The Development of the Kia EV6 GT: A High-Performance Electric Vehicle

As we take a closer look at the Kia EV6 GT, it's clear that this car is not your average family sedan. What sets it apart is its impressive 577 horsepower under the hood, making it a serious contender in the high-performance electric vehicle market. But what makes this car tick? Let's dive into the details of its development and see how it became the ultimate test roster for our own garage.

One of the key features of the Kia EV6 GT is its weight distribution. By relocating more weight to the front of the car, Kia has achieved a more even balance that improves handling and stability. However, this change in weight distribution requires adjustments to the spring rates and shock absorbers to ensure optimal performance. To address this challenge, we've partnered with a company called Race Shocks, who specialize in suspension systems for high-performance vehicles like the Pagani Zonda.

The team at Race Shocks has helped us develop a semi-active suspension system that monitors g-forces in real-time and adjusts the suspension accordingly to improve handling and feel. This cutting-edge technology is made possible by a system called Track Active Suspension, which allows our engineers to fine-tune the car's response to changing road conditions. By leveraging this advanced technology, we've been able to create a driving experience that's both exhilarating and refined.

Now, let's take a closer look at the Kia EV6 GT itself. With its sleek design and aggressive stance, this car is sure to turn heads on the road. The interior is equally impressive, featuring a high-tech dashboard and premium materials throughout. But what really sets this car apart is its performance capabilities. With 577 horsepower on tap, the EV6 GT can accelerate from 0-60 in just seconds, making it one of the fastest production cars on the market.

One of the most striking features of the EV6 GT is its clever use of technology to enhance driving dynamics. The car's "rider" mode, for example, allows drivers to adjust the suspension and traction control settings on the fly, giving them complete control over the driving experience. And with its advanced aerodynamics and chassis design, this car is capable of handling even the most aggressive driving styles.

As we take a closer look at the EV6 GT's features and capabilities, it becomes clear that this car is not just a high-performance electric vehicle – it's a serious contender in the world of high-performance driving. With its advanced technology, impressive performance capabilities, and sleek design, the Kia EV6 GT is sure to be a hit with drivers who demand the best. And as we put it through our testing rig, we can see firsthand just how capable this car really is.

But before we get behind the wheel of the EV6 GT, let's talk about some of its other features and capabilities. One thing that's clear from even a quick glance at the dashboard is that this car has all the bells and whistles – including a clever keyless entry system that uses a smartphone app to unlock and start the car. And with its premium materials throughout, the interior feels just as luxurious as it looks.

As we get ready to put the EV6 GT through its paces, our thoughts turn to the challenges of driving such a powerful car on public roads. With 577 horsepower at our disposal, there's always a risk that we might accidentally become too enthusiastic behind the wheel. But with Kia's clever traction control system and advanced suspension technology, we can rest assured that this car will be stable and predictable even when pushed to its limits.

And finally, let's take a moment to appreciate just how cool this car is. With its sleek design and aggressive stance, the EV6 GT is sure to turn heads on the road – whether you're cruising down the highway or carving up a twisty mountain road. And with Kia's clever use of color and design elements, this car feels like something out of a sci-fi movie. Whether you're a driving enthusiast or just someone who appreciates style and sophistication, the EV6 GT is sure to leave a lasting impression.

As we wait for the rain to stop, our thoughts turn to the road ahead – and what it might bring. Will we be able to handle the 577 horsepower on tap? And how will this car perform in real-world driving conditions? Only time will tell, but one thing's for sure: with its advanced technology, impressive performance capabilities, and sleek design, the Kia EV6 GT is ready for whatever the road throws our way.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enare you ready sir yeah you're gonna say Ready Steady go yeah what we'll do is we wait for this oncoming car to disappear just in case you lose control not gonna happen oh yeah watch this go ahead and do the ready setting go ready steady go it's quite interesting that's expected isn't it look at that nice it's good hey stop does it no just kiss show I'm used to it by now to a lot of uh you know extent well it's going to say none of your electric cars are slow are they mate no no does it um tell me how much power there's a screen here that's just going up when I'm accelerating but yeah does it tell you how many kilowatts no it doesn't it just has a graphical display it says zero to 100 sort of thing yeah it's a shame so it'd be nice to see how much we're actually like you know taken out yeah well hey guys and welcome to petrol pet you can see he's asking about the details already I'm here in Wales with my good mate Maggie who um who I've given the keys to the Kia press car don't worry Kia put him on the insurance that was a mistake oh that'll be the last thing to do that I know so I'm here to have a do a couple of films with moggy sadly the weather didn't quite play ball today well the Clue the clue is in the destination mate you've come to Wales so we've had to adapt so I thought we would head back to the workshop and have a look at the simply ridiculous project that moggy's working on at the moment and then we'll come back out and I'll