Bad Car of the Year (2022)
Wheels magazine keeps hitting itself in the head. Imagine awarding Car of the Year to a vehicle that you can’t actually buy…
Why does Wheels keep doing this to itself?
Bullshit Car of the Year, BCOTY 2022, is the Kia EV6 - not a bad car at all, in fact it’s a very good car in and of itself and especially in the context of electric vehicles.
But it is not a Car of the Year, it's just not, and there's not just one reason why this is yet another epic fail from Irrelevance Monthly.
There are four compelling reasons and, as a former contributor, it's so disheartening.
See, BCOTY is an award given out based upon the ‘Car versus Criteria’ philosophy. The criteria are: Function, Technology, Efficiency, Safety, and Value.
Image: Wheels/YouTube.
If you endure Wheels’ entire 37-minute miracle insomnia-curing video on this, you will see manicured men getting, seemingly, almost orgasmic over being able to plug in a laptop as you drive.
You'll hear references to cars being carefree blonde surfers and revealing their true personalities, cue Doctor Phil; it's that nauseating.
They even call the EV6 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 “SUVs”, when literally anyone (with eyes) can see that they are in fact big, electric cars. That's what they are, Wheels.
These vehicles have been hastily placed in the SUV segment by the FCAI and its members in the car industry, based on outdated segment dimensional criteria.
But here in reality, they're certainly not SUVs, not on objective criteria nor to consumers. If ‘function’ is a Wheels BCOTY criterion, EV6 fails as an SUV and here's the proof.
If you've got up to 80 grand in your pocket, with EV6 and Sorento on your shortlist, and you just can't decide which one to buy, then I'd suggest you've got mashed potato for brains. One is a big SUV and the other one's a big electric car.
In fact, the intent of the EV6, for Kia, is: performance flagship.
Kia is taking a very expensive (but educated) gamble that the EV6 will do for its reputation in 2022 what Stinger did way back in 2017. Inside Kia Australia, EV6 is regarded, philosophically, as electric Stinger - not electric Sorento.
Obviously, it's not an SUV, that's just an industry classification for the monthly sales figures, so that's pretty much the case for Wheels being spectacularly up itself and out of touch with people who actually buy cars - personal opinion.
That's not even one of the four reasons, incidentally.
THE MEDIA: An indictment
Before we get cracking, it's important for me to tell you that this report is my honest personal opinion; no reference to individuals is made.
You also need to understand that even if an individual writes words in some magazine, those words get massaged and cut and changed by sub-editors and editors. They then get ratified by a publisher. At the end of this extensive process, you're looking at a product that multiple people have had their grubby little inputs on, in one way or the other.
The modern-day media still behaves like it’s the dark ages of transparency, timeliness and turd-polishing (advertising). Image: @markuswinkler
From the outset, those words are designed to conform to the snobby, wanky standards of the publisher, meaning the brand. It's pretty easy for those words to be largely dissociated from the views of the actual journalist who actually wrote them. Unless, of course, he really was already that way inclined - if you catch my drift.
Now, some more important context for you. I’ve written for Wheels and Motor magazines, extensively. Dozens and dozens of features, I've been live on talkback radio for thousands of hours as both a guest and a host, and I’ve done hundreds of live and pre-recorded appearances on network TV in news and current affairs. This is not to brag, not at all.
It's hardly a glamorous thing or something that I'm especially proud of, because look around, the media is a freaking disgrace. But it always has been astounding to me seeing the difference between conversations on-air and off-air. I think the depth of this difference would shock the average person. Certainly there's an opening for the ‘what we really think’ news bulletin and it would rate its head off, I suspect - because it would connect with you, the audience. It's like what I do here, I suppose.
It's very depressing that this can be a unique selling proposition and point of difference in the media space to all other motoring journalism outfits. So don’t assume by default that anything in a publication or a broadcast is actually the authentic view of the author of those words.
Therefore it's the publication or the publisher that needs to bear the brunt of any criticism, certainly that's the intent of my criticism today. It's not directed at individuals, because most people at the coalface of journalism, in my experience, are genuinely trying pretty hard inside a deeply flawed system.
Just look at the Wheels COTY 2021 stuff-up for further proof on this.
With that out of the way, here's why wheels is emphatically full of it regarding the Kia EV6 being a worthy Car of the Year (COTY) winner…
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THE FOUR CORNERS OF BAD-COTY
1. NOT ON SALE
To state the pathologically obvious, you can't buy an EV6. It's not on sale.
Now, I guess Kia could argue the semantics of that, but as a point of fact, you cannot walk into a Kia dealer, take out your black AMEX and buy an EV6.
If you go to Kia's website you need to scroll through four football fields, seemingly, of nauseating marketing rubbish in the “pursuit of excellence”, “leading the charge”, “source of inspiration”, in a “discovery of the future” on display - it’s “your personal getaway”, which is “energized for the journey” and “always prepared”, especially when you need to “meet the family”.
