Kia EV9 in detail: Level 3 autonomy, 828 liters of space

Colleague Lars Krijgsman was already extensively acquainted with the Kia EV9 in South Korea in the early spring, and told you about it in text and images. In summary: the EV9 is 5.01 meters long, making it Kia’s largest SUV. It has a wheelbase of 3.1 meters and has seven seats as standard, of course divided over three rows of seats. A six-seater is available at an additional cost. The Kia EV9 has a standard 99.8 kWh battery pack and is available with rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. Depending on that choice, the power is 204 hp or 383 hp, while the car with one engine must be able to travel 541 kilometers on a full battery. The EV9 AWD – and this may be new – lasts 497 kilometers according to the WLTP cycle. Charging capacities are not yet available, but Kia reports that 15 minutes of fast charging results in an optimal 239 extra kilometers.

Nice on the smartphone

As an electric flagship, the EV9 should show what Kia can do in the field of autonomous driving. That turns out to be quite a lot. It gets level 3 autonomy, making the EV9 the second car available in Europe with that functionality, according to Kia. That may be true, because since December 2021 we know that Mercedes is the first. Level 3 (or ‘level 3’, in Dutch) means that the driver can not only take his hands off the steering wheel on certain, extensively mapped out routes in advance, but can also actually draw attention to something else. At Kia in Frankfurt we are actually told that it is possible to look at a smartphone on the road, a claim that you can call daring in the car world.

Unfortunately, there is a catch: Dutch legislation does not yet allow this level 3 event. Highway Driving Pilot (HDP), as the system is called, will soon not be available from us either. In Germany it is allowed. Cars with the system can be recognized from the outside by the Lidars in the front bumper, directly above the license plate. They are visible on the GT Line of which Kia previously released images, but only if you look closely. We recommend Volvo and Nio to do that, because this is a considerably more subtle solution than the ‘pimples’ that are on the roof of the cars of those brands. As mentioned, we will not find it in the Netherlands for the time being, so the Kia EV9 GT Line will receive a subtly different front bumper with us. We do not have images of this yet, but according to Kia, the ‘slot’ in which the sensors are housed is somewhat more flattened in the version without HDP.

The Lidars can be seen to the left and right above the license plate. So this car does have ‘HDP’.

Double panoramic roof

The GT Line is not only recognizable by the different front and rear bumpers, but also by the roof rails. They are a bit higher in the sportier version, so that you can look underneath. With the regular EV9, they rest on the roof over the entire length. That roof is also equipped with two glass plates. Above the rear seat is a large fixed part, in front of the front seats a smaller part that can actually be opened. In between we just find sheet metal.

Frank

There is still 333 liters behind the third row of seats.

It is clear that the interior of the huge Kia EV9 is spacious. Partly due to the sliding middle row of seats, there is still room for adults at the very back, so that you can actually go out with seven people. In that case, there is still 333 liters left for luggage. For comparison: the five-seater Kia Stonic, a B-segmenter, holds 352 liters. The electric seven-seater has another trump card up its sleeve: a ‘frunk’. Another 90 liters go into the nose of the Kia EV9, at least with the rear-wheel drive. The four-wheel drive keeps it here with a compartment of 52 liters, just as handy. If you throw the rear seat flat, a cargo hold of 828 liters is created. Please note: depending on the version, there will still be four or five people in the EV9.

This is the smaller ‘frunk’ of the four-wheel drive EV9.

Three screens can be found in the front of the Kia EV9, which Kia calls the ‘Triple Panorama Display’. It consists of a 12.3-inch information display behind the steering wheel, a 12.3-inch touchscreen and a 5.1-inch screen that focuses on the climate control. That middle screen is a lot simpler than the others with its clock radio-like print, but it does offer direct access to functions that often require access.

In the other screens we find a completely new infotainment system. Those who now drive Kia will therefore have to get used to it, because it looks different and also has a different menu structure. The first impression is good, although in practice we had to search for certain functions. A first test will undoubtedly make it clear whether this is faster with daily use.

Positioning

As a seriously spacious, seven-seat electric SUV, the Kia EV9 is still fairly alone in the car landscape. Mercedes offers the EQB and the EQS SUV in this area, but they are quite cramped and very expensive respectively. We know the BYD Tang and the Hongqi E-HS9 from China, but then we are talking about new and still relatively unknown brands. The upcoming Volvo EX90 is perhaps the closest to the Kia EV9, although it is suspected that the Kia will be a lot cheaper.

The Kia Telluride is about the same size as the EV9, but like many of its direct competitors, it is not supplied in Europe.

That rather unique position partly answers why Kia thinks this electric SUV could work in Europe, when similar but traditionally powered SUVs like Kia’s own Telluride aren’t even available here. Alexandre Papapetropoulos, Director Product & Pricing, explains that there is more to that expectation. He tells AutoWeek that there is hardly any market in Europe for large SUVs from non-premium brands, simply because the buyer group in this segment is said to be too traditional. According to Papapetropoulos, the EV largely manages to break through this: Premium products from BMW and Mercedes, for example, are already remarkably often traded in on the smaller EV6, because segments in EV land are simply less tightly framed. The expectation of Papapetropoulos, and therefore of Kia, is that this will also apply to the EV9. The brand therefore mentions the (five-seater, by the way) BMW iX among the cars that are on the shortlist of potential EV9 buyers, without immediately seeing that BMW as a direct competitor. Kia certainly does not call it premium, but it does see that the boundary between that category and ‘mainstream’ is blurring.

Kia is currently not communicating Dutch prices for the EV9, but it does give the impression that they could turn out surprisingly. Whether that is really the case, we will soon know.