let you know what he thinks of this ev6 GT thank you now as it's chucking it down with rain outside our filming plans today have changed a little bit well it's whales mate it's whales what do you expect it was something yesterday wait wait until tomorrow it'll be snowing so I thought it'd be really cool to walk around the workshop and just have a look at some of the crazy projects you've got going on and the beeline straight to this because because it's a crazy project yeah well you've made some crazy cars since I've known you your Beatles absolutely crazy yeah 600 horsepower and a beetle 0 to 16 2.7 seconds that's that's quick oh yeah your bus is quick yep your Defenders quick yeah you can see you can see the pattern of my bills this those pale into that they'll be slow rubbish Castle available this is mad yeah this has gone a little bit crazy you've turned the wick up to like forget 11. oh yeah it's like you know well the thing is though I I I've learned over the years that there is a limit to um building a road fast Road car before it becomes you know a good track car yeah that your enjoyment and the road aspect starts to diminish yeah and I did it with a previous Beetle years ago you know when I put a roll cage in that Beetle it was more difficult to get into in and out of the back seat became a bit impractical and then like yeah I did some more modifications to make it really awesome on track but then the road practicality went down so I know there's a limit where I stop you know when the fun stop stop as they say with a road car and you say nope that's a road car now I'm not going into track world with that and I'm gonna build a track car and that's what this is so that's where this starts okay effect yeah so this starts at like I'm gonna build a track car and goes way Zone because because it's electric and I can I mean it's just a mad thing so um it's based on a fun cup yeah I see so I I knew if I'm going to build a track car yeah I don't want because I initially I was thinking of looking at the Ultima oh yeah yeah another one I looked at the ultimate GTR or whatever lots of high-end cars exactly so I thought if I take that that would be really really quick yeah and okay it's not a practical Road character and I started toying around with the idea of that and I thought well the only thing that put me off that was the fact that it looks quick yeah well I like cars that are sleepers like my bus for instance uh yeah it looks completely normal and it's got 450 horsepower in the uh in the back end yeah I like sleepers so I thought what better sleeper than a beetle yeah nobody expects a 40 horsepower Beetle to go quick yeah but it does especially my silver one so I thought I'll turn a track car Beetle into an insane monster so we start off with a fun cup as you said so it's a fun cup chassis modified yeah and uh fun cups for people that don't know what that is it's an endurance um Championship very popular in places like Belgium for instance and the UK yeah yeah and it's a single-seater normally has an Audi engine in the back yeah well so we're gonna have the engine in the background in the back anymore so I thought what can we push out of this well first of all the lesson learned from the silver Beetle yeah I need four-wheel drive yes because 2.7 uh not 60 is about the limit of traction for a rear wheel drive car yeah four-wheel drive was a definite yeah um which pose problems because this car was never meant to be four-wheel drive no uh and I thought right okay I need a good powerful Tesla drivetrain to put in it so I went with um a Tesla performance setup to start with right and that I'll put the camera down here while you're chatting so that's the large Tesla Drive Unit in the rear and a um Front Drive Unit A small drive here in the front so we're going to start it off with a performance um Drive drain out of a p100d Tesla Model S yeah and I've got it on the on the Shelf somewhere I've got a Tesla plaid setup to put in it if it can cope with it which is where the thousand horsepower is coming from so but I want to see if this can cope with it so this test mule is a p100d correct and we've already made sure that the plant system can fit so we know that's a go anyway yeah but we're just gonna see how everything copes with this amount of power and I think this is something like 800 horsepower just to see oh only yeah exactly and then batteries that I guess that's the battery pack just there so yeah so we're playing on a 400 volt system and that means the performance motor or the plant system needs to eat a lot of amps when you plant your right foot so right and there's no way you can fit a whole Tesla Model S battery pack in this it would just be to be too heavy yeah because I wanted to keep it a thousand horsepower a thousand kilos so it's like a one to one correct I've always wanted a one car and never could afford to buy one obviously but I can build one so the battery packs are out of a hybrid yeah because a hybrid is a great car to get power dense batteries in those are batteries that can cook with a lot of power rather than a lot of range because they're still 400 volts but they're small batteries that still has to drive a motor to drive a car which is a hybrid that's only driving off the electric motor at any one time the battery pack needs to be able to be able to sport that mountain yeah so I've got three hybrid battery packs in parallel so why in parallel because either side of you sat in there their battery packs yeah oh wow so they're they're like um side pods in a like a single-seater yeah um so the reason why we got them in parallel is it's a little bit like three blokes lifting up a heavy log you're sharing the load of the amps over three packs and these are already very stiff packs yeah and what I mean by stiff packs is when you plant your foot the um the voltage doesn't sag as the amps has been drawn out so I've already taken a stiff pack multiple divided by three and then put it in here and then round the front so so not not content with having a