[CarbonFume]

Hi all,

Posting after a really long to help out everyone know more about the EV6. I will try to make this as detailed as I can. Apologies in advance for any mistakes made or wrong facts posted.

The decision to get the EV6 was made after owning the ZS EV for a year and driving that for about 30K km. The decision was not easy. It was between the Kodiaq Sportline Nardo Grey vs the EV6. Having booked both, the decision was going to be whichever car was delivered first. But I drove neither of them before booking. Ended up getting a call in the first week of November about the black EV6 being available and now in the middle of December, with still no news on the Kodiaq (both cars booked in July).

Coming to EV6, I have named her Kaalia because of no good reason. I used to think the G20 330i is a head-turner, but my God, this car has almost caused several bikers to lose balance and rear-end someone!

The build quality of this car is simply phenomenal for a Kia. From the sound deadening to the tech features, I think this car is definitely worth it, but maybe for a price tag of 55-60 lakhs instead of 70. After driving it for 2000 km in a month, here are my views on the car.

To begin with, the bad / missing features -

1 - Music system - The Meridian music system is pathetic. They are all too hyped up at Kia about the "3D Meridian surround sound system", but for a 70 lakh car, it makes me want to cry. Compared to the G05 X5 and the '21 A6, I used to feel the G20 330i has a comparatively much inferior sound system. But compared to this Kia, the 330i music system feels incredible. The vocals are extremely high and the bass is the missing factor. It is, somehow, decent after reducing the treble in the car system as well as on the iPhone settings (treble reducer). I feel they could have done a much better job and I would consider putting in an additional subwoofer to make it better, but this is a very poor move by Kia. Hope a software update down the line makes this issue better.

2 - No spare wheel - Thank you Kia for a 500 km plus range and no spare wheel. Not even a space saver. To top it off, there is not even the option to buy a space saver separately. As I type this, I am not happy about spending 70 lakhs for this.

3 - The front collision warning - Yes, the car has a lot of tech, but the front collision warning is horrible. It stops the car so hard and sometimes doesn't just stop. With a hard brake, it will bring you to a full stop (almost a stall-type feeling with the throttle). Yes, it can be turned off fully, but every time you start the car, it is back on again. It is annoying that all other assists can be shut off completely and permanently such as the Blind spot monitor and others, but not this one. I am constantly worried that my mother and sister may take the car out, not shut it because they can't figure out how and will get rear-ended for going too close to an auto or a bike.

4 - Missing panoramic sunroof - Not a big issue, but hate not having it at this price.

5 - Electric adjusting steering - Kia has given us heated and cooled ventilated seats, even a premium head-up display, and heated steering. Why did they not add the electrically adjusting steering?

6 - Rear seat under-thigh support is as good as not being there despite impressive legroom thanks to its design. But there is a hack around it covered in the "good" section about this car.

7 - The ride - Something I should have covered earlier, but here it is. I agree the ride is supposed to be sporty, but it feels a bit more sporty than I had expected. The car is silent and smooth but it rides stiffer than usual and I wish it was more sublime like the A6 with bumps and bad roads.

8 - "Floating seat" or whatever they call it - I never see myself using that feature. Easier to just recline normally, but I guess it's a cool gimmick.

9 - Window blinds for the rear seats - Missing on the car like the 330i and I wish it was standard.

10 - ABS kicking at minor bumps - I may not be describing this right but the ABS kicks in very easily on slightly bumpy roads. I am more confident driving aggressively when braking is set to sporty from normal and regen at level 2, but not a fan of the random ABS type feeling. I don't think I am hitting the brakes wrong, but not sure what is going on. If any readers got any idea, please do let me know what I can do about it.

GOOD -

1 - Build quality - This car has a very superior build quality and does not feel like a Kia. From the sound deadening to the premium materials used, I absolutely love it. The seats feel like a unique blend of Alcantara and cloth *not sure*, but feel extremely premium and welcoming.

