Whipping down a narrow, undulating, streamside gravel road in the all-electric Kia EV6, I hit a rate of speed high enough to make my boyfriend clutch the seat bolsters. This is typically the penultimate step before he suggests I slow down, which, given my job test driving scores of sporty cars every year, he does with some regularity. Yet despite maintaining velocity, and sending a rooster tail spray of dust and pebbles worthy of a rally racer, he never felt the need to importune. There’s a reason for this, and it’s one that makes the Kia EV6—particularly the high-end $57,410 all-wheel-drive GT-Line I was driving—an excellent “.”

This is mostly due to the fact that the EV6, like most electric vehicles, carries its motivational force way down in its body. Its motors, one driving the front wheels and one driving the rear, are on the axles, lower than a traditional gasoline-powered engine, whilst outputting a perky 320 HP and an even healthier 446 pound per foot of torque. And its power source—a 77.4 kWh battery, weighing 816 pounds, or about 20 percent of the vehicle’s total mass—is in the floor. All of this lowers the car’s center of gravity considerably over similar soft roaders like the Subaru Crosstrek or my own personal vehicle, the .

This makes the EV6 feel more planted and stable at speed, even if that rapidity is building on an unpaved serpentine, seeking the quickest line over a one-lane bridge.

The EV6 is Kia’s entry into the sporty, battery-operated crossover market, and shares its general scale, profile, and cost with EVs like the Audi A4 e-tron Sportback, Volkswagen iD4, and Ford Mustang Mach-E, though its overall height is lower than any of those, giving it a swoopier profile. It also packs in more features for the money. In this, it’s most akin to its cousin, the Hyundai Ioniq5— of the current crop—with which it shares its underpinnings. (Kia, Genesis, and Hyundai belong to the same Korean industrial colossus.) The EV6 has a couple inches less ground clearance than gas-powered competitors like a Subaru Crosstrek, more akin to the 7 inches of my Golf Alltrack. I would be nervous on craggy or deeply rutted forest trails, but I wouldn’t necessarily avoid them entirely, and with the proper winter tires coupled with the all-wheel-drive, traversing some fresh powder shouldn’t be a problem.

The Ioniq5 has a more cut muscularity than the brawny EV6, which appears bulbous and swole. But with a slightly shorter wheelbase, and sharper suspension tuning, the Kia feels a titch sportier. Though both accelerate from 0 to 60 MPH in a speedy 4.5 seconds, accompanied by piped-in soundtracks reminiscent of an eighties video game, the Kia holds the road with more aplomb and intent. It also sports an advantage in total range, providing 274 miles on a charge versus 256. But while it shares the same prodigious passenger volume as its stablemate—front and rear seats provide limousine-like legroom—and is a bit longer overall, its rounded and steeply raked rear end means it concedes some cargo capacity.

Sadly, even when relinquishing control to Apple CarPlay, which mirrored my phone on the central touch-screen display, I struggled with the Kia’s infotainment system. A narrow, dual-function dash display sports a row of small virtual haptic switches that toggle between basic functions—like audio and navigation—and heater and air conditioning inputs. But moving between the two requires the push of a tiny arrow button. While the display can be set to default to one or the other function, regular access to both while driving is actually necessary, so finding and dealing with either requires taking one’s eyes off the road for a frustratingly dangerous amount of time. The whole thing was unintuitive: I had to text a Kia rep to figure out how to access the volume knob.

In addition, the center console between the front seats, where one’s hand rests naturally when poking the display, hosts an additional row of touch-sensitive buttons that activate the seat and steering wheel heaters and seat coolers. While these are welcome features at this price-point, I triggered them accidentally every time I made an adjustment. Being surprised by either when the external temperature doesn’t warrant their activation is as startling as spilling a hot or cold drink in one’s lap. These may seem like tiny details, but it’s annoyances like this that can make someone fall out of love with a car.

For those who enjoy or demand slightly less spirited driving, less grip, and more range, the EV6 is also available in cheaper single motor versions that extend a charge to around 310 miles. For those who want to pay less, a smaller 58 kWh battery is available in the base, rear-wheel-drive car. This costs just over $40,000, provides 167 HP, and will allow the car to travel 232 miles on a charge. And for those with a more leaden foot, a high-performance all-wheel-drive model will soon be available. Priced under $70,000, it will provide Porsche-like acceleration, screaming from 0 to 60 in just over three seconds. However, range suffers, falling to around 200 miles, as the battery pack depletes more quickly when powering more potent motors.

