Top Of The Range
KIA’s impressive EV9 is packed with technology and offers an almost flawless drive, writes Philip Nolan
Let’s be honest – we all get a little chunkier as we get older. The KIA EV9 clearly decided not to wait around, because it is chunky from birth, a glorious piece of self-assured and unapologetic muscle. For starters, it’s over five metres long, and it just about fit in my driveway. It’s almost two metres wide excluding the wing mirrors, and almost 1.8 metres high. In short, it has presence not just by the bucketful but by the barrelful.
It is all the more attractive for it, visually elongated by the glasshouse that ends in a point at the rear and seems to stretch the car out even further. Massive wheel arches add side profile presence, but beyond that there’s nothing fussy, no bold shoulder line or kick line. At the rear, the tail lights stretch from top to bottom and extend into the tailgate.
Inside, it’s even better. There’s a massive panoramic double screen, 12.3 inches each, for driver information and infotainment. When you indicate to overtake or pull back in, images from rearview cameras pop up to alert you to any vehicle in your blind spot. There’s a 14-speaker premium sound system as standard, along with wireless phone charging, and six USB-C charge ports.
Why? Because the EV9 in standard trim is a seven-seater, and in GT-line optionally a seven or six-seater. If you opt for the latter configuration, the middle row can be rotated 180 degrees, so the four rear passengers can face each other for a chat, and you also have the option of fitting a console sliding table. It’s all very clever.
In the GT-line model tested, you get a double sunroof, with a tilt-and-slide function on the front one. This trim also adds 21-inch alloys instead of the 19-inch on the Earth model, and roof rails, as well as LED headlights with intelligent adaptive beams, and remote smart parking assist, which allows you move the car in and out of spaces without actually having to sit in it.
As for safety aids, there is drive mode select, driver attention warning, forward collision avoidance system, high-beam headlight assist, lane follow and lane keep assist, satnav-based cruise control with stop & go, rear selflevelling suspension, reversing camera, and vehicle stability management.
I drove the Earth trim model briefly, with its single motor and 201hp performance. For my full week, though, I took the dual-motor GT-line version, which comes with 384hp on tap, catapulting it from 0-100kph in just 5.3 seconds.
The EV9 also charges much faster than many cars. On a 7kW wall box at home, you’ll go from 10-100% in nine hours and five minutes, so overnight is a doddle. On a 50kW public charger, 10-80% takes one hour 23 minutes, and with a 350kW charger 10-80% is possible in just 24 minutes.
The official WLTP range for a single charge in the Earth model is 563km in mixed driving, and 774km in city driving, with the corresponding figures for GT-line coming in at 505km and 668km. With a full complement of passengers, and in cold conditions, you probably mentally should lop a third off those headline figures, which is still impressive.
As for the drive itself, and given the size of the EV9, it is pretty much flawless. It really is all about space, though, with a load volume of an enormous 2,393 litres with the four or five rear seats folded, and there’s a handy frunk (or front trunk) to store charging cables. The only impediment is price, because €77,500-€85,500 is not cheap. As you might have figured out, I loved it. Deducting a point for the price, it’s a solid EV9 out of 10.