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Kia EV6 Smashes Tesla's World Record

141 points by CRConrad 5y ago

andy0x2a 5y ago
I think the real winner here is consumers. As the more competition in the space the better. The article doesn't have a lot of details, but it would be interesting to know how long ago the Tesla set that record, as they continuously improve on their vehicles.
rich_sasha 5y ago
I’m sure there will be rotation in the leader place. I’m just glad there are now other brands matching the performance of Teslas. Their marketing and brand image, so popular with many people, are total anathema to me. I’m not in the market now but can’t see myself getting a Tesla.
- freshpots 5y ago
  Good for you.
- pmcollins 5y ago
  How Tesla Spends $0 on Advertising: https://www.themarketingish.com/newsletter/tesla-advertising https://www.themarketingish.com/newsletter/tesla-advertising
  - boublepop 5y ago
    Saying a company that literally sent a car into space has a zero dollar advertising budget is just a combination of Hollywood accounting and delusion.
    - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
      And this is how we know article has not been read Very early in the article > To clarify before we begin, advertising and marketing are not the same thing. According to the American Marketing Association marketing is “the process of identifying customer needs and determining how to best meet those needs.” In contrast, “advertising is the exercise of promoting a company and its products or services through paid channels.” Yes, Tesla does spend money on marketing albeit significantly less than the competition. For instance, in 2015 Tesla spent $58.3 million on marketing when competitors like BMW spent $196.6 million. They needed to put mass into space, might as well make it funny
      - kabes 5y ago
        How can you compare these absolute numbers? In 2015 BMW had 25 times more revenue than Tesla, and only spend 4 times as much as Tesla on marketing. So in relative terms Tesla is spending way more
        hervature 5y ago
        I assume they are long $TSLA. In my experience, they pick whatever comparison is convenient for their narrative. Absolute in cases such as this and relative for growth numbers.
        judge2020 5y ago
        Marketing seems to be largely not correlated with revenue/sales, besides things like buying the badges to put on cars.
        kabes 5y ago
        Source?
        judge2020 5y ago
        I should say marketing expenses minus advertising - There's a base price you must spend on marketing, eg. tesla.com could be seen as a marketing expense since it's the final selling point before someone puts down a reservation fee, along with the obvious "every car needs the T emblems which cost $0.90 per car". My point is that Tesla can achieve the same revenue levels without necessitating a 4x increase in marketing spend.
    - jhgb 5y ago
      Tesla didn't send a car into space. SpaceX did. And since SpaceX needed to send something on the new Falcon Heavy's test flight, and nobody was willing to trust an actual satellite or space probe to it, I wonder how you could even place a budget on it. It was just a glorified mass simulator.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Tesla is the one that supplied the VIN 686 roadster (~109k opportunity cost) but enormously benefitted from the marketing and social media crazy of launching a car into space and having a website dedicated to tracking it (they don't even pay to run this; lucky TSLA) https://www.whereisroadster.com/ https://www.whereisroadster.com/
        jhgb 5y ago
        You mean Musk -- the vehicle's private owner and user -- personally supplied it?
        judge2020 5y ago
        Musk's personal roadster was VIN 1, so while the rumors are that this was his daily driver Roadster (which would make sense since it looks like a 2.0 with 2.5 stuff in it), it came free from Tesla either way.
        jhgb 5y ago
        So he had multiple of them, cool. It was his personal property when he donated it for the purpose. So no Tesla involvement was necessary. Not quite sure how it's relevant how he'd previously acquired it unless Tesla commanded him to use it in a specific way.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- baby 5y ago
  I mean, they make dope cars.
- gameswithgo 5y ago
  Nobody is hitting the same range / power / price points as Tesla yet, but they are creeping up on it. Next gen model y may put them ahead some more though.
  - marsokod 5y ago
    The EV6 and the Ioniq 5 are at the same level as the Model Y. They charge as fast, if not faster, are slightly cheaper (at least on the UK market) and have a better range.
akmarinov 5y ago
The EV6 has a lot of things equivalent Teslas don’t offer - cooled seats, 360 view cameras, Apple Carplay/Android Auto and it offers similar performance.
- spaceisballer 5y ago
  Not a big fan of the styling of the car but I am interested. No price listed anywhere I can find so we will see how that all pans out. If someone would make an electric car with the space inside of a minivan, I would be very interested. Instead the market is all about giant SUVs, which are big but not a lot of space inside.
  - sp332 5y ago
    It will be around $40-45k. The fully loaded limited edition ones are $58,500.
  - radicalbyte 5y ago
    It looks a lot better in real life - the only issue is that it's too small for us... but then so is the Model 3 and this is a Model 3 competitor.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  The vehicle to load capability is nice too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlfsRk21TU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlfsRk21TU It's a feature of Hyundai's E-GMP platform cars (Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Genesis GV60).
  - darkwater 5y ago
    I put my eyes on the Ioniq 5 but I think its aerodynamics are worse than the EV6 (but I have no numbers and I'm not an expert). Anyway this record is about charging time, not energy usage. E-GMP supports fast load with 350kW chargers, and I'm pretty sure that, being a benchmark, they used all the tricks up in their sleeves.
alfor 5y ago
It would be very surprising that this represent real world experience. Tesla supercharger are everywhere and work well across the board, that is not the same experience with most fast DC charger. I think the the real world experience is the inverse of what the article suggest. Kia and Hyundai will make good competition on the low end
- somehnacct3757 5y ago
