, but we can surely all agree EV6 provisions one of the more captivating designs within the electric-sphere. Whereas Hyundai’s car draws its inspiration from the original Hyundai Pony, the Kia doesn’t have any obvious retro influence. It’s all firmly futuristic and, because of that, will likely have to suffer an initial ‘polarising’ phase until the shape settles in. But it could well age better.

 A touch too much heaviness to the overall look inhibits it from being truly handsome and it’s a shape is better resolved from some angles than others, though the detailing is stunning. How that contrasting accent runs along the base of the doors and kicks upwards, bisecting the rear wheel and joining a rear light element that wraps all the way around to double up as an aerodynamic spoiler is awesome design. So too, how the rear spoiler incorporates small winglets on the outer edges; so as to funnel air through it to clear water from the wiper-less rear window.

It’s a colour-sensitive shape; light hues work, too dark and it risks seeming too blobby. The test car’s metallic red is strong; at the right time of day. Late afternoon sunlight altered it completely, for the better. It’s a car that saves its strongest statement until night. That’s when you get to see how powerfully the lighting weaves into the design ethos, accentuating the car’s expensiveness and premium-ness.

 The forethought that’s gone into making it work well also deserves discussion. As on the Hyundai model, the door handles sit completely flush with the bodywork, but they’ll pop out when the car is unlocked, then retract back into the bodywork once the car is on the move. Even though it has two big screens, just the left-hand side one is touch facilitated, the one in front being info-only, so you’re not going to be tempted into putting a hand through the steering wheel to adjust things. Also, there are actual knobs to control temperature and a haptic bar between them to do all the other stuff. That’s the best way.

The opportunities for personal configuration seem to be endless. One or two are a bit too smarty-pants. Be aware that, if it detects that you have the smart key on your person as you walk to the rear, it will automatically open the electrically operated tailgate. Neat idea if you’re heading out of the supermarket with your arms full, but not so much it enacts when the car is in a confined area. That caught out a mate; forewarned, I managed to sort the deactivation process, which meant delving through some sub-menus. It’s all logical, but demands time. Doubtless, the prompt for silencing the voice alerts was on the next sub-menu.

Does it seem curious that, given how extreme and edgy the exterior is, that from inside looking out, it’s tending toward being more conservative and more conventional?

 Replication of the Hyundai ‘lounge room’ concept obviously wasn’t working for Kia; though the seats are all electric-adjust, the chair design is different and they’ve eschewed the Ioniq’s cool trick of allowing the driver’s one to convert in a slumber seat (obviously, this only works when the car is immobile). There’s no need for a transmission tunnel in an electric, of course, but the EV6 kinda has one anyway, with a binnacle placing between the front chairs and filling an area the other brand keeps free of anything.

The Kia approach delivers more oddment space, and it’s also a location for the rotating disc gear selector; more natural to use than the Hyundai’s steering column wand, though nonetheless prone to being occasionally problematic. Changing from reverse to drive isn’t as straightforward as it might seem; it can get stuck in neutral if your foot is not depressing the brake pedal hard enough.

 The two 12.3-inch screens perched side-by-side on top of the dashboard are also altered significantly, in look and display design, with Kia holding thought that EV6 having all the familiar icons and opertability that it offers in other product being preferable. True, Kia’s interface is easier to get to grips with and the haptic feedback is friendly, but it’s not as wow-worthy. Location of the USB port through which you need to tether to enact CarPlay is in the same annoying spot as in Ioniq, virtually at floor level near the pedals.

The E-GMP platform is designed for medium to large cars; the EV6 (like Ioniq) is larger than it looks in pictures and the width especially is obvious when you’re driving it, not least in urban settings. Yet it nonetheless feels cosier inside than the Ioniq. Some of this is through it having a lower roofline – to point where rear headroom suffers - and smaller glasshouse, but it’s also down to Kia favouring a predominantly black interior; whereas Hyundai’s just the opposite, being all about light shades. One more twist with Kia is the use of ‘vegan leather’. A great idea but the colours less so.