Fortunately, the EV6 comes equipped with ultra-fast DC charging, which allows power-ups at rates of up to 800 V, tempos typically found on EVs like the Porsche Taycan and Lucid Air, that cost twice or thrice as much. Kia claims that the EV6 can advance from 10 to 80 percent of battery capacity in around 18 minutes. Of course, this requires finding a 350-kWh fast charger that actually works, and charges at the posted rate.

This is akin to finding a Minotaur in a maze. The chargers closest to my house, in rural upstate New York, run at three kWh. The closest 350 is 75 miles away, precluding a trip just for juice. Instead, I worked at a friend’s office whose parking lot sports a slow charger, and managed to fill up there, though it took two sessions more than 12 hours. If I had an EV of my own, I’d have a home charger, and this wouldn’t be an issue, except on big trips. But that’s another story.

Still, for a practical, stylish, comfortable, quick, relatively affordable electric vehicle, the EV6 stands out among competitors. Even my boyfriend agreed. By the end of our week with it, he still hadn’t told me to “slow down.” In fact, he even once said, “I like this car,” a high compliment from someone conditioned to vehicular speed torture.

The post The EV6 Is Kia’s Entry into Electric Sporty Crossovers appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

A Land Rover drives through the wilderness. Beside it, trees tower above a packed dirt path. A straight couple with two kids sit inside, in splendorous isolation, as callouts appear and fade: Improved performance. Enhanced second row seat comfort. Intuitive infotainment. And then a midscreen chyron appears, surrounded by animated oxygen molecules flowing from the vents: Cabin air ionization. It’s a telling proclamation as Americans begin to resume somewhat regular life 20 months after the arrival of COVID-19.

“Going into the pandemic, the narrative was very strong around shared mobility. But coming out of the pandemic, it was very clear that private-car ownership is back at the top of consumers’ agenda, because a car becomes a part of your cocoon,” says Rich Agnew, global brand communications director for Land Rover.

Unlike a house during lockdown, a vehicular cocoon is mobile, and it has a destination—away. So carmakers are capitalizing on our desires to get there. “We have a campaign running at the moment, which is Outspiration,” says Agnew. “We’re on a mission to reconnect the nation with the great outdoors.”

Land Rover is not alone. Brands across the economic spectrum have enhanced the role of the outdoors in their consumer messaging over the past year and a half, showing individuals and family units that are using their vehicles to get away from it all—the enclosed spaces, crowds, and urban density.

This isn’t exactly a new message. The desire to be immersed in, or conquerors of, the land—and freed from citified confines—is foundational to the American mythos. It is entrenched in the racist and colonialist notion of Manifest Destiny, in the reverential landscape paintings of Frederic Church, and in our ostensible handbook, the Holy Scriptures.

Automotive brands have been capitalizing on this notion since the inception of the car. The song “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” from 1905, tells the story of a couple who go for a ride in the country and fall in love, and it was used for decades as an ad. In the 1920s, camping in cars in the great outdoors became such a national fad that ads for the pastime proliferated in newspapers—even Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and President Warren Harding went “” together. (Car camps took a turn during the Depression and became Hoovervilles—villages where the despondent lived in their vehicles.) The first ads for Land Rover, in the late 1940s, read “” and showed the truck driving over an ocean, on a globe. The modern luxury SUV, the Jeep Grand Wagoneer—with its rectilinear styling, leather interior, iconic fake-wood paneling, and power windows, seats, and locks—was introduced in the 1980s and ended up being the most appealing regular production vehicle to Americans with the highest household income. Automakers noted the trend. Predicated on cheap gas, a blind reverse mortgaging of the planet’s health, and a bunker ideology, these vehicles grew—and grew in popularity. Today more than three-quarters of new vehicles sold in America are trucks, vans, and SUVs. 

Communications professor Shane Gunster, in his 2004 Ethics and the Environment journal article “,” presciently labeled commercial images of the outdoors in automotive advertising as “common signifiers of utopia, tirelessly making the case that a certain commodity or brand will enable an escape from the malaise and drudgery of urban existence.” Yet the most recent spate of consumer messaging does more than simply capitalize on our fantasy to separate ourselves from other humans and our innate misery. It reflects a shift in consumer behavior.

According to Alexander Edwards, president of the automotive-research and consulting firm Strategic Vision, this shift has been quite profound. “Pre-pandemic, people were using their vehicles mainly to perform tasks like commuting, chauffeuring their kids, and running errands,” Edwards says. “But deep into the pandemic, and after, they are significantly more likely to have increased behavior in four key areas, including going on vacation, carrying large items like bikes or kayaks, going off-road in dirt and gravel, or going off-road in rocks and sand.”