  I've driven across the US a bunch with the goal of getting it over with as soon as possible, and I have no idea how you would do it in a way that doesn't constitute real world experience. It's mostly driving in a straight line on open road for hours upon hours. There's little room for divergent experiences. Also the Guinness record they beat was Tesla's old record so even if the test wasn't an accurate representation of real life, Tesla still underperformed Kia in those conditions.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Knowing Musk, I’d expect Tesla to regain the record. Obsessive people want to win, and Tesla’s vehicles and Supercharger network could support the charge rate required for a dedicated run.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    If your real world objective is indeed "getting it over with as soon as possible", then I don't see how you could say that Tesla's 2.4 day long trip "underperformed" Kia's 7 day long trip.
  - alfor 5y ago
    It’s all about the experience of fast charging. - Do you find a charger near you - Does it work? - Does it charge your particular vehicle fast? The rest is regular driving at mandated speed, nothing special with that. Most DC fast charger have been a clusterfuck so far, with the exception of Tesla that control all of their system. For sure it does represent only a tiny fraction of real world usage who is mostly to use your EV fully charged from home for daily commute.
- 5y ago
ethagknight 5y ago
Article is devoid of any detail, technical or factual. No sources.
- clouddrover 5y ago
  If you want some detail then here's a charging comparison of five EVs, including the Kia EV6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J46mG7I78Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J46mG7I78Q
  - ajross 5y ago
    Indeed, Nyland is an absolute gold mine for this stuff. And indeed: 800V CCS cars tend to beat Teslas by 10-20% overall at time-on-the-charger. It's a good architecture, if not a huge deal (it also pays benefits with lighter and cheaper cabling at the charger). Swapping pack voltage is somewhat of a compatibility hassle, but I'd expect Tesla to try to follow this at some point in the coming years.
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Does anyone know how it did this? The article of course gives no specifics. Is it more efficient? Faster charging?
- pornel 5y ago
  Fast charging. Hyundai's E-GMP platform that EV6 is built on uses 800V and supports charging at 230kW. They advertise 18 minutes to go from 10% to 80%.
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    Oh wow nice. I wish the Tesla had that. We just have to leave it at home when we go on long trips. :( It’s hard to justify adding like five hours to our trip. Just have to take the old Prius.
    - natch 5y ago
      Sounds like you might not know how to charge properly. I’ve discovered that a lot of Tesla owners don’t. Five hours, for how many miles of a trip? Edit: Or maybe you did not buy the long range model, in which case you are forced to charge up into the top of the range, where charging is slowest. Yeah that’s bad.
      - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
        Lol open with the attack ok. I assure you, I know how to charge properly haha. 2021 SR+ Model 3 and 12 hour drive turns into 17 hours when I did the trip planning for our last vacation using the Tesla trip planner. Believe me, I wanted it to work out.
        manmal 5y ago
        The Kia would probably take 2h or so to charge if you manage to find 800V chargers - would that actually work for you?
gandalfian 5y ago
Traveling USA coast to coast a Kia spent about 7 hours of travel time charging whereas a Tesla in an earlier trip spent about 12 hours. Whether this means chargers have gotten faster or cars are charging faster or something else is hard to tell.
- dogsgobork 5y ago
  Someone did a cannonball run in a Tesla in October, and also only charged for about 7 hours on their coast to coast run. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-record-tesla-model-s/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-re...
- jinto36 5y ago
  And it could easily be that the Tesla was driven faster, and thus with less regard to how much range they could get between charges.
- manmal 5y ago
  The Kia has an 800V charging system so it's bound to charge way faster than most 400V systems (like Tesla's) as long as the charger supports it (which Kia certainly made sure of while planning the route for this trip). 800V charging is certainly rare and super expensive right now - e.g. Ionity in Europe charges 79 cents per kWh, which is 4+ times more expensive than charging at home - but eventually it should become standard.
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    Well, the charging speed is about watts, not volts. On a 400V system you simply need to pull more amps. power = amps * volts. 800V allows cheaper cabling, but that has nothing to do with the charging rate of the battery cells.
    - theluketaylor 5y ago
      CCS has a 500 amp cap in the spec, so here is a limit to how fast 400V batteries can be charged on public infrastructure. Going to 800V removes that limitation as well. Tesla doesn’t care since they control everything and can ramp up the amps, but all other cars that want to charge more than 200 kW need to have higher voltage batteries.
account-5 5y ago
And the cost? The only thing I care about in cars is the cost and how far it drives. The cost and distance between charges (obviously infrastructure comes into this) is why I don't own an electric car.
- pornel 5y ago
  EV6 price is in the same ballpark as Model 3. EVs have a higher initial cost, but the cost per mile is low. Even in the U.S. with relatively cheap gas and expensive electricity, EV is still cheaper per mile. In Europe it's a bargain, especially if you can charge at home using off-peak/night tariff.
  - account-5 5y ago
    I bought my current car 5 years ago second hand outright for £12k. These cars are at least £35k out of my price range and are about half the cost of my house. I'm not rich. Until these cars are more reasonably priced (up front cost) the majority of people can't afford to buy them regardless of their range or potential saving on fuel.
    - Tagbert 5y ago
