Month: December 2022

Enlarge / You need a keen eye to spot that this is a Kia EV6 GT—the larger wheels and neon green brake calipers are the main clue. (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

LAS VEGAS—In January, we got our first chance to drive Kia's new EV6 electric vehicle. Built using Hyundai Motor Group's excellent new E-GMP platform, the EV6 instantly impressed us, offering a less polarizing design and more playful handling than the also impressive Hyundai Ioniq 5. Designed as a dedicated EV platform, E-GMP features an 800 V battery pack that allows for rapid fast charging, and the rear- and all-wheel drive can achieve excellent levels of efficiency.

In that first drive, and then again on local roads over the summer, my seat time in the EV6 confirmed Hyundai Motor Group's wisdom in hiring Albert Biermann away from BMW to build up the Korean automakers' research and development programs. But now Kia's turned the dial well past 11 with the new $61,400 EV6 GT, a limited-production variant that can outdrag some Ferraris and Lamborghinis, and ride the rumble strips at a racetrack with the best of them.

Between the axles of the EV6 GT you'll find the same 77.4 kWh (gross capacity) battery pack as in other EV6s—the company has discontinued the smaller-battery variant (the EV6 Light) due to very little demand. But in the EV6 GT, that battery will now feed much more power to the pair of electric motors that drive the front and rear wheels. There's a total of 576 hp (430 kW), in fact, plus a combined 545 lb-ft (738 Nm) of torque, split between a 215-hp (160 kW) front motor and a 362-hp (270 kW) rear motor with an electronic limited-slip differential.

Enlarge / After selling more than 160,000 e-tron SUVs, Audi has given the model a midlife refresh and a new name—the Q8 e-tron. (The one seen here is the SQ8 e-tron Sportback version.) (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

LANZAROTE, SPAIN—The electric vehicle market is still nascent enough that most models are in their first flush of youth. But prevailing wisdom in the industry is that a model should live for about eight years, with a midlife spruce-up or refresh scheduled around year four. Not coincidentally, it's been about four years since Audi started the production of its first electric SUV, the e-tron, and since then, it has gone on to sell more than 160,000. Now the German automaker has a growing range of EVs, and "e-tron" has been converted from a proper noun to an adjective in its corporate lexicon in the same way "quattro" did several decades before. So this midlife refresh includes a name change—e-tron becomes Q8 e-tron, making plain the rather obvious similarities between this EV SUV and the gas-burning Q8.

When I drove the original e-tron in 2018, I found it solid, if a bit unspectacular. It hit most of the right notes in terms of appearance—Audi knows how to design a handsome shape, and its interiors are at the head of the class, if sometimes a little somber. Developed in rather a short amount of time, the e-tron could only manage a relatively mediocre 2.2 miles/kWh (28.2 kWh/100 km) at launch. That was sufficient for a range of more than 200 miles (321 km), but not much more, although a software update in 2021 increased the useable capacity of the 95 kWh battery pack from 83 kWh to 86 kWh.

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  Audi is good at designing handsome SUVs, and the Q8 e-tron is no exception.

Although Audi is still waiting to finalize its EPA numbers ahead of the Q8 e-tron arriving in the US next year, it says it expects the longest-legged version to come in with a range of at least 300 miles (483 km). This will presumably be the lower-drag Sportback, which returns as a body variant.

Enlarge / The Electron rocket, covered in while protective material, on its side on its launch pad on Wallops Island. (credit: John Timmer)

On Sunday, RocketLab plans to send its small launch rocket, the Electron, into orbit from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, or MARS. The launch is scheduled for 6 pm US Eastern; we've embedded a livestream below.

This will be RocketLab's first launch from MARS, and the first by any company not currently owned by Northrop Grumman, which has used the site for its Minotaur and Antares rockets. Prior to today, RocketLab has done all its launches from a site in New Zealand, where its Electron vehicles are built. MARS is located at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, on the Virginia portion of the Delmarva Peninsula, which separates Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic Ocean.

RocketLab CEO Peter Beck told Ars that the site offers access to some additional orbital trajectories that can't be reached from New Zealand, and allows the company to compete for business with US government agencies that have a requirement for US-based launches. MARS was appealing in part because the lower launch cadence there means that there's less potential for scheduling conflicts.