I'm not making that up, that's just the highlight reel of not buying this car.
If you make it all the way to the bottom, scrolling without running out of barf bags, you're gonna discover, “stay in touch”.
Due to global supply chain interruptions, semiconductor shortage and high demand we are experiencing extended lead times for EV6. Register here for the latest availability, status updates.
-Kia Australia website
EV6 is, therefore, the full marketing masterpiece, but with nothing to actually hang on the wall - or park in your driveway. Wheels has ignored this completely and given the award to a car you not only cannot buy, but which Kia cannot tell you when you will be able to buy. It's ontologically, objectively not available to purchase. It's an ex-parrot!
‘Possibly, one day, we're not sure how and we certainly can't tell you when,’ but other than that, yes, it’s on sale. Well done, the Can't Touch This Car of the Year.
Surely a prerequisite of ‘Function’, the top BCOTY criterion, is that the vehicle has to be available to consumers, otherwise the award itself is preposterously irrelevant and out of touch. Surprising that the heavily delayed LandCruiser 300 is in there too.
In 2020, when they gave BCOTY to that horrible under-sprung EQC from Mercedes-Benz, one of their major advertisers, if you were rich enough and dumb enough, you could at least actually go out and buy one. So there's that.
On this point about availability, the car industry has virtually unlimited resources to devote to solving problems. They've really only got two jobs: make cars, sell cars.
I'd suggest that they need to sort themselves out rapidly, because using COVID as an enduring excuse for failing badly to supply cars is getting old. In fact the only entity that dealt with COVID worse than ScoMo is the steam-powered car industry.
2. PERFORMANCE FLAGSHIP
I'd suggest that as a performance flagship EV6 is really not quite there. I've driven one extensively; I've got a whole review shot and in the can, but what's the point of working for hours endlessly to cut and post a review that orbits a car you just can't buy?
I am quite familiar with this car and on the plus-side, I can tell you it's fast; really, really fast. It’s faster than the 239 kilowatt rating would suggest and it's especially fast out of a reasonably tight turn two and turn three in quick succession. Especially this is the case given this vehicle's incredible heft at 2.1 tonnes for the two motor variant. That vehicle is heavier than a Hilux SR5.
Looks and goes like a bat out of hell, sounds like the BatBike in ‘The Dark Knight’.
EV6 is pretty engaging to drive, too. It sits nice and flat like an EV should, in fact I'd say that if you're the kind of driver who thinks ‘advisory cornering speed sign, plus 20km/h’ is really cracking on, then you're gonna find the EV6 beyond excellent.
If you drive, at times, up to about 8.5 out of 10 or something (where 10 is the limit of the car's dynamic performance), you're not going to be disappointed, either. Mostly.
But, it is deadset easy to overcook on the way in. This is because it's silent, but deadly. You're going faster than it seems.
EV6 is hot in all the right places, but it has a couple of tiny flaws, one of which Hyundai solved with the iconic i30 N Performance >>
However, if you go a little bit hard, like 8.5-to-10 in the performance zone, and then the combined weight of the car and the entry-speed capability overwhelms you or catches you unaware, things can get hairy very quickly.
It’s that awful sensation of running out of damping, no more to give, plus EV tyre grip limits exceeded, creating an impending loss of body control. It’s a sensation racing drivers are conscious of and deal with every second weekend, unlike mere mortals like you and I. It’s a very interesting but also profoundly unpleasant feeling.
Also, the brakes are not really up to it in full-on 10/10 performance mode. I'm talking about being on a favourite bit of bendy road, steeply downhill, really going for it. That means for 90-plus per cent of drivers, it's going to be fine. But ‘Performance Flagship’?
If ‘Function’ is one of the core BCOTY criteria, and the intent of the EV6 is as a true performance flagship, then the EV6 needs just a little more work. But praise to Kia Australia engineer genius Graeme Gambold for his handling dynamics package in EV6.
As a grand tourer, it's an awesome car. But does it ace the objective of living up to its intent on the ragged edge? No.
3. OBESITY PANDEMIC
This is a big one. Globally, populations are demanding effective action on climate change from governments. This is a fact, you don't have to like it. Governments, not ours, but in developed nations, they're taking (profitable) action because they want to get re-elected - it's what proper, grown-up governments do.
Carmakers don't give a shit about the environment but they need to appease regulators and EVs are certainly one way to be seen to be doing that. The climate (and ultimately the human race) is actually fucked if we don't tackle humanity's addiction to coal. Cars are a small but significant part of the problem, a bit of a sideshow, but a relatable one which is why they are so heavily scrutinised in the context of climate.
Anywho, the electrification of the car industry is being done for environmental and regulatory reasons meaning, green reasons, climate reasons, electorate appeasing reasons. Whatever you want to call it; humanity not wanting to destroy itself by burning too much.
All of these shiny EVs can’t just go into landfill or be casually broken up.