      You really can't fairly compare cost between new and used. EVs have been around long enough now that you could find a used Leaf, Tesla, or some others that would be in that price range. Currently prices are still high because most manufacturers are addressing range by adding larger batteries. They have been able to do that because the price of batteries has been dropping year over year. As the battery costs continue to get lower, the auto manufacturers will be able to start bringing out models with a lower initial cost. Prior to this, the market for EVs has been small so the manufacturers have had to focus on higher margin, premium vehicles. As the market expands, the increase in volume will let them bring out models in the more affordable price points.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        > EVs have been around long enough now that you could find a used Leaf, Tesla, or some others that would be in that price range. At least in a regular market; the used market right now is one where Teslas appreciate in value, since buying a new one is likely to be 1-2 years out[0]. Deliveries will likely be normalized for 3/Y within the next year as Gigafactory Texas comes online. 0: https://electrek.co/2021/10/22/tesla-hikes-model-3-model-y-prices-again-deliveries-slip/ https://electrek.co/2021/10/22/tesla-hikes-model-3-model-y-p...
kjksf 5y ago
I just finished 2k+ california => florida road trip in an electric car and can say with confidence that this comparison is total and utter garbage. Here are the factors that influence your total charge time. 1. Charger speeds vary from 50 kWh to 250 kWh. That's 5x difference just based on what charger you'll happen to use. 2. The energy usage (due to air resistance) is non-linear with speed. Driving at 85 mph could use twice as much energy as driving at 65 mph. How fast you drive will have an enormous effect on how much energy you use and therefore how much you'll need to recharge during the trip. In extreme case, you can hypermile i.e. drive very slowly. For example someone in 2018 Model 3 did 606 miles on a single charge (a car rated at less than 300 miles). It just took them 32 hrs because they drove so slowly (https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17405906/tesla-model-3-hypermilling-driving-record https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17405906/tesla-model-3-hy...) BTW: this is why EPA range is not representative. Their test is at 65 mph while my un-scientific observation of highway driving tells me people drive at least 75 mph. 3. Details of recharging matter because it's non-linear. Charging to 80% of battery takes roughly the same amount of time as charging remaining 20% to 100% 3. More people in car => more weight => more energy usage. Use a/c? More energy usage. Strong winds? More energy usage. Driving uphill? More energy usage. The point is that unless you strictly control for all those factors, any comparison is useless garbage, just like this click bait article with zero information about how the test was done. Those days you can't even trust car magazines to do a decent comparison test. If you want fair and scientific comparisons between various electric cars, Bjorn Nyland is your guy https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/videos
- thinkmassive 5y ago
  Nit: kWh measures energy (battery capacity), and kW measures power (charger output ) Tesla Superchargers are 250 kW. Tesla Destination Chargers (and probably the majority of other EV chargers) are 50 kW.
- lrem 5y ago
  > BTW: this is why EPA range is not representative. Their test is at 65 mph while my un-scientific observation of highway driving tells me people drive at least 75 mph. Wait, is this really the speed of long-distance driving in the US? I've just did the conversion and when I'm taking kids to see their grandma, we set the cruise control to 110mph for the most part.
bastardoperator 5y ago
And this yesterday/today: Tesla ranks almost dead-last on Consumer Reports reliability list https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-last-Consumer-Reports-16632996.php https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-... "issues with “heat pumps, air conditioning” and notoriously, misaligned panels. It’s also worth noting that Tesla’s Model X ranked dead-last among all cars for reliability, scoring a 5 out of 100." I'm wondering if Elon will lash out on twitter or be mean to elderly folks with all this bad news coming his way.
- convery 5y ago
  Not to defend the company, but degraded performance of the AC (which they cover under warranty) is probably not what most think of when they hear "reliability"..
  - nobrains 5y ago
    In hot areas they do. AC reliability is a serious decision maker in vehicle buying decision in hot geographies.
    - cma 5y ago
      Teslas require AC when parked in some year ranges because they didn't use automotive-grade touchscreens (which began delaminating). This then apparently started making some accumulate mold in the AC system somehow.
  - justapassenger 5y ago
    Drivetrain failures on modern cars are much less common, ICE or EV. Reliability nowadays is mostly about things like AC and all the tech on the cars. I’ve had friends lemon cars over rattling and squeak or radio cutting off randomly, that service wasn’t able to fix. My car is reliable, as in, it drives, applies nowadays mostly to old beaters, that you buy only to drive and fix anything with a duct tape.
    - 5y ago
jedberg 5y ago
This article talks about their new electric sedan and future SUV. And here I am still waiting on electric minivan. I regularly have to carry six people around, two of which are children and two of which are elderly, so I can't use anything that requires climbing to get into the seats (like every six seat SUV). Am I really that small of a market that no one wants to make an electric minivan, or is it a technologically difficult problem?
- the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
  I'm with you there. I tried all the currently available vans (Mercedes V Class, eVito, Opel Zafira Life (and related models)) and nothing so far I enjoy. Hoping the ID.Buzz is going to be a reasonable replacement for our current Diesel Minivan.
- dangoor 5y ago
  Not fully electric, but there is a plugin hybrid minivan: https://www.chrysler.com/pacifica/hybrid.html https://www.chrysler.com/pacifica/hybrid.html
  - jedberg 5y ago
    I actually almost bought that instead of my current minivan, but the build quality on it wasn't very good and more importantly it's all electric range was tiny (like 30 miles).
    - dangoor 5y ago
      Definitely depends on your driving patterns. I had a Prius Prime with a similar range and did the vast majority of my driving on electric (and quite appreciated the gas engine with 50mpg when I was driving longer distances).
