All-new Kia EV will employ damping tech previously reserved for Mercedes-AMG and Maserati
Kia Australia believes a new high-tech suspension system fitted to the forthcoming Kia EV6 will transform the EV driving experience and set its all-new electric crossover apart from rivals.
The sister model to the Hyundai IONIQ 5, carsales’ 2021 Car of the Year, will begin trickling into showrooms in early 2022 fitted with new technology from ZF Sachs called Sensitivity Damping Control (SDC).
It is understood Kia is only the third manufacturer – and the first mainstream car-maker – to adopt the technology, behind Mercedes-AMG and Maserati.
Indeed, SDC is one of the points of difference between the award-winning IONIQ 5 and the new EV6, which will be marginally pricier at the entry level and sold traditionally via dealerships rather than online.
Australian handling tune
Kia’s Australian engineering department has battled extensive COVID-related hurdles in recent months to complete a local chassis tuning program for the EV6 and its unique SDC suspension set-up.
According to Kia Australia’s ride and handling engineer, Graeme Gambold, the finished tune of the Kia EV6 represented a “step-change” for electric vehicles.
“Sensitivity Damping Control is basically a frequency-dependent rebound valve – so it doesn’t look at piston speed, it looks at piston frequency,” Gambold explained.
“It holds energy in a little energy bypass orifice, so when the car’s bouncing over a bumpy road, which we get in Australia a lot, it can control those large amplitude body motions. In a two-tonne electric vehicle, that’s a lot of energy to control.
Graeme Gambold
“It controls the energy by catching it. It’s a little bit like a Skyhook effect – you can have a lot of damping over a very big vertical rise, which an EV gets a lot of.
“Typically if you dampen for that, you lose your urban ride, but this shock absorber separates the two a fair bit so that we can recover some of that urban ride.
“As an engineer I know the challenges of controlling two tonnes worth of kinetic stored energy at the bottom of a big impact, and keeping the car’s dynamics in check and in control over country roads.”
Graeme Gambold
Due to production limitations in Korea, not to mention hard lockdowns in NSW and Victoria earlier this year, Gambold’s team was given a choice of three different pre-production damper tunes after driving the Korean-specification and European-specification EV6 models.
The team insisted on applying a suitable tune to the production model, thereby giving it an advantage over the IONIQ 5, which was forced to go without local tuning.
“It was about identifying what we didn’t like about those two overseas tunes and then modelling three different absorbers plus hard parts [springs and stabiliser bars] that got us into a zone in the middle,” Gambold said.
“We got pushed on time, there was no-one building shock absorbers in Korea, it was a new, very important car, and it is our first dedicated EV. So we shipped the prototypes down to Melbourne, did all the tuning through the Yarra Valley and we were very happy with the final result.”
Benchmark performance
Gambold said the finished EV6 product will bring a level of handling more commensurate with German performance marques.
“It’s the whole car, it’s a real step-change,” he said.
“A proper electric car with a low centre of gravity, big wide battery pack, two e-axles, good geometry and no compromises. It takes the drive experience to another level over an ICE [internal combustion engine] car – it puts the EV6 into BMW M or Mercedes-AMG dynamics class.
“The big difference between this car and other conventional platform vehicles is the battery pack. Even though the battery pack is heavy it is across the track of the car, so your lateral roll dynamic you can soften off a bit because the battery’s inertia is balancing itself – as the battery wants to dive and roll it also has to lift the weight on the inside of the car. It holds the inside down.”
Lighthouse effect
Kia Australia chief Damien Meredith believes the EV6 marks the introduction of a true halo car for the brand.
As late as last week, Meredith was asking head office for more allocation beyond the 500 vehicles already allocated to Australia in 2022. He revealed another “200 or 300 vehicles might be possible” next year.
“This is the next step in promoting the technology that we can do,” said Meredith.
“It gives us a lighthouse effect, and it allows us to match or surpass what we’ve been doing with the brand.”
Meredith reaffirmed his strategy was to sell the EV6 solely though Kia’s 136-strong dealer network in Australia.
Pricing is yet to be announced and dealers will ultimately have the final say on which customers will be allocated first, after more than 16,000 expressions of interest.
“We’ve got a dealer network that has invested and is investing significantly in the brand, and I can’t see any rhyme or reason why we should take a car as magnificent as the EV6 away from them,” Meredith said.
“The reality is I don’t think anyone has come up with a better way to do it, either.”
Keyword: High-tech suspension for Kia EV6