whopping great big electric motor on the back axle you've got one on the front as well yeah so this was the problem um that we had to overcome quite early on there's never there was never supposed to be something there no so this was never a four-wheel drive car so we've had to find a space for this and as you can see there was a problem with this steering column you see the steering company used to have a fairly straight shot down to there yeah now we've had to go over and then like down so we've got a bevel box in to be able to go over the front drive unit and you can push 300 doors back just out at this motor so um you know 300 horsepower I've been able to theoretically push out that 600 horsepower theoretically you can push out the rear one so you know this is enough but you know once you get used to it it's probably not going to be enough for me and then suspension setup is that is that pretty much out Funk couple have you been playing with that as well because I know I'm knowing you that won't be that won't be standard no so one of the first things we also realize is that the drive shafts um won't be able to cope with the amount of power and torque that we're putting no brake drive shafts again are you mate never done that have I Regional drive shaft hang on let me go and get one and go and get one and I'll do some walk around it here look he's off oh here we go look at the size of this one right wow so that is an original fun cup drive shaft and that is out of an Audi R8 oh wow so what we've done uh is we've upgraded literally everything from the Tesla Motor to the wheel because um that's the original uh drive shaft and you can see the difference in thickness you have to cope with the power and then this little CV joint here was what was in the fun cup and we've upgraded that to something even bigger than this now because now we've got Audi RS6 um CV joints on and they're going into Audi R8 um bearing calories and hugs wow so it looks like it's um fairly standard fun cup stuff but it's not but it's not and they're big brakes yeah uh I just you can see the the size difference now if I if I take that out there and you can pair this CV joint with a big one that's in there that's a lot bigger yeah but then that post all sorts of other problems with bearing carriers and things like that so yeah it's an amalgamation really of custom drive shaft um Audi R8 and Audi RS6 um stuff so where do you get it from mate where's your mental brain work from and then and then this is the back so yeah that's the rear clip so that goes on the rear yeah all fiberglass obviously yeah and it's going to be a big Wang on the back there I reckon yeah oh yeah okay I'm talking huge oh my god um but one of the issues with a beetle obviously is there's no radiator normally on the beetle yeah so we still have to have coolant so we've got the battery coolant system here and again this is all engineering so like on the Fly we've uh we've kind of like taken our experience of other vehicles and thought okay this should be okay but if it needs to go bigger we can actually go up to about here yeah and then the front clip which is over here this is the front clip um yeah we're gonna fill these in because this is what a fun cup normally looks like the front anyway because it has an Audi engine in yeah I had had a big big radiator but we're going to fill these in and we're going to cut this all the way to there and then that should hopefully be enough airflow but if it's not we can increase the radiator that is mate honestly you are but you can see another problem oh how now so that because you had this was a good wood and you you didn't have that stuff right good wood so uh one of the problems we've got is because we've got a lot wider Wheels than the original front cap to be able to get the power down yeah our Wheels come out a lot further um which means that we've got to re-sculpt These Wings and we're going to get a mold made up as well because I will break something yeah I will stack it into a barrier or something at some point yeah because if I'm not I'm not trying yeah yeah um so we're going to make a mold to make repeatable wings but that's how much extra we need to come out to be able to cover the the wheels and on the airflow on the rear we've got a scoop on the top now that scoop let's have a pond around get the scoop around the back here yeah so this used to keep the engine that used to be in the back here at all cool yeah and now the airflow from this and the rear um uh Wing ones is going into an air box there and that is the inverter and uh motor radiator for both Motors it's just immense so I I think this is going to be thermally limited rather than um anything else obviously it's gonna be grip limited yeah but the main thing that's going to stop me from ragging it is not going to be I'm running out of charge I think things are going to get too hot yeah so our my initial thoughts are we're gonna have to up our game as far as the thermal management is concerned maybe a heat pump air conditioning compressor Etc just to supercharge the the coolant system a little bit and then yeah these are the header tanks not for seven years mate um so that's the coolant for the battery and that's the coolant for the uh motoring inverter wow do you like the wheels the wheels are really nice actually yeah yeah so where where are they because they're like very fooks like so these are from image Wheels uh in the Midlands and uh you know we had to get some custom wheels uh done because you know there's no way we could uh use existing Wheels yeah and these are five stud um the original fun cup ones are full yeah little like I think they're four by one hundreds these are some like five by 110 or 120 I can't remember now reimagining the Fuchs wheel if it was a modern like uh car so I think they're 10 inch on the back and eight and a half inch on the front you run it on slicks maybe oh yeah these are just temporary ones to get us going so we're running the toyos now just to get it going and bed things in dial it in