    - slaw 5y ago
      Did you actually drove one? Or you just read somewhere about build quality?
ajross 5y ago
Weird seeing this ranked so high. The record in this situation isn't anything anyone has tried to "beat" before, nor is it something anyone called a "record" until Kia tried. In fact it's just a side note from a six year old press hit Tesla did where they drove a Model S across the country in like 60 hours or something. And while doing so, it spent twelve hours on chargers. (Again, this was back in the days of the 75 kW v1 supercharger). Well, Kia dusted that off and drove their new car across the country. And they took a week to do it, but in the process it was only being charged for seven hours. To be fair: 800V cars do indeed charge faster! It seems like a nice car. But this is just silly.
- judge2020 5y ago
  This is because Guinness offers "consulting" services to companies that want to break records for PR, where they find records only one person/company has done before that's easy to break. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/the-application-process/consultancy https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/the-application...
  - CRConrad 5y ago
    Didn't know that. Well, seems it's pretty effective: at least I fell for it.
speedgoose 5y ago
I was very interested to buy a Ioniq 5 / Kia EV6 until I saw the software. It felt like something from another time, that was accepted on cheap Android tablets but for sure not on brand new cars.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  Are there any auto manufacturers that produce really good software? A few have better design, but even then the hardware is so low spec that the interfaces are laggy.
  - speedgoose 5y ago
    The BMW software can be a bit laggy but I personally think it's very fine to use. I'm also happy about the Tesla software. It's not as smooth as an iPad pro, it runs on a shit Intel atom, but it's very good for a car. I also heard good things about Android running on the Polestar 2 or the future Renault Mégane.
    - hesdeadjim 5y ago
      Compared to most other car software, BMW is pretty decent. But it’s still archaic compared to a Tesla. I’m very much looking forward to being done with my X3 and moving on to a Y.
throwawaysea 5y ago
Is it possible to do something like put a gas generator on a tow hitch platform and charge as you drive for a longer range extension? I am guessing the manufacturers don’t let you charge as you drive but I am curious if there are theoretical blockers to this.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  what you are describing is a PHEV (plugin hybrid electric vehicle). The Chevy Volt and Toyota RAV4 Prime are examples of that. Those vehicles are intended to address range anxiety, not charging speed. Trying to do it with a Mickey Mouse contraption like a generator in a trailer would likely be inefficient and inconvenient compared to an integrated system like a PHEV. Generators are not as efficient as just getting electricity directly from power lines. PHEV's engines are there to power the vehicle when the battery is depleted. they don't try to recharge the battery as that would cost more than just plugging in on a charger.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    >they don't try to recharge the battery as that would cost more than just plugging in on a charger. I always assumed they had regenerative braking.
    - Tagbert 5y ago
      The do, but that doesn’t add all that much back into the battery.
jgilias 5y ago
I wonder why they call KIA a newcomer to the EV market, given that Kia Soul EV has been around since 2014.
- willvarfar 5y ago
  They could mean that the EV6 is the first made-to-be-electric Kia? Previous were ICE cars retrofitted to support hybrid and electric-only versions. The electric-only versions still have the transmission tunnel and other leftovers from their heritage.
minhazm 5y ago
This is a good achievement by Kia. However I'm surprised that no one is pointing out that the Tesla record is from 2015 in a Model S 85D[1]. The Model S 85D had an EPA estimated range of 265 miles and the maximum charging rate was 125 kw. It would be far more interesting if this was done again with a 2021 Model Y which has a range of 330 miles and can charge at up to 250 kw, and is physically closer to the Kia EV6 in size. 1. https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us/ https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us...
- aeternum 5y ago
  It also looks like this was a pre-production model. It's very easy to change the charging params and achieve super fast charging if you sacrifice some battery health/longevity.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Also, apparently while the Kia took 7 days to do this trip, the old trip took 59 hours: https://jalopnik.com/they-drove-a-tesla-from-la-to-new-york-in-a-record-58-h-1699782187 https://jalopnik.com/they-drove-a-tesla-from-la-to-new-york-... . The different speed might account for some of the charging difference as well. In any case saving five hours of charging to lose over four days on the road seems like a weird trade-off. EDIT: BTW someone predicted results for different cars using ABRP: https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/qwnsa1/kia_ev6_takes_fastcharging_record/hl4qvag/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/qwnsa1/ki... All cars on the list should be able to do the trip in under two days. Furthermore, median predicted charging time is seven hours as well. The best results could be under six hours.
renewiltord 5y ago
One fascinating law I’ve observed is that if headlines like “X beats Y at thing” are very popular, then no one wants X and everyone wants Y.
bwanab 5y ago
This is fishy. Not that I doubt it did indeed happen, but my experience is that finding non-Tesla high speed chargers on a road trip ranges from tricky and inconvenient to impossible. From that, I conclude that this was a well researched stunt using a specific route that had such a population of such chargers. I’m pretty sure that if the challenge were presented that assigned a specific, random route across the country, a Tesla would win easily given the ubiquity of their charger network.
- loser777 5y ago
  Tesla’s charging network is now open to other vehicle types.
  - abc_lisper 5y ago
    not in US yet, practically speaking
ed_balls 5y ago
Meta: Anyone owns a 10 years old model S? What is the range of battery? I wanted to buy a used electric car, but 10 years Nissan Leaf has 40km of range, which is not enough.

