Let’s Talk Winter Range And Performance

I’m from San Antonio, Texas. I know a thing or two about hot weather. Long stretches of 100-degree temperatures, sometimes well into the fall, weren’t exactly pleasant growing up, but they were business as usual. But life took me to New York City, and then the Catskill Mountains beyond it, where digging my car out of a two-foot-high pile of snow became the new business as usual. That’s definitely not something I experienced as a kid.

These days, I’m used to the upstate New York winters. The cold doesn’t really bother me anymore. However, owning an electric car in one of these winters—it is -4 degrees F (-20 C) around sunrise as I write this—is a very new experience on many levels. But it’s also been a great way to learn what my 2024 Kia EV6 can do when the temperatures get extra-low.

As a recap, I leased a dual-motor, EV6 AWD Wind as my personal vehicle last summer; this is my car, not a press tester on loan from a car company. So far, I’ve been extremely impressed with its fast-charging prowess, range in more temperate weather and how well it handles a road trip.

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

My car is EPA-estimated to deliver 282 miles of range. During the warmer months of 2024, I was regularly seeing 300 to 320 miles of range at a full charge and as much as 4 miles per kWh in overall efficiency.

The downsides have been the software suite, both the infotainment system and the smartphone app, the frustratingly outdated navigation system, and door handles; those only pop out automatically if you spring for a GT-Line or GT model. (Thankfully, Kia fixed this on the 2025 update.) 

2024 Kia EV6 Wind AWD Long-Term Test Update: January 2025
Distance driven: 7,260 miles (11,684 km) 
Average expected range: ~240 miles in winter
Average observed efficiency: 3.3 miles per kWh (lifetime)
Gas saved: 310 gallons

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

Overall, my wife and I have loved the EV6. We both think it’s the best car that’s ever called our garage home. It’s a superb daily with excellent style, performance and efficiency. I think it’s still an underrated gem in the EV world, especially as its slightly more practical cousin, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, steals so much of the limelight. 

But everything’s great when the weather is great. How does this EV do when it gets really cold out? 

How The Kia EV6 Performs In Winter

And when I say “really cold,” I mean it. My corner of the Empire State started getting January- and February-levels of snow around Thanksgiving. Over the past month, daily high temperatures have largely been below 30 degrees F (-1 C) and have easily sunk into the single-digits or negatives at night. 

But the EV6 has handled all of it very well, for the most part. Everything I wrote about the Honda Prologue’s performance in the snow and on icy roads holds true here: the EV6’s low center of gravity and dual-motor AWD, with traction and stability control that can act more quickly than any gas-powered car, all mean it’s remarkably safe and predictable when conditions get bad. 

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

I would argue the AWD Prologue Elite was a little more confident in snow than my car is; both have all-season tires, but the Prologue’s Bridgestone Alenzas put the traction down better.

(In general, I continue to be largely unimpressed with the EV6’s stock Kuhmo Crugen tires. While they’re very quiet, I don’t think they do much for the car’s generally excellent performance, handling or stability, and I look forward to replacing them when I can.) 

Overall, traction hasn’t been a problem. We have dedicated snow tires on our other car, a gas-powered Mazda 3 hatchback, and it probably grips better in bad conditions. But the EV6’s inherent strengths—plus the “backup” car with actual winter rubber—haven’t made snow tires a necessity quite yet.

The EV6 also has a dedicated Snow Mode that other EVs do not. It’s activated by holding down the Drive Mode button on the steering wheel for a few seconds. This mode keeps the front motor engaged for constant AWD and lowers the throttle response for steadier acceleration to avoid having the wheels slip. It also dials down the car’s regenerative braking strength; I don’t actually like this as I enjoy the extra degree of acceleration control that one-pedal driving gives me, but I’ll assume Kia’s engineers are smarter than I am.

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

Then there are the other advantages that any EV has in the winter. The cabin barely takes any time at all to warm up, since doing so isn’t dependent on a gas engine. And though the EV6’s smartphone app isn’t as fast or feature-rich as what Tesla or Rivian offers, but I can still pre-condition the cabin temperature before I get in—including while the car is plugged in, so I’m not wasting any energy. 

Once you have a car that can set the interior climate from your phone, you won’t ever go back. 

How The Kia EV6’s Range Holds Up In Winter

Snow performance and comfort are one thing. Range is another.

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

As we’ve covered extensively here, EVs lose range in extreme temperatures—heat isn’t great but cold is especially bad—because of battery chemistry. Cold temperatures slow down the chemical reactions within a lithium-ion battery, making it harder for electrons to flow and deliver power to the motors. Add in the fact that using a cabin heater consumes energy too and you simply won’t be able to drive as far as you would in more moderate weather. 