and then we're gonna go to Michelin slicks um when we're going to start getting serious all right there you go so that that's the first part of the water and I don't know how we beat that I know uh how about an electric Ferrari yeah all right I'll do that then uh which one I got two yeah let's go that way right now ah look this is one of the more controversial bills that we've done flat 12 oh Ferrari yeah yeah so uh yeah fat balance as well to keep it alive yes uh to service a Ferrari testarosser engine it's a lot of money yeah so what's under there not not a Ferrari engine I'll show you what do you think is under there so this this isn't a is it mate it's a Tesla offer oh yeah cause now we've got rid of the Flat 12 and actually technically it's a V12 and flat configuration because a flat 12 is something different but um yeah so that is now Tesla power so wow this is sits in there really nicely well you know me I like to improve a classic car where I can and people out there gonna watch me you improved it you've taken the heart and soul out but um we've improved it because weight distribution wise this was pretty pounce yeah because it had all the way in the rear you had your engine gearbox fuel tank radiators exhaust everything was behind you so weight distribution wise it was pretty patched and I used to go into a roundabout and understeering not a great handling car if I'm honest yeah but um what I wanted to do with the electric conversion side of things is improve the handling as well as the performance so you can see what we've done is the Tesla Motor normally sits this side of the drive shaft Yeah the more or less so we have reversed it over here so that all the weight is in front of the drive shafts okay so we got the Drive Unit here similar to what you're doing the defender so if you had to change the gearing in there yeah no you don't have to range of gearing but you do have to trick it into running in Reverse running in Reverse that's it um so there's a performance Drive Unit in here main battery pack is here yeah um and there's another um battery pack so another battery pack where the fuel tanks are underneath uh just in front of this and another one where the spare wheel is in the front but everything bolts on to the existing infrastructure so this cradle here which holds the Tesla motor in place that bolts into the original Four Points where the engine mounts go and the battery pack does the same It Bolts onto the subframe down there and the engine mounts so everything is literally bolt in even the battery pack that replaces the fuel tanks bolts into the fuel tank Mount so not a single hole has been drilled in addition to what's already available to us so I could if I wanted to put the engine back in absolutely yeah so yeah it's got CCS charging as well so most of our bills now have CCS rapid charge let's change the bits when in the early days it was just AC you didn't you hadn't done very many yeah I think a few years ago it makes a big difference to the conversion in terms of stuff inside is it more difficult I mean there's uh well first of all you need coolant yeah you need a um just thermally manage the battery um well because if you put that amount of amounts in you need to keep on top of the uh battery temperatures yeah there is some more um things like contactors that go into another set of contactors which are essentially big switches yeah um to um go in for the CCS system and then you've got some additional low voltage Control Systems so you've got to have a CCS controller so it does increase some of the complexity I love that underneath the original oh yeah so that that's when it's shut like that so you'd that on the outside you just never know uh and another thing we've done from the outside if you were a Ferrari you know Aficionado yeah the only thing that would give this away that there's something different about it is this panel here because there used to be some big exhausts oh yeah yeah and here yeah and what we've done is we've made our own little grill that then follows the lines for the other Grill here so from the rear it'll you know Blends in so cool oh that's kind of what the guys are working on here now so um one thing we've done obviously to improve the handling of the car is the weight distribution yeah but the other thing is because the air weight distribution has changed there's less weight in the back more weight at the front which means we're going to have to change the spring rates and shock um shocks anyway but while we're doing that um we got in contact with a company called race shocks down in South Wales and they're an agent for track active who will have suspension systems on the Pagani Zonda and stuff like that um and they said you know what you don't want to do it you want to put a semi-active suspension system on you're kidding What's that I I asked him and then when they explained the fact that you know monitors the g-forces and you know it reacts the suspension within like microseconds to improve the handling and the feel I thought wow well we're making the ultimate Ferrari test roster we've got to have the ultimate suspension system so that's what that is this is track active suspension by um the guys down at Ray shocks yeah that's what they're doing well it seems to do all this kind of you know classic car stuff I am in a high performance modern day Electric car when you come in a Kia ev6 GT 577 horsepower right of your street so they're again 577 horsepower all right you have my attention sir and Kiera put you on the insurance are they yeah has it stop raining yet no but that just makes it more emotional cool let's go let's do it drive it yeah definitely let's go you've even got his own cover because he's got his oily jeans on are there any other types of jeans no not really no not for you uh oh look there's a screen as well yeah that's that's your blind spot that's quite cool that's a good feature that is a Kia and Hyundai feature it doesn't tell you down the steering wheel the steering wheel gets in the way