2023 Kia EV6 vs 2022

What's the difference?

Kia’s EV6, launched in 2021, was an early signal from Kia that its talk of rearranging car-buyers’ perceptions was more than an idle boast.

Sure, the South Korean brand had gone from budget also-ran a couple of decades ago to a brand that represents reliability and quality in a very short space of time.

But a brand that was technically innovative and EV-savvy? Or capable of family cars with supercar performance? Let’s wait and see, we all said.

And now the latest member of the all-electric EV6 family has arrived, and with it Kia’s big chance to prove its point, as well as convince us that its flagship products are worthy of a six-figure price-tag.

With shattering straight-line performance and all the hallmarks of a thoroughly modern take on the electric vehicle concept (including all-wheel-drive and electronic control of everything from the suspension to the rear differential) the EV6 GT makes the technical statement it needs to.

But does it have the quality, the specification and the overall appeal to justify a price-tag that was unimaginable in a South Korean car until very, very recently?

The fact is that technical merit is not enough – never has been – when it comes to making a macro price-point shift in the minds of consumers.

Any model seeking to reset the value proposition of an entire brand needs to be more than the sum of its parts. But does the EV6 GT achieve that rare distinction? That’s what we’re here to find out.

If the Kia Stinger looks wistfully to the past like some alternate-universe Holden Commodore SS, then surely the forward-looking Kia EV6 electric vehicle is simply another side of the same coin?

After all, both are five-door, five-seater, rear-drive-based family cars with a strong focus on sports sedan performance and style.

Indeed, both leverage Hyundai technologies, though not so you’d know it at a glance, as the Genesis-based Stinger and Ioniq 5-derived EV6 are clearly completely Kia in their look and feel.

But where the Stinger 200S starts from $51,250 (all prices are before on-road costs unless otherwise stated), the EV6 Air from $67,990 picks up from where the $64,960 Stinger V6 GT flagship ends, taking in the $74,990 GT-Line and then topping out to the $82,990 GT-Line AWD.

Kia arrived long ago. Now it’s pulling ahead. Ahead of the Stinger. Ahead of most rivals. Ahead of the EV curve. We drive the GT-Line AWD to find out how and why.