141 points by CRConrad 5y ago

I think the real winner here is consumers. As the more competition in the space the better. The article doesn't have a lot of details, but it would be interesting to know how long ago the Tesla set that record, as they continuously improve on their vehicles.

rich_sasha 5y ago

I’m sure there will be rotation in the leader place. I’m just glad there are now other brands matching the performance of Teslas. Their marketing and brand image, so popular with many people, are total anathema to me. I’m not in the market now but can’t see myself getting a Tesla.

freshpots 5y ago
Good for you.
pmcollins 5y ago
How Tesla Spends $0 on Advertising: https://www.themarketingish.com/newsletter/tesla-advertising https://www.themarketingish.com/newsletter/tesla-advertising
- boublepop 5y ago
  Saying a company that literally sent a car into space has a zero dollar advertising budget is just a combination of Hollywood accounting and delusion.
  - NikolaeVarius 5y ago
    And this is how we know article has not been read Very early in the article > To clarify before we begin, advertising and marketing are not the same thing. According to the American Marketing Association marketing is “the process of identifying customer needs and determining how to best meet those needs.” In contrast, “advertising is the exercise of promoting a company and its products or services through paid channels.” Yes, Tesla does spend money on marketing albeit significantly less than the competition. For instance, in 2015 Tesla spent $58.3 million on marketing when competitors like BMW spent $196.6 million. They needed to put mass into space, might as well make it funny
    - kabes 5y ago
      How can you compare these absolute numbers? In 2015 BMW had 25 times more revenue than Tesla, and only spend 4 times as much as Tesla on marketing. So in relative terms Tesla is spending way more
      - hervature 5y ago
        I assume they are long $TSLA. In my experience, they pick whatever comparison is convenient for their narrative. Absolute in cases such as this and relative for growth numbers.
      - judge2020 5y ago
        Marketing seems to be largely not correlated with revenue/sales, besides things like buying the badges to put on cars.
        kabes 5y ago
        Source?
        judge2020 5y ago
        I should say marketing expenses minus advertising - There's a base price you must spend on marketing, eg. tesla.com could be seen as a marketing expense since it's the final selling point before someone puts down a reservation fee, along with the obvious "every car needs the T emblems which cost $0.90 per car". My point is that Tesla can achieve the same revenue levels without necessitating a 4x increase in marketing spend.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Tesla didn't send a car into space. SpaceX did. And since SpaceX needed to send something on the new Falcon Heavy's test flight, and nobody was willing to trust an actual satellite or space probe to it, I wonder how you could even place a budget on it. It was just a glorified mass simulator.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      Tesla is the one that supplied the VIN 686 roadster (~109k opportunity cost) but enormously benefitted from the marketing and social media crazy of launching a car into space and having a website dedicated to tracking it (they don't even pay to run this; lucky TSLA) https://www.whereisroadster.com/ https://www.whereisroadster.com/
      - jhgb 5y ago
        You mean Musk -- the vehicle's private owner and user -- personally supplied it?
        judge2020 5y ago
        Musk's personal roadster was VIN 1, so while the rumors are that this was his daily driver Roadster (which would make sense since it looks like a 2.0 with 2.5 stuff in it), it came free from Tesla either way.
        jhgb 5y ago
        So he had multiple of them, cool. It was his personal property when he donated it for the purpose. So no Tesla involvement was necessary. Not quite sure how it's relevant how he'd previously acquired it unless Tesla commanded him to use it in a specific way.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
baby 5y ago
I mean, they make dope cars.
gameswithgo 5y ago
Nobody is hitting the same range / power / price points as Tesla yet, but they are creeping up on it. Next gen model y may put them ahead some more though.
- marsokod 5y ago
  The EV6 and the Ioniq 5 are at the same level as the Model Y. They charge as fast, if not faster, are slightly cheaper (at least on the UK market) and have a better range.

akmarinov 5y ago

The EV6 has a lot of things equivalent Teslas don’t offer - cooled seats, 360 view cameras, Apple Carplay/Android Auto and it offers similar performance.

spaceisballer 5y ago
Not a big fan of the styling of the car but I am interested. No price listed anywhere I can find so we will see how that all pans out. If someone would make an electric car with the space inside of a minivan, I would be very interested. Instead the market is all about giant SUVs, which are big but not a lot of space inside.
- sp332 5y ago
  It will be around $40-45k. The fully loaded limited edition ones are $58,500.
- radicalbyte 5y ago
  It looks a lot better in real life - the only issue is that it's too small for us... but then so is the Model 3 and this is a Model 3 competitor.
clouddrover 5y ago
The vehicle to load capability is nice too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlfsRk21TU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AlfsRk21TU It's a feature of Hyundai's E-GMP platform cars (Kia EV6, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Genesis GV60).
- darkwater 5y ago
  I put my eyes on the Ioniq 5 but I think its aerodynamics are worse than the EV6 (but I have no numbers and I'm not an expert). Anyway this record is about charging time, not energy usage. E-GMP supports fast load with 350kW chargers, and I'm pretty sure that, being a benchmark, they used all the tricks up in their sleeves.

