Pleasant Brutality – Kia EV9 AWD GT Line

The Kia EV9 is a fantastic car, but not because it is the pinnacle of electric cars. There are bigger electric leisure cars than this one and they can be charged faster, but perhaps none of the others have such a great character. I liked it more every day, because the six-seat and two-engine EV9 perfectly combines form and function. This car is not by chance so big and not by chance so futuristic, Kia gave meaning to every millimeter – and there are a lot of them here.

I love brutalist architecture and the blocky Kia EV9 could easily be a sculpture in the middle of London’s Barbican.

Its design is such that anyone can easily carve it at home from a block of butter of any size and sufficiently cold with a kitchen knife, even beginner ice sculptors would not have any particular problems with a sparkling chainsaw, but the Kia EV9 can also be recreated from merciless marble, because it was carved so spectacularly by designer Karim Habib the wide body. In fact, its body is produced by press machines like any other car, only its visual mass attracts deceptive associations.

The Kia EV9, with a wheelbase of 3.1 meters and a height of almost 1.8 meters, is five meters long and more than two meters wide. Its ocean blue metallic finish is highlighted by a thick lacquer black contour line, which is traditionally an off-road element, but with the proportions of our rabbit, the EV9 is closer to the genre of the American SUV. It has a robust appearance and a firm stance, but the shiny plastic surfaces do not tolerate scratches.

It has square-cut corners, and the wheel arch curves were drawn with a ruler instead of a compass, and even the rims are amazingly geometric with the aerodynamic, four-spoke inserts underneath. The fender arches form a sharp triangle, only the door plates curve towards the windows with a faint fold. Its large mirrors are melted into the overall picture by black varnish, and its massive handles only stand out when they are needed.

The window line stretches across the doors in an arrow-straight manner, piercing the upper corner of the car after the third roof pillar. Its red-glowing rear lights branch out like circuits on a circuit board, this motif echoes on the front headlights as well. The LEDs are lined up one by one in the vertically standing lamps, and the running light splits between the edges from the bumper to the plateau of the hood.

The EV9’s ruthless block is based on exactly the same E-GMP platform as the streamlined Ioniq 6.

While the models based on Volkswagen’s modular electric car platform (MEB) are almost identical, the cars on the Electric Global Modular Platform used by Hyundai and Kia, as well as Genesis, are very markedly different from each other. The E-GMP base can accommodate batteries from different suppliers, and the electric motor, inverter and transmission form a compact unit.

The space utilization of the Kia EV9 is not as good as in Teslas, but even the two-engine version has a 52-liter compartment in the nose (90 liters in the single-engine version), which perfectly fits the charging cables and plug-in converter required for external consumers. Because even smaller EV9 devices can be charged (V2L) with a maximum output of 3.68 kW.

The EV9 is produced in two versions, the weaker of which (e203 RWD) has a slightly more than 200 horsepower electric motor that drives the rear wheels and has a torque of 350 Nm. The Kia is also a nice partner with this, but the two-engine version really has the momentum that suits the nearly 2.7-tonne car. The EV9 e384 AWD has two permanent magnet synchronous motors, both with a uniform output of 192 hp and 350 Nm of torque.

More than anything, I hated the hysterical driver assistance systems in the Kia EV9, which hindered driving more than they helped. The lane keeping system is extremely violent. My glass was full when a message appeared after beeping, so I looked at the central display, at this moment another beep indicated that according to the sensors monitoring the driver, I was not looking at the road. From then on, before every damned start, I turned off all existing help in the menu one by one.

The electrically opening charging port of the Kia EV9 adds seriousness to comedy with cables.

The hood can even be opened with a key, under which a six-cylinder turbodiesel engine could easily fit, but in this case this is irrelevant. I don’t want to fill oil, I just take the charging cable out of here, because I can charge the EV9 with 11 kW at the column closest to me, which is not really lucky. It would reach a full charge from ten percent in nine hours, which makes it clear that driving the Kia EV9 AWD is really carefree if there is a dense network of DC fast chargers around it. When charged with 210 kW, the 38-module lithium-ion battery with a gross capacity of 99.8 kWh (net 96 kWh) is charged from ten to eighty percent in twenty-five minutes.

