I went on a trip last week and rented an EV at my destination. The EV reservation was for a “Mustang Mach-E or similar”, which ended up being a Kia EV6. The following are my notes and observations about the differences between that Kia EV6 rental and my VW ID.4.
The EV6 has a start button, and you have to press it to start the car. That wasn’t a big deal to get used to, but on the flip side, you also have to press the button to turn off the car. That took longer to adjust to. The first time we got out of the car, it wouldn't let me lock the doors. Took me a bit to figure out it was because the car was technically still “on” and it wanted me to press the button to turn it off. Initially I thought that was a hassle, but did eventually get used to it, and it does solve one disadvantage of the ID.4, and that is you can get out of the car and leave everything on without having to resort to dummy seat belt buckles or other workarounds.
I prefer the gear selector location on the ID.4, up on the steering column. The gear selector on the EV6 is down in the center by the cup holders where it’s taking up space that could have been used for something else.
The infotainment on the EV6 boots up much quicker than the ID.4. Pretty much instantaneously, so that was nice. But the screens are not as high quality as the ID.4. They’re noticeably lower resolution with a worse contrast ratio. Also, the touchscreen would have difficulty detecting my finger sometimes when I was trying to touch parts of the screen.
A BIG miss for me on the EV6 was how the information is displayed on the screen in front of the driver. It’s kind of displayed in a semi-circle from left to right showing the speedometer, the status of the driver assist functions, and the estimated remaining miles. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but from my driving position specifically, the steering wheel blocked all of that data (see images below).
It was raining when we picked up the car, and I can say without a doubt the front windshield wipers are WAY better than the ID.4 wipers. Way better. So I was pleased about that, however, I fumbled around with the windshield wiper controls for a bit trying to figure out how to activate the rear wiper until I realized like its Ioniq 5 cousin, the EV6 does not have a rear wiper, and that rear window was hard to see out of when covered with raindrops.
The cabin is a lot quieter than the ID.4. There’s virtually no wind noise at all, really impressive, and made me wish my ID.4 was that quiet. Similarly, the car itself makes no noises. No creaks, rattles, groans, vibrations. Nothing. And this was a rental car that has probably been abused for every one of the 12K+ miles put on it. My ID.4 on the other hand rattles and makes other noises all over the place. The EV6 is definitely a much better put together car.
The EV6 has a lot more physical buttons than the ID.4. I’m not one that has too much of a problem with the ID.4 capacitive buttons, so it was mostly a wash, but if I had to pick one over the other, the physical buttons would win out. As a renter, physical buttons also made it easier to figure out how to activate various features. For example, to enable auto-hold, you just press the big button next to the gear selector labeled auto-hold.
The EV6 creeps like the ID.4, but the feeling of it is much closer to a regular ICE automatic. On the ID.4 (on mine anyway), creep takes a second to ramp up. Without auto-hold, the EV6 feels better because the creep is basically there right away as you’re letting off the brake. With auto-hold enabled though, I think I prefer the ID.4 approach because I can kind of tap the accelerator to break auto-hold and then creep slowly kicks in, whereas on the EV6, as soon as you break auto-hold creep is already fully there.
Speaking of auto-hold though, it works really well on the EV6 and doesn’t make loud groaning noises when the car comes to a complete stop, so that was definitely better.
The brake feeling on the EV6 definitely wins out. I’m not sure what kind of blended braking system KIA is using, but the pedal feels great at all times. The ID.4 has a soft, squishier feeling in the upper portions of the brake travel. I preferred the brake feeling on the EV6. Also, the selectable regen with the paddles is great, really like that capability.
This was my first time using those pop-out style door handles and honestly, it was fine. Actually, I might even say it was better because it’s more mechanical feeling when you pull the handle and feel the door open. No weird issues opening the doors from the inside either. My wife did note that it’s harder to open from the outside if you are carrying something and only have one hand free, so I guess there’s that.
The front seats were very comfortable. In fact, I originally thought they were more comfortable than the ID.4 until I got back in my car today to compare, and yeah, the ID.4 seats are also very comfortable. So I think I’m calling this one a tie. The EV6 wins in the rear seat department though. You can recline the seats in the rear, and my kids had a field day playing around with that.