2 - The look - From the curves on the rear of this beauty to the sharp edges on the front, this car is a stunner. I cannot take my eyes off it.
To make it better, the KIA and GT badge at the rear has been removed, the rear tailgate chrome strip has been blacked out and the two tiny chrome lines on the front blacked out as well along with the front Kia badge. Wheels are to be blacked out next. This would be a good EV batmobile with its blacked out looks.

3 - The rear view mirror does not offer a lot of visibility, but does the job okay. To help out, Kia has given the option to turn on the rear camera regardless of the speed you are at. Typically I have seen cars shut off the camera as you drive and not activate it at a higher speed, but this works at any speed and in short, can be kept on all the time.

4- The 360 camera is amazing - The camera, in my view, with Kia EV6 and the Seltos, is way better in terms of quality and usability compared to what the X5 / 740i and even Audi give. Haven't tested others. I am not talking about the front and rear cameras. That's somewhere BMW, Audi, and all have done a good job except MG ZS EV. I mean the side cameras that enable 360 views. It's simply nonsense in the X5 and I never use it. But Kia killed it with the side camera activation on turn indicators and activation of the left and right view cameras in close proximity to vehicles in traffic (sound level being adjustable is the cherry on top as it activates without the annoying beeping).

5 - Brake / rear fog light - I love this one. The rear has 3 LEDs in the center of the rear diffuser / bumper. The top 3 LEDs are red for fog lights,
bottom 2 for rear reverse lights. It's quite a lovely F1 vibe-giving feature.

6 - Regen modes / ipedal - The regen has 5 levels -
0 being no regen. Kona and ZS EV did not have this. I love having this free-flowing no pulling you back feeling EV. 1-2-3 being 3 levels of regen. 4 - AKA - ipedal. Seems to be a one-pedal (use only the accelerator) driving mode. Not a fan, but seems cool to have it. The regen becomes extremely strong and the concept of coasting does not exist. It's the car saying FULL REEGEN and to hell with your neck in just 13 km. The high level 3 regen in Eco mode with A/C on and with respectful calm driving actually reduced my range by only 4 km on a 13 km journey. It's capable of doing way more than 500 km, but the full charge range on this AWD only shows about 470 km. The RWD version naturally offers more range. Also noticed the ECO mode sends power only to the rear in this AWD.

7 - Boot space / frunk - Huge boot with a removable partition similar to the one in the X5. Has 2 placements and placement option 2 helps you recline the rear seats (more of that below). Having a powered tailgate is cool, but the option to completely open and close it using the key is a teary happy moment. The frunk is cool too except. The AWD version has a smaller one, but can still hold the onboard charger / adapter in a nice case and still have a bit of space left over.

8 - Vehicle to load - Never once used this feature, but cool to know the car can power a fridge or a microwave or even charge another EV using its charging port with a cool adaptor that comes along with the car (easy to store with onboard charger in the front tiny frunk.)

9 - Island interior plus insane storage space - will attach a picture for this, but the storage in this car is wow! Massive glove compartments,
pretty big storage under the armrest, floating control center layout with 2 cupholder slots / one charging bed and below a very deep open storage space that can house your wallet, glasses and a full-size tissue box. I have never seen a car hold a tissue box so well and neatly concealed without some adhesive use involved.

10 - Blacked out roof liner - helps a lot. It's just black. Forget the heat it will absorb, it looks the best and will never look dirty.

11 - Rear seats recline - Yes, this is fun and helps with the poor under-thigh support. The partition in the boot can be shifted and the seats can be reclined a serious amount, which will help tall people and just overall rear passenger comfort.

12 - Childish yet amazing interior driving sounds - You have 3 sound modes to select from. This will change the interior sound, which is best kept shut, but cool to have a sound named cyber sort of blasting on as you accelerate.

13 - Padded door bins - Average quality material used to cover the inside of the door bins. It's nice to have things not rattle about.