The 800-volt high-voltage system and the 210 kW charger are not enough to quickly drain the nearly 570-kilogram battery under the floor of the EV9. For this, it is essential that the battery has the right temperature before charging. If the purpose of the navigation system is a charging point, the tempering is done automatically by the system, otherwise it must be activated from the menu.

The Kia EV9 is a gigantic car in all its dimensions, and this is also very noticeable behind the wheel.

I sit high in the two-tone leather armchair, from where I can see the whole car through the large windows. Nevertheless, it is not easy to find a suitable parking space with this more than five-meter cube, because this American portion overflows everywhere. The 360-degree camera and parking sensors, however, help a lot to make use of every centimeter. The turning circle of 12.4 meters has to be taken into account when the Kia EV9 has to be driven through the tighter inner-city streets.

Its mirrors are basically traditional, but the interior mirror also has a digital function. The center mirror displaying the image of the camera above the rear window can be useful when all six seats in the passenger compartment are actually used.

With a consumption of less than 19 kWh/100 km, it can travel more than 500 kilometers on a single charge, but the six-seater EV9 is not only ideal for the usual commute and going to school, but also for long-distance journeys with the right charging network. The 3.1-meter wheelbase, heavy weight, double glazing and plenty of sound insulation make it really relaxing to drive the kilometers with the Kia.

Its electric motors deliver their power evenly, so the all-wheel drive Kia EV9 accelerates and decelerates at a natural pace. Its firm and precise steering is a pleasure on winding roads, and also very useful on the highway, when you have to keep the wide-spreading car in the lane. The chassis is MacPherson in the front and multilink in the back, and its tuning is downright lavish. On a straight line, it cleans up road imperfections nicely, dampens excellently, and keeps it tight in corners and allows you to take advantage of the advantages of the low center of gravity. Even with winter tires, the front wheels grip convincingly, and the EV9 pulls out of the corner properly from the rear. It’s quite surreal the way this block-sized car crumples corners.

The passenger compartment is as if my eyes were running through a glazed hangar, even the second row of seats is out of reach.

The EV9 can also be ordered in a seven-seat version with a family layout, the six-seat version has more of a business class feel. You have to look all the way into the far distance, where the two rearmost seats and the remaining 312-liter trunk are. The seats of the third row can be electrically reclined with the buttons in the trunk, and the trunk holds 807 liters when folded down behind the separate armchairs. In van mode, the Kia EV9 can fit up to 2.4 cubic meters of stuff.

It is easy to get in through its large and wide-opening doors, and the seats in the second row can also be accommodated if the car needs to be turned into a meeting bus. The armchairs equipped with their own armrests can be heated and ventilated, the roof upholstery also has an air conditioning console, USB ports, and practical storage spaces, including a large drawer in the middle. The compartment between the front seats can fit a lot of small things, but keys, charging cables, and other things sometimes rattle around because of the plastic cover.

The feeling of quality is great, the minimalist interior with two-tone leather seats and various gray inserts has a great atmosphere. In the evening, the light of the mood lighting shines pleasantly from behind the fabric covering of the dashboard and on the door upholstery, and through the two skylights you can see the illuminated buildings or the dark blue sky.

Both front seats can be reclined, and they even have footrests if charging takes too long or you need a quiet place to rest in the garage. Three displays face me on the dashboard, between the two 12.9-inch displays there is the 5.3-inch user interface of the air conditioner, which is almost always covered by the flange of the four-spoke steering wheel. The center console has buttons for only the most important functions, with a large volume rocker in the middle. There is a good proportion of virtual and physical controls, so the Kia EV9 is clean enough, yet easy to use.

With its long range, comfortable passenger compartment and excellent chassis, the Kia EV9 shows that it is also good to travel with an electric car.

The rear-wheel drive and seven-seat Earth version starts at just over HUF 30 million, the GT Line with two engines and six seats is HUF 4 million more expensive. There is not much more to add to this, the extra charge for the ocean blue metallic is HUF 365,000, and the Relax or Lounge package is HUF 350,000. And for that price, it’s hard to buy a better-quality gigantic electric car, and no one else can do such a monolithic stance except the Kia EV9.

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