This is why. Electrification it's the why of the whole project. It's the underlying rationale and there are significant side benefits such as national energy security and clean air for our cities. But these are not the why of electrification in the context of environmental initiatives.
Putting one or two hundred kilos of humans in a box that weighs 2.1 tons and driving to the office, that's a flat out environmental disgrace. Patting yourself on the back for being green and doing that is to dissociate yourself profoundly from reality. Doing this is an advertisement for inefficiency and preposterous mismanagement of input energy. This is a fact.
You have to make 2.1 tons of high-tech materials to put together an EV6 and you have to make it from some of the filthiest raw materials known to man, then you have to assemble it and then you have to worry about making enough energy to move all of that mass from A to B for 15 years or something.
But zero emissions, yes, and then you have to worry about what to do with 2.1 tonnes of old heavy battery-powered vehicle at the end of its life, especially in a country like ours with no significant recycling mandates, which is a bit messed up when you think about it.
Now, this is a proper, grown-up concept. ‘Function’ is how well something does what it was fundamentally implemented to do. Pretty clearly. I'd suggest therefore if function and efficiency are still core BCOTY criteria, then Wheels has been spectacularly unfaithful to those two on this one.
Cars like the EV6 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5, which was also a contender, are cool and quick and big and comfy and they don't smog up the air and they reduce our dependency on foreign oil and they are rather nice to drive and they sit nice and flat, and you can behave like a properly insufferable green nutbag if you own one.
But they're neither green nor efficient and anyone who claims otherwise is, more or less, full of shit.
4. FALSE EQUIVALENCE
Time for the elephant in the room. Hyundai Ioniq 5 - missed it by that much - because EV6 is so much better, obviously, which is a Function assessment fail, right there, if you ask me. We'll get to that.
According to Wheels, EV6 is a “genuine landmark” that's also a:
That premiumness, you can smell it, right? I know I can. It gets worse.
Actually, they are, Wheels dudes, in every way that matters, especially in the context of an award allegedly doled out against a set of criteria: Function, Technology, Efficiency, Safety and Value. Right?
Car of the Year? You've heard of that.
They're equally safe, so there's that. The Hyundai is better value, because it's the same thing and seven grand cheaper. And on being the same thing, Hyundai owns Kia; the same R&D teams designed the one set of powertrains on the same E-GMP platform, they have exactly the same technology, a few different gadgets on board, but the same technology. Last time I looked, ‘Gadgets’ was not one of the BCOTY criteria.
When you look at Function, EV6's intent is ‘Performance Flagship’. Ionic 5 is EV as an exercise in design liberation, meaning ‘let's demonstrate how a lack of internal combustion conventional architecture can change the way a car gets designed without going too ridiculous’.
Assessing cars against a set of criteria means asking how well they do that, not comparing them directly against each other at the proving ground you hired. It’s not a comparison test. And yet, in its apparently batshit crazy justification on this, Wheels jumps straight into comparing Ionic 5 and EV6 against each other directly. This is a Car of the Year cardinal sin.
It’s supposed to be how well that vehicle completes the commando course, not Mortal Kombat.
The minutiae of their very slight differences is not up for debate. Pro Tip: you frickin geniuses, that's not what Car of the Year is. It's ‘Car versus Criteria’ and on this point, in my view, Wheels fails spectacularly. Again.
If the design intentions of the two vehicles were the same, only then could you compare them directly, under the rubric of Function. But they're not, so you can't, and yet, they do.
CONCLUSION
This smacks of being political. It smells like a means of hosing down Hyundai's advertising department if they have some tantrum and threaten to pull their ads because BCOTY went off its meds. That would be fun to watch.
Back when Wheels wasn't a joke, and this was some time ago now, Car of the Year was a respected celebration of automotive innovation and advancement. It meant you could have, potentially, a Porsche 911 and a Hyundai Getz together, among the contenders, and the Getz stood a chance - provided it was innovative and advanced enough (it never was, obviously but hey, you get the point).
I'm not saying they should have given it to the Ioniq 5 either because it's not on sale today, either. You cannot buy one.
Not to mention, its inherent resource intensity makes Ioniq 5 a Car of the Year fail on Function and Efficiency grounds for the same reason as EV6. What I'm saying is Wheels is, once again, dependably useless at judging Car of the Year. The kids tried hard, I suppose, but every good shop needs a properly grown-up man (or woman) to direct the troops.
Don't get me wrong, this is not some kind of cry for employment, like a job application of sorts. They wouldn't have me and believe me, I’d rather be dead.
But they can't keep doing this kind of thing - disrespecting the past and also expecting the public, or the industry, to respect them into the future.
Car of the Year is just sad.
Mazda3 should make you reconsider that heavy, impractical SUV or the long list of overpriced prestige German cars. If you’re money smart, you’ll put this sensible, stylish small hatch or sedan on your shortlist for a test drive.