14 - Interior lighting / touch lights - The reading lights are touch operated - no buttons, like the A6, and I love that feature. Interior lights are placed very well and will literally even make your water bottle glow at night.

15-16 - Augmented reality HUD and ADAS - Unlike the Seltos which has a screen that pops in and out, Kia has gone full premium and the HUD shows you a lot more than just speed.
All Adas controls (speed, distance, lane assist).
Speed limit sign and other traffic signs such as 'school zone', ' speedbumps ahead', and many more. Works using GPS.
Directions on maps. Blind spot monitor details, front collision warning, and 'lead car departure warning'. The last one is very cool, vibrates the steering, and shows blue arrows on the HUD while playing a sound asking you to drive as the car ahead of you has started moving.

17 - Charging ports - This car has 8 charging points inside the car. One regular USB (used for android auto and car play), one wireless charging pad. 5 USB C ports. Yes, FIVE!! 3 in the front, two in the front seats (very unique placement), and finally one proper plug point under the rear seats that can charge a 16-inch laptop or even a hairdryer or a Dyson purifier even.

18 - Other features that are a great touch for the overall premium feel. Comfort access for the driver seat, sequential front turn indicators and concealed-ish rear indicators. Auto high beam assist with traffic and pedestrian dimming thing going on and it works way better than the X5 but not as good as the Audi matrix (not talking about light strength here, BMW and Audi probably do that better).

19 - Kia connect - Forgot about this until now. The mobile app, which connects to your car, can record / capture a live view of your car. No matter where it is parked, it will capture images from all 4 cameras plus a 360 view. It is supposed to record videos, but I have not figured out how. Sort of a Tesla sentry-mode vibe to this.

20 - The massive screen - I do not care much for one huge screen for speedo and infotainment but the fact that just the infotainment screen is massive and amazing. Carplay looks amazing with such a clear big sized screen. I also love the white and black theme for the speedo and infotainment and could not decide which one to use, so it is set to black for the night and white for the day.

21 - Active Aero (not really) - The front bumper has flaps that open and close (recently discovered). Not sure when, why and how the car decides to do this, but I will attach a photo / video.

TLDR - It's a great car and you should get it if you can. The white and black, in my opinion, look the best and the rest (red, matte grey and blue) are beautiful.

It's a unique and striking car. An extremely capable, practical, and fast daily driver. This car has made me drive the 330i a lot less and I did not think that would ever happen. The green EV plates look really good on this blacked out beauty.

Flaps open:


Flaps closed










The 5 LEDs at the rear for reverse and rear fog light:






Driving on the new Hyderabad circuit made for Formula E:






Screenshot from one of the 5 pictures taken via Kia connected app live view of the car. Amazing to see what is all around your car, no matter where it is parked:






Love the way this end bit of the spoiler pops out and has a light under it. Looks very very good at night:


Can truly appreciate the spoiler design from this angle:




You can see, moving the boot compartment gives space for a very good rear seat recline angle:


Massive deep glove compartment is amazing:






The entire plug located under the rear seat:






The slots in the boot to adjust the dividing bar:

[GTO]

Congrats CarbonFume! The EV6 is one heck of an EV and a true showcase of the capability + ambition of Kia . I absolutely love it. Would any day buy it even over the BMW i4. The styling, quality & EV powertrain are beautiful.

Originally Posted by CarbonFume

No spare wheel - Thank you Kia for a 500 km plus range and no spare wheel. Not even a space saver. To top it off, there is not even the option to buy a space saver separately. As I type this, I am not happy about spending 70 lakhs for this.

You should absolutely buy an additional wheel & tyre, whether from Kia or an aftermarket alloy wheel with the same PCD. Impossible to travel long distance in India without one. But it will chew up your boot space. Am guessing there is no wheel well?

How about some more details on the driving experience, acceleration, handling etc. ?

Congrats again and wishing you a minimum of 100,000 happy km with your EV6.

