Kia EV9 video.
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I remember seeing the Kia EV9 concept at the Los Angeles Auto Show in 2021 and wasn’t really a fan of it.
I finally got to see the real production car in person this year, and I am still not a big fan. While I applaud how original and different it looks, I still see a heavy-handed toy-like design, for a lot of money.
Kia keeps showing us these really fantastically cool and futuristic interiors with floating dashboards and cool-colored cloth seats, but the production EV9 is not really close to that. Sure they do use some cool-looking cloth, but in small trim areas on the doors and a bit on the dash. The whole thing ends up being pretty uneventful.
I mentioned the lack of storage in the huge center console before and was told it is due to the fact you can slide out most of it towards the rear seats. This is great for the rear seat passengers, but still sucks for the driver and front passenger, as the area available to them is very shallow, and not very useful at all.
The Kia EV9 starts at over $55,000 for the base model with 230 miles of range. Up to over $ 78,000. Which is dangerously close to the Rivian R1S.
It will be interesting to see what Hyundai has done with the upcoming Ioniq 7, which is Hyundai’s version of the EV9. From what we’ve seen, the design could still be very modern without being as polarizing as the Kia EV9.