Also different in the rear is the position of the rear vents. The rear vents are over on the sides of the vehicle instead of in the middle, and they are higher up as well, and seemed to push more air. Both of my kids said they preferred the position of the rear vents in the EV6.
The ride itself in the EV6 wasn’t as smooth as the ID.4, but then again, it was a heavily used rental car, and I suspect the wheels were worn, warped, out of balance, or all of the above.
Acceleration in the EV6 was immediate and felt good, but my AWD ID.4 definitely has more oomph, albeit with a slight delay before it kicks in. I honestly don’t know if the rental EV6 was AWD or RWD though. I suspect RWD because the estimated range at 100% was like 320 miles, so that might be the difference.
I’m honestly not sure how or why, but for some reason I found the reverse lines hard to use. There were two sets of lines, blue and yellow, that would move around and it was mostly just confusing, I couldn’t count on them to accurately guide me into a spot. Never had a problem with the ID.4 implementation.
I’d probably have to give the nod for wireless charging to the EV6, it’s flat, and has ventilation cutouts. I don’t really use wireless charging though, so don’t have a good basis for comparison.
For wired charging, the EV6 definitely gets the win. It has USBC and USBA in the front, USBC in the back, two 12V outlets in the front, plus a 120V outlet in the back.
No question Travel Assist on the ID.4 is better than Highway Driving Assist on the EV6, but HDA was still pretty good. Not sure what type of driver monitoring HDA uses, but I never had to intentionally jiggle the wheel or anything, and I wasn’t getting constant nags, so that was good. The system did a good job of maintaining the lane and distance to other vehicles. Where it loses out though is on the smoothness of the system. HDA is more frantic in its wheel movements. It’s constantly making micro-corrections, giving the wheel a jerky feeling. The car itself isn’t jerking around, and the wheel isn’t really jerking around either per-se, but you can feel all the tiny adjustments being made through the wheel. Travel Assist on the ID.4 is smoother.
This isn't so much a car comparison, but a trim level/packaging comparison. The EV6 we got was very nicely equipped, but didn’t have huge wheels or a glass roof or mood lighting or any of that. I appreciate that Kia offers premium tech features without having to “waste money” on aesthetic upgrades.
One of the well equipped items was cooled/ventilated seats. It was the first time I’ve ever experienced seats like that, and let me tell you, they were awesome. I’ll definitely be looking for that feature on my next vehicle. But I only got to try them out once because . . .
Story time!
We arrived to an event slightly early before most everyone else got there, so while we were waiting we took the time to play around with the car a bit. One of the items we played around with was the cooled seats. As I mentioned, they were great. My wife and I tried out the various blower levels, and then of course the kids wanted to try them out, so we shifted around so they could try them too. Soon everyone else arrived, so we continued on to the event.
Upon returning to the vehicle, the doors wouldn't unlock. Turns out the 12V battery was dead. We were one of the last to leave, so we were pretty much stranded there alone. I called the roadside assistance number for the rental car company and was on hold for about 30 minutes. In that time, I was able to use the physical key from the keyfob to unlock the door (which was a little tricky) and open up the doors and the hood, and also called around to see if anyone had jumper cables they could bring (I have family in the area). Found someone willing to come out and give us a jump.
Literally as soon as the jumper connection was made, the car powered on immediately, so it wasn’t like the battery was completely drained or something, it must have just barely been under voltage. Of course, as soon as we had the car back on, someone from roadside assistance finally came to the line, but I told them we didn’t need them anymore.
Everything in the car shuts down when you turn the car off, and we know the car was turned off because we were able to lock it (the car won’t let you lock it if it’s still on). So the only reason we could think of for why the battery died like that was because we were sitting stationary using the cooled seats for a few minutes.
That all occurred on day two, so for the rest of the time we were there we were nervous that it would happen again. Sucks having an unreliable car. Luckily it did not happen again, but we also refrained from using the cooled seats the whole rest of the time too.
So that was an EPIC FAIL on the EV6, and shows me that the car has some fundamental issues keeping the 12V battery charged up, and made for a stressful situation and lack of trust in the vehicle.
Anyway, I guess that’s everything that comes to mind at the moment. I’ll post more if I remember anything else of note. I can also do my best to answer any other specific questions anyone might have.