[musclecar]

Congratulations CarbonFume.

Was actually waiting for someone to share their first hand experience of the EV6. This being the only super premium offering by Kia. How would you rate the driving dynamics of the car? Asking as to understand which customer segment will this address to?

[Hawk4]

Excellent review; congratulations, CarbonFume. Wishing you many wonderful moments with EV6.

I am awaiting Hyundai's Ioniq 5 pricing because it is a CKD. Given that EV6 and Ioniq share the same platform, the build quality and all the features should be similar. The starting price for a 50L is what the Hyundai salesperson is suggesting. But in my opinion, Hyundai should set the starting price at 45L considering CKD and the 5% GST on EV.

[Kln]

Congrats on this stunner. The black colour is to die for. What is the average range per full charge you're getting? And how is the charging experience? Did you get home charging installed? How is KIA's fast charging?

[Smartomotive]

Congrats. That's one gorgeous-looking car. How's the ground clearance and driving experience/handling especially on rough roads?

[Air_Kerala]

Beautiful write up CarbonFume. Fascinating machine, the EV6. I have seen one in flesh and the sheer charisma is undeniable. Wishing you many many kilometers of sheer fun. Peace

[Briarean]

Originally Posted by CarbonFume

Coming to EV6, I have named her Kaalia because of no good reason. I used to think the G20 330i is a head-turner, but my God, this car has almost caused several bikers to lose balance and rear-end someone!

Hi @ CarbonFume

Wow!!! That’s a stunning car and the black color is making it more magnificent.

I sincerely hope you to name it "Night Fury" from the movie: How to Train Your Dragon.

2 - No spare wheel - Thank you Kia for a 500 km plus range and no spare wheel. Not even a space saver. To top it off, there is not even the option to buy a space saver separately. As I type this, I am not happy about spending 70 lakhs for this.

My argument is:
As you have spent 70 Lacs on a KIA car in India, KIA might have thought of you as a “risk-taker / thrill-seeker / adrenaline-junkie”. So, to give you more thrill, they decided to remove the spare tyre!

Jokes apart, EV manufacturers are looking to lighten cars as much as possible. So, to save on space & weight, no more spare tyres.

Please check the below links. I hope these options should be helpful for you.

https://www.bridgestone.co.in/en/tyr...run-flat-tyres

https://modernspare.com/product/2021...e-kit-options/


Regards.

MS

[mobike008]

Hi Carbonfume,

Congratulations on owning a fantastic and good looking EV product from Kia.

They have surely learnt from their other lesser priced products and created an exciting upscale product to compete with other popular EV brands in the market.

That's a lovely review capturing all the highlights and downsides of the car.

I happened to test drive the car here in US and was quite impressed with it as it feels very well put together and the gadgetry and technology provided is quite satisfying.

Only 2 things that left me wanting is the handling (due to the size, it feels quite heavy and bulky but, the good thing is feels very well built) and music system as you rightly said is a joke for such an expensive car- $58K MSRP but, dealers are adding $7k-$10K on top of that price with an unknown delivery date if you wish to order here in US which made it unattractive during my purchasing decision phase.

Here is a brief observations from that test drive :

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/elect...ml#post5317218 (Kia launches EV faster than Porsche’s Taycan 4S)

Btw, I'm also from Hyderabad. it must be an awesome sight to see your lovely black EV6 on Hyderabad roads and must be surely turning a lot of pretty heads.

Wish you lot of happy and safe miles and I will look forward to your regular updates as you keep crunching miles.

[Randamoozham]

Congratulations Carbonfume and wish you happy ownership! Let the car bring you good memories!!

Few questions - What is the comment of the KIA SA on the spare tire non availability? I did not see comments on the number of kms it can cover on single charge. Did you any long drives?

Any discounts from KIA?