Edwards notes that the increases in usage are between 5 percent and 8 percent, specifying that, in an annual new-vehicle market of 17 million cars, “even a 1 percent increase is huge. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people who are doing these activities more often.”

Those of us who use the trails regularly have noticed this shift, and not always pleasurably, as parking lots and garbage cans overflow and etiquette diminishes. Automakers with an outdoorsy fan base have found creative ways to assist with these issues—and alert consumers to their efforts. Subaru used the pandemic to that it is the largest corporate donor to the National Parks Foundation and was working with the parks to help reduce the amount of trash and make them zero-landfill destinations.

Subaru also recognizes that its consumers want to get away from these invading hordes. “With the parks being so crowded, our owners are going to go a little further out, because they’re probably more comfortable outdoors than the new arrivals,” says Nicole Riedel, the brand’s carline planning manager. “So we had to get a vehicle to them that can get them there.”

The brand’s solution was the creation of an all-new model, the Outback Wilderness. (Ad line: “The need for adventure lives within all of us. But for some, the need is much greater.”) Equipped with a jacked-up suspension, stouter tires, modified front and rear overhangs, and an enhanced all-wheel-drive system, it’s a factory-built overlanding vehicle, with full-warranty coverage.

Automakers do not see these pandemic-influenced shifts as temporary. “Reconnecting with their families and with the outdoors is valuable for mental health, for resilience to get through every day, not just in the pandemic,” says Agnew. “I think that’s a good correction in society. We predict that won’t go anywhere in the short term.”

Subaru concurs. So much so that it’s expanding its Wilderness into a full family of vehicles. “As the customer moves more to the millennial and Gen Z, they’re looking for authentic experiences. They don’t want fussy fancy meals or hotels, they want to get out and do things themselves,” Riedel says. “And with mental wellness joining physical as part of a wellness package, the outdoors ticks two boxes. We think it’s definitely something that is going to become a bigger and bigger part of people’s lives.”

But isn’t there some hypocrisy to utilizing the outdoors to promote a purchase that is, in many ways, responsible for the destruction of the planet? (°żłÜłÙČőŸ±»ć±đÌęhas enthusiastically reviewed many such vehicles and partnered with these companies on advertising deals.) Carmakers have noted their moves toward electrification, their commitments to sustainability during the manufacturing process, and their general insistence on beneficent environmental stewardship. Some of this is clearly marketing lip service, and far greater regulatory efforts are needed to help , and place checks on a slow-moving industry that contributes heavily to climate change.

Interestingly, engagement with the outdoors is affecting consumers’ automotive attitudes in other significant ways. “With the pandemic, and this reawakening, people have been even more likely to look at electric vehicles and hybrids,” says Edwards. “Not because of saving gas money—that wasn’t on their mind at all—but to be globally conscious and mindful of the world around them.”

Again, this has translated to direct action. Sales of electric vehicles hit  in the first quarter of 2021. Purchases of pure electric vehicles increased by nearly 45 percent over 2020, and those of hybrids more than doubled. This is an important trend, as it takes numerous considerations for people to shift to more environmentally friendly, battery-powered vehicles. “In the pandemic, and since, people who looked at hybrids and EVs five or six years ago and dismissed them decided maybe it’s time to look at them again,” says Edwards. “That was the starting point, in March to May of 2020, as reporting on great environmental changes around the world took on greater importance, and people were attending to it, in part because they were not traveling.”

Automakers will continue to roll out dozens of new electric-powered vehicles over the next year or so. And one of the key areas of focus is creating EVs in market segments where consumers are already shopping: trucks and SUVs. This kind of paradigm shift will be necessary—perhaps more necessary than consumers are able to change—to help overcome the global environmental issues we face. But this change in our understanding will also require confronting darker issues occupying our collective dreams and destinies.

“When most people think about the future, they come up with images of a post-apocalyptic world,” says Richard Louv, bestselling author of , , and Our Wild Calling. “And one of the questions I ask is, What happens to a culture when those are the only images it can easily conjure of the future? You know the saying, ‘Be careful what you wish for, it might come true’? Be careful what you imagine, it might come true.”

Louv posits that we need to conceptualize a new way of envisioning our fate, and our place in it, which he calls imaginative hope. “We have to start to come up with images of a new future. A beautiful future. Not just a sustainable future,” he says. “This is going to take a real effort.”

Images of electric cars rolling silently through vibrant, sustainably powered greenbelt cities might represent just this and take the place of automakers’ alfresco fantasies. Whether the cars’ windows are open or closed remains to be seen.

The post The Outdoors Is Having an Automotive Moment appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.