Since I generally charge my car only to 80% to preserve its battery health unless I know I have a longer trip ahead of me, here’s some temperature and maximum range data I recorded over the past few months to give you an example of what I’ve been dealing with:

Those are the range readings I got when the EV6 was at “full” (meaning either 80% or 100%, generally) and sitting in my garage. Clearly, this is quite a bit off from the 300-320 miles of range I was getting when it was warmer out. 

But as with all things EVs, there are some caveats.

Many carmakers calculate their estimated ranges in different ways. Some will read the “full” EPA-estimated amount, or close to it, when it’s cold outside, even as they lose more actual range because their efficiency drops. The Kia’s projected range estimates really tend to fluctuate with the weather.

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

In other words—and perhaps to state the obvious—some EVs may say you’ll get 300 miles of range when it’s freezing out, but with their miles-per-kWh efficiency taking a hit, they definitely won’t get an actual 300 miles of range on the road. 

My efficiency rating has certainly dropped with the temperatures. I’m down from the high 3.0 miles to 4.0 miles per kWh range to 2.2-2.5 miles per kWh—about 30% to 40% in the winter. But math only gets you so far. I wanted to see what this actually meant for my car.

An Actual Winter Range Test

On Monday, with a work holiday and temperatures in the area being in the teens, I decided to put it to the test by going to visit a friend in Warwick, New York, about 65 miles away. Round-trip, I would cover about 130 miles. 

I charged the EV6 to 100%, which gave me an estimated 216 miles of range. After a quick errand in town, I hit the highway with 193 miles and a 91% battery (already not great, frankly) and headed south to Warwick at a steady 70 to 75 mph. It was only 14 degrees F (-10 C) out, so the cold was definitely working against me.

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

In the car’s Normal drive setting, with the heated seats and heated steering wheel on and the cabin set to an agreeable 67 degrees F, I got my efficiency average up to about 2.7 miles per kWh by arrival. At my friend’s house, the EV6 claimed a 69% charge and 150 miles of remaining range. (By the way, turning the cabin heater off adds about 15 to 20 miles of range to this car; it’s doable, just not always the most comfortable thing.)

On the way home, I tried Eco Mode, which limits the use of the front motor and cuts power to focus more on efficiency. I used this to great effect on my last road trip, but here, it wasn’t as helpful as I had hoped; I still ended my trip at 2.7 miles per kWh. I returned home with a 32% battery charge and 62 miles of range left. While it wasn’t a solid 70 mph range test, I’d say 70% of that drive was on the highway at those speeds. 

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

In the end, a “starting” full battery with an estimated 216 miles of range is about a 25% decline from the car’s EPA-rated 282 miles. And I used a total of 48.65 kWh on the round trip, out of my car’s 74 kWh usable battery pack when fully charged—about 65% of its total energy. 

So, yes. My experience is that in this type of weather, my EV6 loses between 25% and 30% of its total range, which more or less tracks with recent data from battery health company Recurrent. 

The Verdict

Cold-weather range losses are among the most controversial topics we deal with at InsideEVs.

They’re among our most-read stories, at the top of the list of concerns of prospective owners, a frequent punching bag for the anti-EV crowd, and also something that many pro-EV people would rather we just never talk about. On top of that, as the old saying goes, your mileage may vary; EV range losses depend on a ton of factors, including road conditions, driving style, weather, energy use inside the car, and of course, the car itself.

Our goal at InsideEVs is to report honestly, fairly and accurately about the energy transition. It’s not to sugar-coat things. So this is my honest and fair assessment, as accurate as I can get it myself: the EV6 does take a big range hit in the winter. It’s definitely disappointing, but for the driving I do, surmountable. If you are shopping for an EV, take your own driving needs and charging access into account. If my driving involved a lot of regular, long-distance travel in very cold weather, and I had no fast-charging or home-charging options, I might consider a hybrid for that job too. But for most of my purposes, the EV6’s range hit is surmountable. 

Is it a fair tradeoff for the best car I’ve ever owned, and one that does a lot of things in bad weather than an internal combustion vehicle can? Perhaps so. I don’t like the EV6 any less. It’s just the cost of doing business—for now, anyway. 

The auto industry has spent more than 100 years on internal combustion development; it has barely scratched the surface of what modern battery tech is capable of. Maybe the answer is solid-state batteries, or maybe it’ll be something else. But this is an obstacle that can, and must, be overcome someday for wider EV adoption to happen.

Photo by: Patrick George

2024 Kia EV6 Long-Term Test January Update

And yes, I’m going to wash it later today. Way ahead of you on that. 

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