[VeeEight]

Hello Carbonfume -

Thank you for your wonderful write-up on the EV6.
I just took a test drive of the EV6-AWD and believe that the sub par music system still prevails (when I compare with my Endeavour and Volvo XC 40 recharge, the other I test drove).
Could you please share your long term (1+ year?) ownership w.r.t reliability of the vehicle - in the EV6 forums , I still see owners reporting issues on ICCU failures and other electrical modules, etc.
Many Thanks.

[CarbonFume]

Hi Bhpians,
It's the one year ownership update time of the year and boy do I have updates for y'all.

Not sure where to start to be honest but I think I would like to start by saying I miss my 330i which I sold 6 months into Ev6 ownership. She was not being used. And I say that because she clocked 1500 KMS in 6 months. I did not want her to sit all her life, neglected and have all rubber parts go bad. Hope the new owner takes great care of her like I have. (Also got a GREAT deal after 4 years and kept the carbon parts to set up as neat display units at work/home)

Coming to this silent elephant in the room, I've managed to tweak small bits in the car to my liking, (will get into the details).

Let's start with the BAD, BAD and BAD.

1 SMS- Custom made abbreviation for - STUPIDEST music system. Please Kia gods, this car is now @80 lakhs in Hyderabad with tax coming in. This speaker is great but the subwoofer is crap. I've come to realize that apart from a weak sub, the placement under 2-3 layers of boot floor (with sound insulation) was a horrible choice. Compounded, these make it worse for Ev6 in terms of superior sound quality. Believe me, seltos GT Line speakers sound better. Attaching picture to show this mess up.
Attached below pictures to express how burried the sub is. Layer 1 rubber mat. Layer 2 hard wood boot floor. Layer 3 plastic trims covering the sub WHICH HAS SOUND INSULATION for excessive vibration i think?

Parallely, got the iX in May with a bunch of new gimmicks such as BMW connected, air suspension and soft close. Hard to believe this was not standard earlier. But let's save IX review for later. All I brought it up for was to say, the system in the BMW feels like you're in first row of tomorrow land with speakers melting your face off and vibrating every bit of your body. This quality came at a price but Ev6 isn't a 30-40 lakh car like BYD or Ioniq.

2- Spare wheel- other Ev6 owners, particularly one from Hyderabad has managed to get all weather mats and spare wheel from KIA USA. What happened to Kia India? They still offer cloth mats saying all weather mats. How stupid do they think we are?
Sure Kia has good RSA (Road side assistance) and insurance too will provide RSA but you market EV6 as a 700 kms potential EV and you want us to try this on Indian roads with no spare?

Also I get it. Custom spare is not at all a difficult thing to do but come on. Not all Ev6 buyers are going to be young Petrolheads (EV-heads) who have the time to think or break their head over this.

3- “So called sleep mode”- The whackiest thing to ever happen to any EV6 owner would be the car refusing to start.
When I say refusing to start, I mean, AC, Infotainment, lights and EVERYthing works. But the car stays in N or P. Does not engage drive mode. Kia themselves are not able to explain what this is. Sleep mode of some sort is not what Kia has told us but something EV6 owners have come up with. Has happened with at least 7-8 of us. Very random. No specific pattern.
Solution is to lock car, walk away, try after 5-10 mins.
Sure kia, I will do that if there is emergency or panic. I will sit and wait staring at the beauty you have made. Extreme solution- disconnect 12V battery and reset? Sorry but This alone makes me never let my family take the car far away. So much for 700 km range.

4- Jinxed or just bad luck?
Either the Ev6 looks like Tarzan the wonder car for Hyderabadi Bikers, or I just have terrible luck, but god damn these guys come so close, scrape your bumper and run away. Has happened 6-7 times in the last 2 months alone. ALL in traffic and speeds under 20kmph.

I am in no way a sedate calm driver. I have a heavy right foot and this car has never given me over 450 kms. (I am not about to “save” range now, that practice was nonexistent even in an ICE car). But mind boggling that despite all this rash driving, all impacts have been with impatient bikers at low speeds.

