[This article was first published on businesstimes.com.sg]
The EV9 may be big on passenger comfort, but it’s for people comfy enough in their own skin to spend Mercedes money on a Kia
THE Kia EV9 is not only the biggest car I’ve test driven so far in 2024, but might just be the baddest. With two electric motors sending 380 horsepower to all four wheels, the GT Line version on sale here is quicker than a scalded cheetah, capable of blasting to 100 kmh in six seconds flat.
That’s despite its elephantine size. It’s more than five metres long, and its wheelbase would make a Bentley Bentayga feel inadequate, which explains how it packs in three rows of seats yet still has 333 litres of boot space.
Big cars are everywhere, but none look the part of a modern, pure electric crossover the way the Kia does. The lines are clean, but the EV9 is unashamedly boxy, with flat, vertical surfaces that exaggerate its size instead of playing it down. Slenderness is for wimps, don’t you know.
Various styling details make it look like a car beamed here from 2034. Instead of a grille, the nose has a panel embedded with slick lights. The headlights themselves are narrow towers of individual LEDs. Instead of mirrors, the front doors have wing-like stalks that each house a camera. Even the wheels look unusual – when did you last see alloys with four spokes?
Looking at the EV9 either has you intrigued or put off, but if you’re in the market for an electric car anyway, chances are you’re progressive enough to want to know what it feels like behind the wheel.
The short answer is that it’s rapid, quiet and smooth. It drives like an electric car, in other words, although it does better than many of them in terms of ride quality, and its hefty battery pack gives it enough juice to cover more than 500 km.
About the handling, I’m less sure (the test car came shod with iffy tyres). But no one buys a hefty sport utility vehicle (SUV) to harass sports cars down a twisty road, even one as powerful as this.
The surprising thing is that for all its size, the EV9 doesn’t make its driver feel like a conqueror of worlds (or even the PIE). Drive a Land Rover Defender and the masses scurry from your path. Not so, the Kia, which feels more like a family multipurpose vehicle than a burly SUV.
On the plus side, the EV9 is manageable in tight situations. Thanks to an armada of cameras around the body, you don’t need a stout heart to scale a multi-storey car park. The digital wing mirrors do need some getting used to, but then most new ideas do.
The Kia’s interior isn’t short of futuristic touches, either. Its four-spoke steering wheel looks almost like a flight yoke. It has a touch-sensitive, haptic panel with virtual buttons. Three digital screens seem to display and control everything. Thankfully, the dashboard and steering wheel still have physical switches, which are just easier to use.
The EV9’s main trump card is that its six-seat configuration makes it something of a limo. The cabin’s overall layout is open and airy, and if the individual armchairs in the second row don’t quite feel like business class seats, they’re at least premium economy.
If need be, your children, being spry, can walk between them straight into the third row bench, where they’ll find proper seatbelts, plenty of room, USB charging points, a cupholder each and some overhead air-con vents.
For a neat party trick, you can swivel the middle row chairs to create something of a mobile family room, although a more useful feature is the ability to fold the seats down to create an enormous cargo space at the touch of a button.
That versatility makes the EV9 a car that does it all, which is decent of Kia since it costs S$289,888 without a Certificate Of Entitlement.
To be sure, some of its cabin plastics feel cheap, but the EV9 is otherwise a car of peerless value, especially if you no longer want a combustion engine in your life.
Your best alternatives are the Toyota Alphard and Vellfire, which are duller to drive but are even more comfy. They aren’t electric, but being hybrid, they are halfway there.
Similar money would buy you a BMW or Mercedes, but nothing this roomy, versatile, powerful or well-equipped. There are those whose personal insecurities would never permit them to drive a Kia, of course. If you think such people are to be pitied, you’ll find the EV9 a car to be admired.
[Source article: businesstimes.com.sg/lifestyle/kia-ev9-review-big-deal]