The flat floor layout, common to most EVs, is agreeable, but rear seat occupants find that, with the front seats sitting so low down to the floor, there's not as much room to stretch out their legs or feet into the space ahead as they might have expected. The boot seems a little smaller in the Kia … until you discover it has a false floor you can remove to reveal and extra few centimetres of depth. There’s also a ‘frunk’ under the bonnet to store charging cables and other stuff; it’s far smaller than in the rear-drive versions because of need to also package the front drive motor.

If you’re into features, then the EV6 has a lot to talk about. Hill start assist, autonomous emergency braking (car, pedestrian, cyclist and junction turning), lane-keep assist, blind-spot collision warning and avoidance assist (with rear cross-traffic alert), driver attention alert with lead vehicle departure alert and parking sensors front and rear. The rear-view camera with dynamic parking guidelines, parking collision avoidance assist, surround-view with 3D mode, blind-spot all present on the monitor, and it’s an impressively crisp resolution. EV6 was awarded ANCAP's maximum five-star crash rating last year.

Performance prioritises over range at this level; in utilising two motors it offers a healthy 239kW/605Nm, propelling it to 100kmh in just 5.2 seconds, and it has all-wheel-drive for added traction, but obviously this comes at the expense of how far it’ll go on a fully charged battery. Kia cites 484km; really it’s closer to 420-ish, less still if you’re prone to push. A rear drive model with the same battery will give a cited 528km of driving range. You can quibble about all that, or accept that any model by any standard is still fairly well equipped for long distance driving.

The dual motor cars have pretty decent acceleration, made all the more surreal by the lack of noise - with electrics, that’s nothing new – and obviously the friskiness perceptively picks up in a Sport. Eco and Normal also offer different driving characteristics, easily toggled via a small button on the steering wheel.

Speaking of characteristics … well, that’s the biggest overall difference. The Kia is more enjoyable to drive, steering more sharply, riding more comfortably and handling more assertively than its sibling.

It’s gotta be the chassis tuning. I’ve driven enough EVs to understand how tricky they are to get right; tonnage compromises dexterity. It’d be stretching to say the EV6 rewrites the book, but it does represent good progress. As much as you’re aware of it being a heavy car, it does seem better matched to our conditions; the ride is more fluid and less upset by bumps than the obvious barometer’s and it mixes with seriously good body control, to point of making it fun. While the 255/45 R20 tyres can be noisy over some surfaces, they also make good use of the traction afforded by the all-wheel-drive.

There’s nod of approval, too, for the steering; a little lacking in communication, but commendably direct and free of slop.

Driver understanding of its throttle sensitivity makes for a happier time; likewise messing with the regenerative braking, that results in easing your foot off the accelerator. The one-pedal driving style can be adjusted easily through the infotainment system to either be strong (the default), mild, or off altogether. The mild setting could be renamed ‘just right’ when used to control the car’s attitude into and through a corner.  

None of this makes the GT-Line an outright driver’s car, but that’s not a remit it needs to meet. The version ticking that box is next year’s GT. The GT-Line’s job is to accomplish as a fast, comfortable and quiet cruiser with assertive attitude and how well it comprehensively meets that remit. 

Second life opportunity under Hyundai Group has revitalised Kia, and then some. It’s become a much bolder company, one that’s utterly unafraid of change - you only have to look at how quickly its range has transformed even within the past decade to see that.  

The E-GMP programme is a biggie for Hyundai Group; they’re not gone into it shyly and are reaping reward for boldness. So much more is coming, but they’ve begun with a dynamic duo.

EV6 has the edge through being just a little bit more exceptional; Kia cars for this part of the world go through a ride-handling finishing school in Australia and it’s likely been the x-factor here.

 Tesla shareholders should feel deeply nervous about cars of this calibre. They remind that ‘legacy’ makers are anything but spent.