5- Front collision Intervention- hate it. It is stupid. I dont need the car to brake every time someone cuts you on Indian roads, which is 2-3 times everyday. I drive usually with this off but this one thing has to be turned off every time you start the car.

6 ABS-
Yes kia has tried to “adjust the setting” for ABS. Reasoning being, Strong region along with braking on bad roads makes ABS kick regardless of speed. What nonsense. IX, MG EV or KONA do NOT do this. Yes the car is damn Quick but this one thing alone makes me Not trust the braking on this car even after 1 full year. A slight bump or bad road will do the job.

7- OTA UPDATES. No OTA like Bmw. You gotta send the car to Kia or download the update on a pen-drive and connect it to the car. Tedious process because it may fail a couple of times. I did it just to try and experience it but will not be bothered to do this again. What if I do something wrong and the car says sorry mate you gotta tow me now. Big nope.

8- TPMS. The Kia Tpms is a joke. To reset it- “fill 3-4 PSI higher than normal” pls KIA go jump in some well. Also if you are unlucky, this may not work and for weeks the error wont go, when, to begin with there was no low pressure. Same issue with Seltos or Carnival. A lot of the owners had low pressure issue but most were good. But always some issue creeping up every 6-7 months. To make it worse, a couple of us have had random air leaks in the car with no visible puncture. Kia managed to fix this and I did not bother to check what the issue was after the first time they said no puncture. Took em 2 days.

9- SEAT ADJUSTMENT- so my driver seat recline adjuster failed in a sense. Seat would go down but not come up. Would work 1 out of 10 times. Kia said they would replace it, ordered the part from Korea, the day of fitment they said we have reprogrammed it, works fine now. Took them 25 days to program it and not replace, however car was at service center for 3 days only, not 25.

THE GOOD

Coming to the Good, after clocking nearly 11000 in a year.
Gotta give It to Kia, they have been extremely prompt with their response and quick with their service.

Things I did to the car

FULL BLACK OUT hell yes. The little chrome on the car, the badges, the wheels.

De-badged the rear completely.

TINTS- 20-30% tints because Hyderabad coppers are annoyingly strict with this now. Took a chance, let’s wait for summer time crackdown to start again.

VESS fuse removed- VESS is Kias “vehicle external sound system. This is what makes EV cars sound like space ships from the outside. And Ev6 has the most annoying and loud Reverse sound. I get the logic, Silent cars need this to warn pedestrians. But who knew a simple fuse and black out will give you bat mobile vibes?

Internal EV sound. Managed to adjust setting and turn this off. Love the silence.


Year 1 service- technically it IS free and you have nothing to do. But I went ahead with AC filter replacement because I have dusty roads on my daily commute, open windows most of the time and AC is usually on even with open windows at low speed. HOWEVER, other owners have told me you can vacuum the filter using a dyson maybe and you do not really need to spend 4K on a filter.

Alignment balancing- based on how I drive on good AND bad roads, I just went for it and turns out there was a bit of adjustment needed. Not a lot but it still did.
Over all 1 year service was 6.7K. some owners out there paid maybe 100-200 to tip pick up and drop off driver but that’s about it.

CLARIFICATIONS AND CORRECTIONS FROM LAST POST

1- I thought Eco mode is MAYBE rear wheel biased but no, it’s always AWD. Your throttle and speed really make a difference with this. From a stand still specially, it’s fully AWD focused. I was wrong with the observation earlier.


2- HUD quality is actually very very average compared to germans. The letters and numbers are not as clear as a 5er or any other German with the option.

3- V2L- yes I can charge another EV or power even a fridge with this car but I have not even taken the adaptor out in 1 year.