of it so you're currently in eco mode so this is like driving station just hit the GT button on there the big yeah run here yeah just push that oh yeah that worked destroyed it away yeah so now you're in full 577 horsepower traction's backed off a little bit yeah good man I'll wait until we get out of town yeah because I know these roads quite well yeah which is a silly button so hey there we go so traction control's still on then it's off a little bit it's not Tesla Model my driver so they're they're just as ridic ulous so uh if you if you bury it it will spin so it just keeps on going it's in in my Beetle for instance if I floored it then it would be like that it's yeah as graph goes it's like bang up there but this is like that I think they must have to tune that in a little bit so that when normal people get in the car they don't kill themselves because that was my worry with this is you'll get you're going to get you know a normal family buy this car and it's got nearly 600 horsepower that's like supercar I can't figure it's like six 700 Newton me so Kia right um key used to be sorry Kia out there the key used to be rubbish yeah I'll get yeah even Keel will admit Ikea all of a sudden as soon as electric came out oh here's our chance to be cool guys let's go let's get any cool design cars put loads of power in and turn Kia cool yeah and they I think they changed the logo as well to like they have got that that's the new version that's it yeah so as soon as they did that it was an electric it was their you know opportunity to go cool yeah and all their cars since they've gone electric they're like hang on a minute where did you come from Nero brilliant so brilliant This brilliant this is like I think a better looking car then say about Jager eye base as you say I think it looks like a more aggressive or angry looking jigarette base which is okay with me yeah I mean you don't need but what what good yes you do oh no you don't need to but you have to but you have to I so the reason I wanted to come up here with this car because I thought this was a very you kind of car we take a normal sedate family Kia and then wax 600 horsepower yeah a bit like you taking your normal sedate beetle I'm whacking 600. who would do such a thing I don't know you are the only person I knoware you ready sir yeah you're gonna say Ready Steady go yeah what we'll do is we wait for this oncoming car to disappear just in case you lose control not gonna happen oh yeah watch this go ahead and do the ready setting go ready steady go it's quite interesting that's expected isn't it look at that nice it's good hey stop does it no just kiss show I'm used to it by now to a lot of uh you know extent well it's going to say none of your electric cars are slow are they mate no no does it um tell me how much power there's a screen here that's just going up when I'm accelerating but yeah does it tell you how many kilowatts no it doesn't it just has a graphical display it says zero to 100 sort of thing yeah it's a shame so it'd be nice to see how much we're actually like you know taken out yeah well hey guys and welcome to petrol pet you can see he's asking about the details already I'm here in Wales with my good mate Maggie who um who I've given the keys to the Kia press car don't worry Kia put him on the insurance that was a mistake oh that'll be the last thing to do that I know so I'm here to have a do a couple of films with moggy sadly the weather didn't quite play ball today well the Clue the clue is in the destination mate you've come to Wales so we've had to adapt so I thought we would head back to the workshop and have a look at the simply ridiculous project that moggy's working on at the moment and then we'll come back out and I'll let you know what he thinks of this ev6 GT thank you now as it's chucking it down with rain outside our filming plans today have changed a little bit well it's whales mate it's whales what do you expect it was something yesterday wait wait until tomorrow it'll be snowing so I thought it'd be really cool to walk around the workshop and just have a look at some of the crazy projects you've got going on and the beeline straight to this because because it's a crazy project yeah well you've made some crazy cars since I've known you your Beatles absolutely crazy yeah 600 horsepower and a beetle 0 to 16 2.7 seconds that's that's quick oh yeah your bus is quick yep your Defenders quick yeah you can see you can see the pattern of my bills this those pale into that they'll be slow rubbish Castle available this is mad yeah this has gone a little bit crazy you've turned the wick up to like forget 11. oh yeah it's like you know well the thing is though I I I've learned over the years that there is a limit to um building a road fast Road car before it becomes you know a good track car yeah that your enjoyment and the road aspect starts to diminish yeah and I did it with a previous Beetle years ago you know when I put a roll cage in that Beetle it was more difficult to get into in and out of the back seat became a bit impractical and then like yeah I did some more modifications to make it really awesome on track but then the road practicality went down so I know there's a limit where I stop you know when the fun stop stop as they say with a road car and you say nope that's a road car now I'm not going into track world with that and I'm gonna build a track car and that's what this is so that's where this starts okay effect yeah so this starts at like I'm gonna build a track car and goes way Zone because because it's electric and I can I mean it's just a mad thing so um it's based on a fun cup yeah I see so I I knew if I'm going to build a track car yeah I don't want because I initially I was thinking of looking at the Ultima oh yeah yeah another one I looked at the ultimate GTR or whatever lots of high-end cars exactly so I thought if I take that that would be really really quick yeah and okay it's not a practical Road character and I started toying around with the idea of that and I