alfor 5y ago

It would be very surprising that this represent real world experience. Tesla supercharger are everywhere and work well across the board, that is not the same experience with most fast DC charger. I think the the real world experience is the inverse of what the article suggest. Kia and Hyundai will make good competition on the low end

somehnacct3757 5y ago
I've driven across the US a bunch with the goal of getting it over with as soon as possible, and I have no idea how you would do it in a way that doesn't constitute real world experience. It's mostly driving in a straight line on open road for hours upon hours. There's little room for divergent experiences. Also the Guinness record they beat was Tesla's old record so even if the test wasn't an accurate representation of real life, Tesla still underperformed Kia in those conditions.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Knowing Musk, I’d expect Tesla to regain the record. Obsessive people want to win, and Tesla’s vehicles and Supercharger network could support the charge rate required for a dedicated run.
- jhgb 5y ago
  If your real world objective is indeed "getting it over with as soon as possible", then I don't see how you could say that Tesla's 2.4 day long trip "underperformed" Kia's 7 day long trip.
- alfor 5y ago
  It’s all about the experience of fast charging. - Do you find a charger near you - Does it work? - Does it charge your particular vehicle fast? The rest is regular driving at mandated speed, nothing special with that. Most DC fast charger have been a clusterfuck so far, with the exception of Tesla that control all of their system. For sure it does represent only a tiny fraction of real world usage who is mostly to use your EV fully charged from home for daily commute.
5y ago

ethagknight 5y ago

Article is devoid of any detail, technical or factual. No sources.

clouddrover 5y ago
If you want some detail then here's a charging comparison of five EVs, including the Kia EV6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J46mG7I78Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J46mG7I78Q
- ajross 5y ago
  Indeed, Nyland is an absolute gold mine for this stuff. And indeed: 800V CCS cars tend to beat Teslas by 10-20% overall at time-on-the-charger. It's a good architecture, if not a huge deal (it also pays benefits with lighter and cheaper cabling at the charger). Swapping pack voltage is somewhat of a compatibility hassle, but I'd expect Tesla to try to follow this at some point in the coming years.

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

Does anyone know how it did this? The article of course gives no specifics. Is it more efficient? Faster charging?

pornel 5y ago
Fast charging. Hyundai's E-GMP platform that EV6 is built on uses 800V and supports charging at 230kW. They advertise 18 minutes to go from 10% to 80%.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  Oh wow nice. I wish the Tesla had that. We just have to leave it at home when we go on long trips. :( It’s hard to justify adding like five hours to our trip. Just have to take the old Prius.
  - natch 5y ago
    Sounds like you might not know how to charge properly. I’ve discovered that a lot of Tesla owners don’t. Five hours, for how many miles of a trip? Edit: Or maybe you did not buy the long range model, in which case you are forced to charge up into the top of the range, where charging is slowest. Yeah that’s bad.
    - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
      Lol open with the attack ok. I assure you, I know how to charge properly haha. 2021 SR+ Model 3 and 12 hour drive turns into 17 hours when I did the trip planning for our last vacation using the Tesla trip planner. Believe me, I wanted it to work out.
      - manmal 5y ago
        The Kia would probably take 2h or so to charge if you manage to find 800V chargers - would that actually work for you?

gandalfian 5y ago

Traveling USA coast to coast a Kia spent about 7 hours of travel time charging whereas a Tesla in an earlier trip spent about 12 hours. Whether this means chargers have gotten faster or cars are charging faster or something else is hard to tell.

dogsgobork 5y ago
Someone did a cannonball run in a Tesla in October, and also only charged for about 7 hours on their coast to coast run. https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-record-tesla-model-s/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a38095522/ev-cannonball-re...
jinto36 5y ago
And it could easily be that the Tesla was driven faster, and thus with less regard to how much range they could get between charges.
manmal 5y ago
The Kia has an 800V charging system so it's bound to charge way faster than most 400V systems (like Tesla's) as long as the charger supports it (which Kia certainly made sure of while planning the route for this trip). 800V charging is certainly rare and super expensive right now - e.g. Ionity in Europe charges 79 cents per kWh, which is 4+ times more expensive than charging at home - but eventually it should become standard.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  Well, the charging speed is about watts, not volts. On a 400V system you simply need to pull more amps. power = amps * volts. 800V allows cheaper cabling, but that has nothing to do with the charging rate of the battery cells.
  - theluketaylor 5y ago
    CCS has a 500 amp cap in the spec, so here is a limit to how fast 400V batteries can be charged on public infrastructure. Going to 800V removes that limitation as well. Tesla doesn’t care since they control everything and can ramp up the amps, but all other cars that want to charge more than 200 kW need to have higher voltage batteries.

account-5 5y ago

And the cost? The only thing I care about in cars is the cost and how far it drives. The cost and distance between charges (obviously infrastructure comes into this) is why I don't own an electric car.

pornel 5y ago
EV6 price is in the same ballpark as Model 3. EVs have a higher initial cost, but the cost per mile is low. Even in the U.S. with relatively cheap gas and expensive electricity, EV is still cheaper per mile. In Europe it's a bargain, especially if you can charge at home using off-peak/night tariff.
- account-5 5y ago
  I bought my current car 5 years ago second hand outright for £12k. These cars are at least £35k out of my price range and are about half the cost of my house. I'm not rich. Until these cars are more reasonably priced (up front cost) the majority of people can't afford to buy them regardless of their range or potential saving on fuel.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    You really can't fairly compare cost between new and used. EVs have been around long enough now that you could find a used Leaf, Tesla, or some others that would be in that price range. Currently prices are still high because most manufacturers are addressing range by adding larger batteries. They have been able to do that because the price of batteries has been dropping year over year. As the battery costs continue to get lower, the auto manufacturers will be able to start bringing out models with a lower initial cost. Prior to this, the market for EVs has been small so the manufacturers have had to focus on higher margin, premium vehicles. As the market expands, the increase in volume will let them bring out models in the more affordable price points.
    - judge2020 5y ago
      > EVs have been around long enough now that you could find a used Leaf, Tesla, or some others that would be in that price range. At least in a regular market; the used market right now is one where Teslas appreciate in value, since buying a new one is likely to be 1-2 years out[0]. Deliveries will likely be normalized for 3/Y within the next year as Gigafactory Texas comes online. 0: https://electrek.co/2021/10/22/tesla-hikes-model-3-model-y-prices-again-deliveries-slip/ https://electrek.co/2021/10/22/tesla-hikes-model-3-model-y-p...