BOTTOM LINE

To answer everyones questions and end this post-
The drive on this car is amazing. Ground clearance is more than decent for our roads, specially after driving 330i for 4 years. The car is insanely quick and battery weight really helps it being stable on high speed turns, low center of gravity as they say. The body roll is not bad at all. I personally get a range of max 450. 550 if my family use the car. Over all this car with its acceleration, handling, comfort, tech and practicality make this an extremely good daily. Being an EV, this one has saved me from horrible city water clogging as well.

BUT...

Ev6 is a great car and great eye candy. But this is no German and for 69 lakhs, the lack of quality Does show after a year. Again, this is my opinion. Other Ev6 owners may not feel this way.
What is worse is, even kia India team, specifically EV6 engineers and advisors themselves are very new to a lot of the issues. Not just Hyderabad, but all over India. At least KIA Raidurg HYD team is extremely polite and fast. Their approach balances it out.

I will suggest everyone to buy the car if you are not obsessed with German build and quality. After selling 330i and with M3 out of Bmw India plan for 2024, I will be moving to something else But Ev6 is here to stay.









This after a long EV drive we friends did with Ipace, Ev6, iX and i8






You Can see the first two layers here.


Third Final layer hiding the sub.

[nmn.070]

Thank you for sharing all these details. A number of the issues I noticed in my extended test drive. The seat recline was not coming back up like you mentioned. I found the solution - just keep holding the switch in the forward recline position and it starts moving after 5 seconds. Very frustrating and odd to note that it's a common issue. Definitely the quality of parts do not justify the price. It's a beautiful machine but needs fine tuning which will make this painless to own and run. Looks stunning the way you have it! Congratulations on the 1st year of ownership. I'm moving from a 9 year old 328i to the ev6/Volvo c40. Mostly the Volvo is my choice when I go ahead and book in January.

[shankar.balan]

Don't want to hijack your thread but I test drove the Kia EV6 AWD GT Line today just now and my Dad and I felt like a couple.of Fighter Pilots afterwards!

Honestly it is somewhere else entirely. A totally Different Planet. My only experience with EV's until today is having test driven a Tesla once in the US and once in AU - some years ago. So while I may tease people about EV’s now, one fine day not too far into the future, I may very well become a convert.

Everything about this Kia EV6 screams Quality and finish and finesse. Re-familiarising myself with the whole EV experience and its linear power delivery and 'jet fighter-like' G Forces on Sports Mode and all, made for an amazing feeling indeed.

[14000rpm]

Originally Posted by CarbonFume

Hi all,

Posting after a really long to help out everyone know more about the EV6.

This is indeed the best real-world review of the EV6. Thanks for the posts. KIA has indeed made a stonking product.

Originally Posted by CarbonFume

1 - Music system - The Meridian music system is pathetic. They are all too hyped up at Kia about the "3D Meridian surround sound system",

The world of Car Audio is all over the place. literally.
I have a Meridian 3D Surround Sound System in my car - a Range Rover. It is a simply amazing setup. The best outside of a Rolls Royce Phantom in which I had a seat once. That's how much I love the OEM setup I have.

Now, regardless of it being Meridien, B&W, Bose, Harman Kardon or Burmeister the Component selections and their tuning plays a huge role in the SQ. OEM's want the appeal of the label of name brands in Audio companies but will not hesitate to compromise on the choice of components and the price they pay for it since the target selling price is already frozen.

The B&W on my neighbors XC90 Inscription sounds very good. However, the B&W setup on my friends 2023 XC90 Ultimate sounds thrash in comparison.

Originally Posted by CarbonFume

2- Spare wheel- other Ev6 owners, particularly one from Hyderabad has managed to get all weather mats and spare wheel from KIA USA. What happened to Kia India?

The infamous KIA chaos. KIA seems to have country specific supply chains that don't talk to each other. I've suffered a lot when I had imported my KIA Sorento from US to Finland and needed parts. KIA brand manager for Finland was completely helpless and could not even influence KIA Finland to import for me. In the end, I imported the parts myself. It is pathetic. The Sorento has left my garage and so has the pain.