US-built 2025 Kia EV6 debuts with more battery, NACS port, and a fake gear shift
Kia has debuted its updated EV6 with several updates including a bigger battery, a NACS charging port, and a fake gear shifter for the GT model. Better yet, the model will now be produced in Kia’s plant in Georgia, offering easier access to US tax credits.
This morning at the LA Auto Show, Kia is introducing some big updates to its popular EV6 model.
The EV6 was the first of Kia’s cars released on the E-GMP platform, which it shares with Hyundai. E-GMP cars have been quite popular, with both Kia’s EV6 and Hyundai’s Ioniq 5 selling very well in the US.
In particular, Kia’s EV6 has exceptional fast charging speed, enabling the car to charge from 10-80% of charge in just 18 minutes.
But despite it already being one of the better EVs out there over the last 3 years of its sales in the US, Kia improved it this morning with some mid-cycle updates.
The updated model has some front and rear design changes (making the car 0.6 inches longer), new wheel designs and “enhanced premium interior touches” – like additional sound dampening material – to go along with new features across all trim levels.
Perhaps the biggest headline feature is a larger battery, with 63kWh on the base model and 84kWh on the larger battery – both around 7kWh more than the 2024 model. The 84kWh battery now has an improved 2,700lb towing capacity.
Trim levels have been split into the base 63kWh Light RWD model, three separate 84kWh trim levels each with a choice of RWD or AWD (Light LR, Wind, and GT-Line), and an AWD-only GT trim.
The GT trim gets a 25hp bump to 601hp, though other models stay the same with 167hp for the single-motor smaller-battery models, 225hp for RWD large-battery models, and 320hp for AWD large-battery models.
The EV6 GT model will also get one of the headline features we’ve seen in the popular Ioniq 5 N – a new “Virtual Gear Shift” feature which “enhances driving immersion by simulating gear shifts with visuals, engine sound effects, and a tactile sensation through motor torque adjustment.”
This basically simulates the feeling of driving a manual gas car, rather than an EV – so in exchange for making your car objectively slower, you can get some silly noises and have a more complicated driving experience.
I expected to hate it, and while I still do think it’s silly and unnecessary and most people will leave it off most of the time, I was impressed by how far Hyundai took it (to the point where you can’t even go past 20mph in “first gear” – the car will just whine at you and make you upshift first). We haven’t gotten to try it out in the EV6 yet, but I’m expecting it will be a similar experience. If nothing else, it is a fun party trick.
Going back to the charging point, charging will now be even easier as the 2025 Kia EV6 will have a native NACS port. This is one of the first non-Tesla vehicles to have a native NACS port, alongside Hyundai’s offerings. Most other vehicles plug in through adapters so far, though in the next year or two we expect to see more native ports show up.
A NACS port means the EV6 will have access to Tesla Superchargers without an adapter (though now you’ll need a CCS adapter to use CCS stations… but those are readily available). The charge port has also been relocated to the left rear (on non-GT models), the same place it appears on Tesla vehicles, which should make it easier to fit into Supercharger stalls, especially non-V4 stalls with short cables.
Finally, the EV6 is embracing North America in another way, by moving production of the vehicle to Georgia (except the GT trim level). This is a result of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which incentivized companies to move EV manufacturing to the US.
These laws have led to $210 billion in investment and 240,000 EV manufacturing jobs (and counting) in the US. And producing the EV6 in the US means Americans will have an easier time getting access to the US EV tax credit, saving themselves money on one of the best EVs out there (that said, you could still access it through leasing, but now buyers will have more options).
But there’s a bit of a damper on this move, as just last week, Dumb & Dumber (nevermind, they’re both Dumber) announced that they’re going to try to kill the EV tax credit, making cars more expensive for Americans and disincentivizing these positive moves for US manufacturing. So those jobs building some of the hottest cars on the road today might be back in jeopardy because of an ignorant reality TV host’s inescapable compulsion to cause inflation and kill jobs for Americans. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
To get more specifics on the EV6 and see what’s changed, Electrek will be roaming around the LA Auto Show today, checking out the newest of what Kia has to offer, and we’ll update you if we find out anything new.
If you’d like, you can use our affiliate link to get in touch with your local dealers about the Kia EV6, and try to be one of the first in line to get the newest iteration of one of the better EVs on the road.
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Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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Vietnamese solar panel maker Boviet Solar just opened the doors to its first US factory — a huge new PV module plant in Greenville, North Carolina.
The company dropped $294 million into the state-of-the-art facility, which will pump out Boviet’s Gamma Series monofacial and Vega Series bifacial solar panels. They’re using advanced PERC and N-Type solar cell tech, which basically means these panels are built to deliver higher efficiency and better performance across residential, commercial, industrial, and utility-scale projects.
The Greenville factory’s first phase is now online with an annual PV module output capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW). For Phase 2, which is scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026, Boviet will invest another $100 million to add 600,000 square feet and ramp up to another 2 GW. It will make high-efficiency solar cells.
Once both phases are complete, Boviet’s campus will cover more than 1 million square feet of manufacturing and R&D space. It’s one of the biggest clean energy manufacturing projects North Carolina has ever seen.
The jobs impact is significant, too. The first phase will create 460 skilled local jobs. Phase 2 is expected to add another 908, bringing the total to over 1,300 direct jobs, plus nearly 2,000 more indirect jobs across the region. That’s good news for Pitt County’s economy, real estate market, and workforce training programs.
“This facility is not just creating jobs, but creating opportunity, innovation, and a stronger foundation for eastern North Carolina,” said Senator Kandie Smith. Governor Josh Stein added that Boviet Solar’s move shows how North Carolina is leading the way in clean energy growth.
Read more: Thomas Built Buses debuts its next-gen electric school bus
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