kjksf 5y ago

I just finished 2k+ california => florida road trip in an electric car and can say with confidence that this comparison is total and utter garbage. Here are the factors that influence your total charge time. 1. Charger speeds vary from 50 kWh to 250 kWh. That's 5x difference just based on what charger you'll happen to use. 2. The energy usage (due to air resistance) is non-linear with speed. Driving at 85 mph could use twice as much energy as driving at 65 mph. How fast you drive will have an enormous effect on how much energy you use and therefore how much you'll need to recharge during the trip. In extreme case, you can hypermile i.e. drive very slowly. For example someone in 2018 Model 3 did 606 miles on a single charge (a car rated at less than 300 miles). It just took them 32 hrs because they drove so slowly (https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17405906/tesla-model-3-hypermilling-driving-record https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/29/17405906/tesla-model-3-hy...) BTW: this is why EPA range is not representative. Their test is at 65 mph while my un-scientific observation of highway driving tells me people drive at least 75 mph. 3. Details of recharging matter because it's non-linear. Charging to 80% of battery takes roughly the same amount of time as charging remaining 20% to 100% 3. More people in car => more weight => more energy usage. Use a/c? More energy usage. Strong winds? More energy usage. Driving uphill? More energy usage. The point is that unless you strictly control for all those factors, any comparison is useless garbage, just like this click bait article with zero information about how the test was done. Those days you can't even trust car magazines to do a decent comparison test. If you want fair and scientific comparisons between various electric cars, Bjorn Nyland is your guy https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland/videos

thinkmassive 5y ago
Nit: kWh measures energy (battery capacity), and kW measures power (charger output ) Tesla Superchargers are 250 kW. Tesla Destination Chargers (and probably the majority of other EV chargers) are 50 kW.
lrem 5y ago
> BTW: this is why EPA range is not representative. Their test is at 65 mph while my un-scientific observation of highway driving tells me people drive at least 75 mph. Wait, is this really the speed of long-distance driving in the US? I've just did the conversion and when I'm taking kids to see their grandma, we set the cruise control to 110mph for the most part.

bastardoperator 5y ago

And this yesterday/today: Tesla ranks almost dead-last on Consumer Reports reliability list https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-last-Consumer-Reports-16632996.php https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Tesla-ranks-almost-dead-... "issues with “heat pumps, air conditioning” and notoriously, misaligned panels. It’s also worth noting that Tesla’s Model X ranked dead-last among all cars for reliability, scoring a 5 out of 100." I'm wondering if Elon will lash out on twitter or be mean to elderly folks with all this bad news coming his way.

convery 5y ago
Not to defend the company, but degraded performance of the AC (which they cover under warranty) is probably not what most think of when they hear "reliability"..
- nobrains 5y ago
  In hot areas they do. AC reliability is a serious decision maker in vehicle buying decision in hot geographies.
  - cma 5y ago
    Teslas require AC when parked in some year ranges because they didn't use automotive-grade touchscreens (which began delaminating). This then apparently started making some accumulate mold in the AC system somehow.
- justapassenger 5y ago
  Drivetrain failures on modern cars are much less common, ICE or EV. Reliability nowadays is mostly about things like AC and all the tech on the cars. I’ve had friends lemon cars over rattling and squeak or radio cutting off randomly, that service wasn’t able to fix. My car is reliable, as in, it drives, applies nowadays mostly to old beaters, that you buy only to drive and fix anything with a duct tape.
  - 5y ago

jedberg 5y ago

This article talks about their new electric sedan and future SUV. And here I am still waiting on electric minivan. I regularly have to carry six people around, two of which are children and two of which are elderly, so I can't use anything that requires climbing to get into the seats (like every six seat SUV). Am I really that small of a market that no one wants to make an electric minivan, or is it a technologically difficult problem?

the_mitsuhiko 5y ago
I'm with you there. I tried all the currently available vans (Mercedes V Class, eVito, Opel Zafira Life (and related models)) and nothing so far I enjoy. Hoping the ID.Buzz is going to be a reasonable replacement for our current Diesel Minivan.
dangoor 5y ago
Not fully electric, but there is a plugin hybrid minivan: https://www.chrysler.com/pacifica/hybrid.html https://www.chrysler.com/pacifica/hybrid.html
- jedberg 5y ago
  I actually almost bought that instead of my current minivan, but the build quality on it wasn't very good and more importantly it's all electric range was tiny (like 30 miles).
  - dangoor 5y ago
    Definitely depends on your driving patterns. I had a Prius Prime with a similar range and did the vast majority of my driving on electric (and quite appreciated the gas engine with 50mpg when I was driving longer distances).
  - slaw 5y ago
    Did you actually drove one? Or you just read somewhere about build quality?