thought well the only thing that put me off that was the fact that it looks quick yeah well I like cars that are sleepers like my bus for instance uh yeah it looks completely normal and it's got 450 horsepower in the uh in the back end yeah I like sleepers so I thought what better sleeper than a beetle yeah nobody expects a 40 horsepower Beetle to go quick yeah but it does especially my silver one so I thought I'll turn a track car Beetle into an insane monster so we start off with a fun cup as you said so it's a fun cup chassis modified yeah and uh fun cups for people that don't know what that is it's an endurance um Championship very popular in places like Belgium for instance and the UK yeah yeah and it's a single-seater normally has an Audi engine in the back yeah well so we're gonna have the engine in the background in the back anymore so I thought what can we push out of this well first of all the lesson learned from the silver Beetle yeah I need four-wheel drive yes because 2.7 uh not 60 is about the limit of traction for a rear wheel drive car yeah four-wheel drive was a definite yeah um which pose problems because this car was never meant to be four-wheel drive no uh and I thought right okay I need a good powerful Tesla drivetrain to put in it so I went with um a Tesla performance setup to start with right and that I'll put the camera down here while you're chatting so that's the large Tesla Drive Unit in the rear and a um Front Drive Unit A small drive here in the front so we're going to start it off with a performance um Drive drain out of a p100d Tesla Model S yeah and I've got it on the on the Shelf somewhere I've got a Tesla plaid setup to put in it if it can cope with it which is where the thousand horsepower is coming from so but I want to see if this can cope with it so this test mule is a p100d correct and we've already made sure that the plant system can fit so we know that's a go anyway yeah but we're just gonna see how everything copes with this amount of power and I think this is something like 800 horsepower just to see oh only yeah exactly and then batteries that I guess that's the battery pack just there so yeah so we're playing on a 400 volt system and that means the performance motor or the plant system needs to eat a lot of amps when you plant your right foot so right and there's no way you can fit a whole Tesla Model S battery pack in this it would just be to be too heavy yeah because I wanted to keep it a thousand horsepower a thousand kilos so it's like a one to one correct I've always wanted a one car and never could afford to buy one obviously but I can build one so the battery packs are out of a hybrid yeah because a hybrid is a great car to get power dense batteries in those are batteries that can cook with a lot of power rather than a lot of range because they're still 400 volts but they're small batteries that still has to drive a motor to drive a car which is a hybrid that's only driving off the electric motor at any one time the battery pack needs to be able to be able to sport that mountain yeah so I've got three hybrid battery packs in parallel so why in parallel because either side of you sat in there their battery packs yeah oh wow so they're they're like um side pods in a like a single-seater yeah um so the reason why we got them in parallel is it's a little bit like three blokes lifting up a heavy log you're sharing the load of the amps over three packs and these are already very stiff packs yeah and what I mean by stiff packs is when you plant your foot the um the voltage doesn't sag as the amps has been drawn out so I've already taken a stiff pack multiple divided by three and then put it in here and then round the front so so not not content with having a whopping great big electric motor on the back axle you've got one on the front as well yeah so this was the problem um that we had to overcome quite early on there's never there was never supposed to be something there no so this was never a four-wheel drive car so we've had to find a space for this and as you can see there was a problem with this steering column you see the steering company used to have a fairly straight shot down to there yeah now we've had to go over and then like down so we've got a bevel box in to be able to go over the front drive unit and you can push 300 doors back just out at this motor so um you know 300 horsepower I've been able to theoretically push out that 600 horsepower theoretically you can push out the rear one so you know this is enough but you know once you get used to it it's probably not going to be enough for me and then suspension setup is that is that pretty much out Funk couple have you been playing with that as well because I know I'm knowing you that won't be that won't be standard no so one of the first things we also realize is that the drive shafts um won't be able to cope with the amount of power and torque that we're putting no brake drive shafts again are you mate never done that have I Regional drive shaft hang on let me go and get one and go and get one and I'll do some walk around it here look he's off oh here we go look at the size of this one right wow so that is an original fun cup drive shaft and that is out of an Audi R8 oh wow so what we've done uh is we've upgraded literally everything from the Tesla Motor to the wheel because um that's the original uh drive shaft and you can see the difference in thickness you have to cope with the power and then this little CV joint here was what was in the fun cup and we've upgraded that to something even bigger than this now because now we've got Audi RS6 um CV joints on and they're going into Audi R8 um bearing calories and hugs wow so it looks like it's um fairly standard fun cup stuff but it's not but it's not and they're big brakes yeah uh I just you can see the the size difference now if I if I take that out there and you can pair this CV joint with a big one that's in there that's a lot bigger yeah but then that post all sorts of other problems with bearing carriers and