EV6 driver display information:
![Image]()
EV6 driver display view from seating position (pertinent information blocked by steering wheel):
![Image]()
The EV6 has a start button, and you have to press it to start the car. That wasn’t a big deal to get used to, but on the flip side, you also have to press the button to turn off the car. That took longer to adjust to. The first time we got out of the car, it wouldn't let me lock the doors. Took me a bit to figure out it was because the car was technically still “on” and it wanted me to press the button to turn it off. Initially I thought that was a hassle, but did eventually get used to it, and it does solve one disadvantage of the ID.4, and that is you can get out of the car and leave everything on without having to resort to dummy seat belt buckles or other workarounds.
I prefer the gear selector location on the ID.4, up on the steering column. The gear selector on the EV6 is down in the center by the cup holders where it’s taking up space that could have been used for something else.
The infotainment on the EV6 boots up much quicker than the ID.4. Pretty much instantaneously, so that was nice. But the screens are not as high quality as the ID.4. They’re noticeably lower resolution with a worse contrast ratio. Also, the touchscreen would have difficulty detecting my finger sometimes when I was trying to touch parts of the screen.
A BIG miss for me on the EV6 was how the information is displayed on the screen in front of the driver. It’s kind of displayed in a semi-circle from left to right showing the speedometer, the status of the driver assist functions, and the estimated remaining miles. I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but from my driving position specifically, the steering wheel blocked all of that data (see images below).
It was raining when we picked up the car, and I can say without a doubt the front windshield wipers are WAY better than the ID.4 wipers. Way better. So I was pleased about that, however, I fumbled around with the windshield wiper controls for a bit trying to figure out how to activate the rear wiper until I realized like its Ioniq 5 cousin, the EV6 does not have a rear wiper, and that rear window was hard to see out of when covered with raindrops.
The cabin is a lot quieter than the ID.4. There’s virtually no wind noise at all, really impressive, and made me wish my ID.4 was that quiet. Similarly, the car itself makes no noises. No creaks, rattles, groans, vibrations. Nothing. And this was a rental car that has probably been abused for every one of the 12K+ miles put on it. My ID.4 on the other hand rattles and makes other noises all over the place. The EV6 is definitely a much better put together car.
The EV6 has a lot more physical buttons than the ID.4. I’m not one that has too much of a problem with the ID.4 capacitive buttons, so it was mostly a wash, but if I had to pick one over the other, the physical buttons would win out. As a renter, physical buttons also made it easier to figure out how to activate various features. For example, to enable auto-hold, you just press the big button next to the gear selector labeled auto-hold.
The EV6 creeps like the ID.4, but the feeling of it is much closer to a regular ICE automatic. On the ID.4 (on mine anyway), creep takes a second to ramp up. Without auto-hold, the EV6 feels better because the creep is basically there right away as you’re letting off the brake. With auto-hold enabled though, I think I prefer the ID.4 approach because I can kind of tap the accelerator to break auto-hold and then creep slowly kicks in, whereas on the EV6, as soon as you break auto-hold creep is already fully there.
Speaking of auto-hold though, it works really well on the EV6 and doesn’t make loud groaning noises when the car comes to a complete stop, so that was definitely better.
The brake feeling on the EV6 definitely wins out. I’m not sure what kind of blended braking system KIA is using, but the pedal feels great at all times. The ID.4 has a soft, squishier feeling in the upper portions of the brake travel. I preferred the brake feeling on the EV6. Also, the selectable regen with the paddles is great, really like that capability.
This was my first time using those pop-out style door handles and honestly, it was fine. Actually, I might even say it was better because it’s more mechanical feeling when you pull the handle and feel the door open. No weird issues opening the doors from the inside either. My wife did note that it’s harder to open from the outside if you are carrying something and only have one hand free, so I guess there’s that.
The front seats were very comfortable. In fact, I originally thought they were more comfortable than the ID.4 until I got back in my car today to compare, and yeah, the ID.4 seats are also very comfortable. So I think I’m calling this one a tie. The EV6 wins in the rear seat department though. You can recline the seats in the rear, and my kids had a field day playing around with that.
Also different in the rear is the position of the rear vents. The rear vents are over on the sides of the vehicle instead of in the middle, and they are higher up as well, and seemed to push more air. Both of my kids said they preferred the position of the rear vents in the EV6.