ajross 5y ago

Weird seeing this ranked so high. The record in this situation isn't anything anyone has tried to "beat" before, nor is it something anyone called a "record" until Kia tried. In fact it's just a side note from a six year old press hit Tesla did where they drove a Model S across the country in like 60 hours or something. And while doing so, it spent twelve hours on chargers. (Again, this was back in the days of the 75 kW v1 supercharger). Well, Kia dusted that off and drove their new car across the country. And they took a week to do it, but in the process it was only being charged for seven hours. To be fair: 800V cars do indeed charge faster! It seems like a nice car. But this is just silly.

judge2020 5y ago
This is because Guinness offers "consulting" services to companies that want to break records for PR, where they find records only one person/company has done before that's easy to break. https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/the-application-process/consultancy https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records/the-application...
- CRConrad 5y ago
  Didn't know that. Well, seems it's pretty effective: at least I fell for it.

speedgoose 5y ago

I was very interested to buy a Ioniq 5 / Kia EV6 until I saw the software. It felt like something from another time, that was accepted on cheap Android tablets but for sure not on brand new cars.

Tagbert 5y ago
Are there any auto manufacturers that produce really good software? A few have better design, but even then the hardware is so low spec that the interfaces are laggy.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  The BMW software can be a bit laggy but I personally think it's very fine to use. I'm also happy about the Tesla software. It's not as smooth as an iPad pro, it runs on a shit Intel atom, but it's very good for a car. I also heard good things about Android running on the Polestar 2 or the future Renault Mégane.
  - hesdeadjim 5y ago
    Compared to most other car software, BMW is pretty decent. But it’s still archaic compared to a Tesla. I’m very much looking forward to being done with my X3 and moving on to a Y.

throwawaysea 5y ago

Is it possible to do something like put a gas generator on a tow hitch platform and charge as you drive for a longer range extension? I am guessing the manufacturers don’t let you charge as you drive but I am curious if there are theoretical blockers to this.

Tagbert 5y ago
what you are describing is a PHEV (plugin hybrid electric vehicle). The Chevy Volt and Toyota RAV4 Prime are examples of that. Those vehicles are intended to address range anxiety, not charging speed. Trying to do it with a Mickey Mouse contraption like a generator in a trailer would likely be inefficient and inconvenient compared to an integrated system like a PHEV. Generators are not as efficient as just getting electricity directly from power lines. PHEV's engines are there to power the vehicle when the battery is depleted. they don't try to recharge the battery as that would cost more than just plugging in on a charger.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  >they don't try to recharge the battery as that would cost more than just plugging in on a charger. I always assumed they had regenerative braking.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    The do, but that doesn’t add all that much back into the battery.

jgilias 5y ago

I wonder why they call KIA a newcomer to the EV market, given that Kia Soul EV has been around since 2014.

willvarfar 5y ago
They could mean that the EV6 is the first made-to-be-electric Kia? Previous were ICE cars retrofitted to support hybrid and electric-only versions. The electric-only versions still have the transmission tunnel and other leftovers from their heritage.

minhazm 5y ago

This is a good achievement by Kia. However I'm surprised that no one is pointing out that the Tesla record is from 2015 in a Model S 85D[1]. The Model S 85D had an EPA estimated range of 265 miles and the maximum charging rate was 125 kw. It would be far more interesting if this was done again with a 2021 Model Y which has a range of 330 miles and can charge at up to 250 kw, and is physically closer to the Kia EV6 in size. 1. https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us/ https://insideevs.com/news/548679/kia-ev6-charging-record-us...

aeternum 5y ago
It also looks like this was a pre-production model. It's very easy to change the charging params and achieve super fast charging if you sacrifice some battery health/longevity.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Also, apparently while the Kia took 7 days to do this trip, the old trip took 59 hours: https://jalopnik.com/they-drove-a-tesla-from-la-to-new-york-in-a-record-58-h-1699782187 https://jalopnik.com/they-drove-a-tesla-from-la-to-new-york-... . The different speed might account for some of the charging difference as well. In any case saving five hours of charging to lose over four days on the road seems like a weird trade-off. EDIT: BTW someone predicted results for different cars using ABRP: https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/qwnsa1/kia_ev6_takes_fastcharging_record/hl4qvag/ https://old.reddit.com/r/electricvehicles/comments/qwnsa1/ki... All cars on the list should be able to do the trip in under two days. Furthermore, median predicted charging time is seven hours as well. The best results could be under six hours.

renewiltord 5y ago

One fascinating law I’ve observed is that if headlines like “X beats Y at thing” are very popular, then no one wants X and everyone wants Y.

bwanab 5y ago

This is fishy. Not that I doubt it did indeed happen, but my experience is that finding non-Tesla high speed chargers on a road trip ranges from tricky and inconvenient to impossible. From that, I conclude that this was a well researched stunt using a specific route that had such a population of such chargers. I’m pretty sure that if the challenge were presented that assigned a specific, random route across the country, a Tesla would win easily given the ubiquity of their charger network.

loser777 5y ago
Tesla’s charging network is now open to other vehicle types.
- abc_lisper 5y ago
  not in US yet, practically speaking

ed_balls 5y ago

Meta: Anyone owns a 10 years old model S? What is the range of battery? I wanted to buy a used electric car, but 10 years Nissan Leaf has 40km of range, which is not enough.