things like that so yeah it's an amalgamation really of custom drive shaft um Audi R8 and Audi RS6 um stuff so where do you get it from mate where's your mental brain work from and then and then this is the back so yeah that's the rear clip so that goes on the rear yeah all fiberglass obviously yeah and it's going to be a big Wang on the back there I reckon yeah oh yeah okay I'm talking huge oh my god um but one of the issues with a beetle obviously is there's no radiator normally on the beetle yeah so we still have to have coolant so we've got the battery coolant system here and again this is all engineering so like on the Fly we've uh we've kind of like taken our experience of other vehicles and thought okay this should be okay but if it needs to go bigger we can actually go up to about here yeah and then the front clip which is over here this is the front clip um yeah we're gonna fill these in because this is what a fun cup normally looks like the front anyway because it has an Audi engine in yeah I had had a big big radiator but we're going to fill these in and we're going to cut this all the way to there and then that should hopefully be enough airflow but if it's not we can increase the radiator that is mate honestly you are but you can see another problem oh how now so that because you had this was a good wood and you you didn't have that stuff right good wood so uh one of the problems we've got is because we've got a lot wider Wheels than the original front cap to be able to get the power down yeah our Wheels come out a lot further um which means that we've got to re-sculpt These Wings and we're going to get a mold made up as well because I will break something yeah I will stack it into a barrier or something at some point yeah because if I'm not I'm not trying yeah yeah um so we're going to make a mold to make repeatable wings but that's how much extra we need to come out to be able to cover the the wheels and on the airflow on the rear we've got a scoop on the top now that scoop let's have a pond around get the scoop around the back here yeah so this used to keep the engine that used to be in the back here at all cool yeah and now the airflow from this and the rear um uh Wing ones is going into an air box there and that is the inverter and uh motor radiator for both Motors it's just immense so I I think this is going to be thermally limited rather than um anything else obviously it's gonna be grip limited yeah but the main thing that's going to stop me from ragging it is not going to be I'm running out of charge I think things are going to get too hot yeah so our my initial thoughts are we're gonna have to up our game as far as the thermal management is concerned maybe a heat pump air conditioning compressor Etc just to supercharge the the coolant system a little bit and then yeah these are the header tanks not for seven years mate um so that's the coolant for the battery and that's the coolant for the uh motoring inverter wow do you like the wheels the wheels are really nice actually yeah yeah so where where are they because they're like very fooks like so these are from image Wheels uh in the Midlands and uh you know we had to get some custom wheels uh done because you know there's no way we could uh use existing Wheels yeah and these are five stud um the original fun cup ones are full yeah little like I think they're four by one hundreds these are some like five by 110 or 120 I can't remember now reimagining the Fuchs wheel if it was a modern like uh car so I think they're 10 inch on the back and eight and a half inch on the front you run it on slicks maybe oh yeah these are just temporary ones to get us going so we're running the toyos now just to get it going and bed things in dial it in and then we're gonna go to Michelin slicks um when we're going to start getting serious all right there you go so that that's the first part of the water and I don't know how we beat that I know uh how about an electric Ferrari yeah all right I'll do that then uh which one I got two yeah let's go that way right now ah look this is one of the more controversial bills that we've done flat 12 oh Ferrari yeah yeah so uh yeah fat balance as well to keep it alive yes uh to service a Ferrari testarosser engine it's a lot of money yeah so what's under there not not a Ferrari engine I'll show you what do you think is under there so this this isn't a is it mate it's a Tesla offer oh yeah cause now we've got rid of the Flat 12 and actually technically it's a V12 and flat configuration because a flat 12 is something different but um yeah so that is now Tesla power so wow this is sits in there really nicely well you know me I like to improve a classic car where I can and people out there gonna watch me you improved it you've taken the heart and soul out but um we've improved it because weight distribution wise this was pretty pounce yeah because it had all the way in the rear you had your engine gearbox fuel tank radiators exhaust everything was behind you so weight distribution wise it was pretty patched and I used to go into a roundabout and understeering not a great handling car if I'm honest yeah but um what I wanted to do with the electric conversion side of things is improve the handling as well as the performance so you can see what we've done is the Tesla Motor normally sits this side of the drive shaft Yeah the more or less so we have reversed it over here so that all the weight is in front of the drive shafts okay so we got the Drive Unit here similar to what you're doing the defender so if you had to change the gearing in there yeah no you don't have to range of gearing but you do have to trick it into running in Reverse running in Reverse that's it um so there's a performance Drive Unit in here main battery pack is here yeah um and there's another um battery pack so another battery pack where the fuel tanks are underneath uh just in front of this and another one where the spare wheel is in the front but everything bolts on to the existing infrastructure so this cradle here