The ride itself in the EV6 wasn’t as smooth as the ID.4, but then again, it was a heavily used rental car, and I suspect the wheels were worn, warped, out of balance, or all of the above.
Acceleration in the EV6 was immediate and felt good, but my AWD ID.4 definitely has more oomph, albeit with a slight delay before it kicks in. I honestly don’t know if the rental EV6 was AWD or RWD though. I suspect RWD because the estimated range at 100% was like 320 miles, so that might be the difference.
I’m honestly not sure how or why, but for some reason I found the reverse lines hard to use. There were two sets of lines, blue and yellow, that would move around and it was mostly just confusing, I couldn’t count on them to accurately guide me into a spot. Never had a problem with the ID.4 implementation.
I’d probably have to give the nod for wireless charging to the EV6, it’s flat, and has ventilation cutouts. I don’t really use wireless charging though, so don’t have a good basis for comparison.
For wired charging, the EV6 definitely gets the win. It has USBC and USBA in the front, USBC in the back, two 12V outlets in the front, plus a 120V outlet in the back.
No question Travel Assist on the ID.4 is better than Highway Driving Assist on the EV6, but HDA was still pretty good. Not sure what type of driver monitoring HDA uses, but I never had to intentionally jiggle the wheel or anything, and I wasn’t getting constant nags, so that was good. The system did a good job of maintaining the lane and distance to other vehicles. Where it loses out though is on the smoothness of the system. HDA is more frantic in its wheel movements. It’s constantly making micro-corrections, giving the wheel a jerky feeling. The car itself isn’t jerking around, and the wheel isn’t really jerking around either per-se, but you can feel all the tiny adjustments being made through the wheel. Travel Assist on the ID.4 is smoother.
This isn't so much a car comparison, but a trim level/packaging comparison. The EV6 we got was very nicely equipped, but didn’t have huge wheels or a glass roof or mood lighting or any of that. I appreciate that Kia offers premium tech features without having to “waste money” on aesthetic upgrades.
One of the well equipped items was cooled/ventilated seats. It was the first time I’ve ever experienced seats like that, and let me tell you, they were awesome. I’ll definitely be looking for that feature on my next vehicle. But I only got to try them out once because . . .
Story time!
We arrived to an event slightly early before most everyone else got there, so while we were waiting we took the time to play around with the car a bit. One of the items we played around with was the cooled seats. As I mentioned, they were great. My wife and I tried out the various blower levels, and then of course the kids wanted to try them out, so we shifted around so they could try them too. Soon everyone else arrived, so we continued on to the event.
Upon returning to the vehicle, the doors wouldn't unlock. Turns out the 12V battery was dead. We were one of the last to leave, so we were pretty much stranded there alone. I called the roadside assistance number for the rental car company and was on hold for about 30 minutes. In that time, I was able to use the physical key from the keyfob to unlock the door (which was a little tricky) and open up the doors and the hood, and also called around to see if anyone had jumper cables they could bring (I have family in the area). Found someone willing to come out and give us a jump.
Literally as soon as the jumper connection was made, the car powered on immediately, so it wasn’t like the battery was completely drained or something, it must have just barely been under voltage. Of course, as soon as we had the car back on, someone from roadside assistance finally came to the line, but I told them we didn’t need them anymore.
Everything in the car shuts down when you turn the car off, and we know the car was turned off because we were able to lock it (the car won’t let you lock it if it’s still on). So the only reason we could think of for why the battery died like that was because we were sitting stationary using the cooled seats for a few minutes.
That all occurred on day two, so for the rest of the time we were there we were nervous that it would happen again. Sucks having an unreliable car. Luckily it did not happen again, but we also refrained from using the cooled seats the whole rest of the time too.
So that was an EPIC FAIL on the EV6, and shows me that the car has some fundamental issues keeping the 12V battery charged up, and made for a stressful situation and lack of trust in the vehicle.
Anyway, I guess that’s everything that comes to mind at the moment. I’ll post more if I remember anything else of note. I can also do my best to answer any other specific questions anyone might have.
EV6 driver display information:
EV6 driver display view from seating position (pertinent information blocked by steering wheel):
