Kia EV9 GT review: A match for its premium rivals

Sometimes in this gig you have to bite your lip and accept that some people – rightly or wrongly, but wrongly in most instances – feel that they can vent at you personally for any peculiarities that might be possessed by the car you’re driving that particular week.

If a car is, say, unusual looking, such people – as happened recently – feel empowered to say things like: “God, that’s an awful looking piece of shite you’ve got in your driveway this week.”

It would, of course, be impolite simply to tell them to ‘eff off’ or to stick their opinions where the sun don’t shine. More often than not you’re left to babble something lame along the lines of: “Yes, it’s not going to appeal to everyone, is it?” 

You then try to briskly slip away from the loud oaf, rather than uttering what you’d have preferred to say, like: “I don’t know why you’re shouting at me, you moron; I didn’t design the effing thing.”

I had several such instances recently when I was in possession of Kia’s excellent new EV9, which is a blocky, square and, frankly, unusual looking thing which, in due course will probably fit into the ‘Marmite’ category of car designs, i.e. you either love it or hate it.

I have to say that the majority of people who passed comment on the big electric Kia, were impressed and said things like: “Wow, it’s really out there, isn’t it?” Or others who pointed out a similarity between the Korean beast and such as the new Land Rover Defender, which is also, it must be said, is square, blocky and, frankly, unusual looking.

When you first clap eyes on the thing the first impression that sinks in is the sheer size of the car. It is a fraction bigger than five metres in length and almost two metres wide and, as such, it is of Land Rover Discovery proportions.

Then there’s the detailing and there’s a lot to take in. The square-ish nature of the cars has allowed the designers to be a little playful and this is evidenced by the roughly S-shaped running lights and the LED headlights which look like they were plucked from a jewellery shop window.

The bonnet seems to fall off a cliff into the bluff grille, to add to the unconventional look, while the black wheel arch extensions frame massive 21” wheels and the door handles retract fully into the bodywork, which is a trick they borrowed from Range Rover.

The no-slope roof means there are no headroom issues for any of the passengers in the two rearmost rows of seats in this 2+2+2 layout on the GT-Line specced tester.

That layout is unusual, but there’s a ‘first class’ airline vibe about the seating and the middle pair of seats can be swivelled around to face backwards if that’s what the passengers want to do.

These independent seats are heated and vented (like the front ones), have moveable armrests and the seat-belt mechanism is built-in. Access to the rearmost seats is easy and you don’t have to be a contortionist to get back there and those seats too are comfortable and provide a lot more space than normal run-of-the-mill third rowers which are usually only suitable for small children.

Indeed the quality of the interior in general is very upmarket and while some might look at the price and scratch their heads, what’s on offer here is genuinely impressive and has a very premium feel, much like its main rivals from BMW, Mercedes, Audi and Land Rover.

While the tech on offer is very much up-to-the-minute, it is subtle and not at all in your face; the styling of the dash and the materials used might seem a little underwhelming on first encounter as things are pretty minimalist, but this is a really functional interior layout and there are also plenty of actual buttons to make it do what do want it to do – rather than the screen-bound systems which are currently in favour.

The dash is very digitised, what with three actual screens – one 12.3” for the infotainment and another 12.3” for the instrumentation in front of the driver and, sandwiched in between, a smaller 5.3” screen for climate control.

The ‘gear shift’ – the only choices you have are ‘P,’ ‘N,’ ‘R’ and ‘D’ – is steering column mounted and also incorporates the start/stop button, so it is an unusual setup, but one you will easily get used to.

Now, all of the above is very meritorious, but the big worry coming to this car was the thought that because of its size and because Kia does not exactly have a reputation as a maker of cars which are superlative on-road beasts.

Such is the size of the EV9, you might reasonably have concerns in this department and the initial fear is that this could be the automotive equivalent of a wallowing hippo. Or that it might have shoddy grip levels, or might understeer like a fully loaded van.

Well, there’s none of that and one of the most pleasing aspects of driving this car was on-road capabilities. It was immediately apparent that this is a car that actually likes to be hustled along, has gang-loads of grip and, despite having a light steering feel, is direct and accurate whatever is being asked of it.

For more leisurely driving – it is a family car after all – this thing is the berries and will cruise with a relaxed lope and soak up plenty of highway miles with distain – and in near silence too.

That it can cope when you apply the pressure, however, is a very strong point. It is just as well because this is a powerful beast and its two electric motors provide some 384 bhp and a ripping 0-100 km/h time of just 5.3 seconds.

That it also has all four wheels driven is another plus point and this undoubtedly helps also with the top-drawer ride and handling characteristics.

In fact the only real issue I had with it was on the thorny issue of range, that one factor which can make or break an electric. The claimed range is 512 km, but try as I might, I could not get it to charge to a point where I had anything more than about 420 km on offer, even if the range indicator was remarkably accurate.

I do have a home charger which is nearly five years old now and the technology has moved along very quickly in that time and I suspect my one is now well behind current offerings in terms of its abilities, but even so I was disappointed I could not extract anything near the claimed range.

I cannot let that detract from the overall picture here. We know Kia can make a good electric as the EV6 is a fantastic, but I doubt that anyone could have predicted that they could come up with something as good as the EV9.

This is not a flawless car, for sure, but it’s a pretty damn good stab at one. Some might cavil at the price and I certainly got nowhere near the claimed range on a full charge, but for the breadth of its other capabilities, the EV9 certainly warrants a closer look for people who want their family motoring electrified.