which holds the Tesla motor in place that bolts into the original Four Points where the engine mounts go and the battery pack does the same It Bolts onto the subframe down there and the engine mounts so everything is literally bolt in even the battery pack that replaces the fuel tanks bolts into the fuel tank Mount so not a single hole has been drilled in addition to what's already available to us so I could if I wanted to put the engine back in absolutely yeah so yeah it's got CCS charging as well so most of our bills now have CCS rapid charge let's change the bits when in the early days it was just AC you didn't you hadn't done very many yeah I think a few years ago it makes a big difference to the conversion in terms of stuff inside is it more difficult I mean there's uh well first of all you need coolant yeah you need a um just thermally manage the battery um well because if you put that amount of amounts in you need to keep on top of the uh battery temperatures yeah there is some more um things like contactors that go into another set of contactors which are essentially big switches yeah um to um go in for the CCS system and then you've got some additional low voltage Control Systems so you've got to have a CCS controller so it does increase some of the complexity I love that underneath the original oh yeah so that that's when it's shut like that so you'd that on the outside you just never know uh and another thing we've done from the outside if you were a Ferrari you know Aficionado yeah the only thing that would give this away that there's something different about it is this panel here because there used to be some big exhausts oh yeah yeah and here yeah and what we've done is we've made our own little grill that then follows the lines for the other Grill here so from the rear it'll you know Blends in so cool oh that's kind of what the guys are working on here now so um one thing we've done obviously to improve the handling of the car is the weight distribution yeah but the other thing is because the air weight distribution has changed there's less weight in the back more weight at the front which means we're going to have to change the spring rates and shock um shocks anyway but while we're doing that um we got in contact with a company called race shocks down in South Wales and they're an agent for track active who will have suspension systems on the Pagani Zonda and stuff like that um and they said you know what you don't want to do it you want to put a semi-active suspension system on you're kidding What's that I I asked him and then when they explained the fact that you know monitors the g-forces and you know it reacts the suspension within like microseconds to improve the handling and the feel I thought wow well we're making the ultimate Ferrari test roster we've got to have the ultimate suspension system so that's what that is this is track active suspension by um the guys down at Ray shocks yeah that's what they're doing well it seems to do all this kind of you know classic car stuff I am in a high performance modern day Electric car when you come in a Kia ev6 GT 577 horsepower right of your street so they're again 577 horsepower all right you have my attention sir and Kiera put you on the insurance are they yeah has it stop raining yet no but that just makes it more emotional cool let's go let's do it drive it yeah definitely let's go you've even got his own cover because he's got his oily jeans on are there any other types of jeans no not really no not for you uh oh look there's a screen as well yeah that's that's your blind spot that's quite cool that's a good feature that is a Kia and Hyundai feature it doesn't tell you down the steering wheel the steering wheel gets in the way of it so you're currently in eco mode so this is like driving station just hit the GT button on there the big yeah run here yeah just push that oh yeah that worked destroyed it away yeah so now you're in full 577 horsepower traction's backed off a little bit yeah good man I'll wait until we get out of town yeah because I know these roads quite well yeah which is a silly button so hey there we go so traction control's still on then it's off a little bit it's not Tesla Model my driver so they're they're just as ridic ulous so uh if you if you bury it it will spin so it just keeps on going it's in in my Beetle for instance if I floored it then it would be like that it's yeah as graph goes it's like bang up there but this is like that I think they must have to tune that in a little bit so that when normal people get in the car they don't kill themselves because that was my worry with this is you'll get you're going to get you know a normal family buy this car and it's got nearly 600 horsepower that's like supercar I can't figure it's like six 700 Newton me so Kia right um key used to be sorry Kia out there the key used to be rubbish yeah I'll get yeah even Keel will admit Ikea all of a sudden as soon as electric came out oh here's our chance to be cool guys let's go let's get any cool design cars put loads of power in and turn Kia cool yeah and they I think they changed the logo as well to like they have got that that's the new version that's it yeah so as soon as they did that it was an electric it was their you know opportunity to go cool yeah and all their cars since they've gone electric they're like hang on a minute where did you come from Nero brilliant so brilliant This brilliant this is like I think a better looking car then say about Jager eye base as you say I think it looks like a more aggressive or angry looking jigarette base which is okay with me yeah I mean you don't need but what what good yes you do oh no you don't need to but you have to but you have to I so the reason I wanted to come up here with this car because I thought this was a very you kind of car we take a normal sedate family Kia and then wax 600 horsepower yeah a bit like you taking your normal sedate beetle I'm whacking 600. who would do such a thing I don't know you are the only person I know\n"