Why this e-car is leaving German brands behind
The race for the car of the year 2022 has been decided: the clear winner is the electric car Kia EV6. The Kia thus asserts itself among other things against European competitors and drives out of competition with German electric models. There are several good reasons for this.
Kia EV6 – the best car of 2022
Kia wins Car of the Year 2022 title with the new electric car EV6. For the first time, the e-SUV takes first place for a model from South Korea and thus also for Kia itself. The e-car impressed with, among other things, “pleasant performance”, modern safety features and the high charging capacity with 800 V technology.
The members of the jury also emphasized the comfort as well as the long range and a compatibility and networking that has not existed before (source: car of the year). A A particular advantage of the Kia EV6 is the powerful charging technology, which is currently only found in significantly more expensive e-cars. This is not yet the case with the German competition, such as the ID.4, but it does not yet work perfectly in winter, as our colleague Peter Hryciuk found out in the test of the Kia EV6. Nevertheless, for him the model is “the best car I’ve ever driven”.
The Renault Mégane E-Tech Electric came in second not far behind the Kia, but the result is clear. While the EV6 collected a total of 279 points and 12 votes as the best car, the French electric car managed 265 points.
German manufacturers can learn something from Korean electric cars
With the Hyundai Ioniq 5, the group brother of the Kia also gets a place on the podium, it’s enough for bronze (261 points). The result makes it clear: When it comes to e-cars, you have to reckon with the Koreans – and German manufacturers can take a good example from the figureheads of Kia and Hyundai. This was already shown by the list of finalists, in which German brands were not represented at all. With Cupra Born and Skoda Enyaq iV, two models from the Volkswagen Group were shortlisted, but ultimately failed to impress.
This year’s vote for Car of the Year by the jury, which normally consists of 61 specialist journalists from Europe, was also influenced by the current situation in Ukraine: The Votes of the two Russian jury members were not counted. However, this should not have had any effect on the result (source: FAZ).
