My kids loved this more than a SUPERCAR: 2026 Kia EV9 6-seater review
Hello, welcome back to my channel of car nonsense and the automotive equivalent of an aggressively nonflatulent whale. You see, the EV9 is vast. You can fit lots of krill or children inside it, but it’s electric, so it’s clean, or at least as clean as the source of your electricity. If it’s made by burning mermaids, then it’s not very clean, is it? Admittedly, the EV9 has been out for a few years. I’ve driven it loads. I’ve reviewed it on the channel at its launch, but I’ve never lived with one and put my kids in it. So, that’s what I’m doing this week. If you don’t know what EV9 is, it is the Korean car that’s most purchased by Land Rover owners. Yeah, they don’t sell many of these in the UK. It’s about 2,000 a year, but most people are buying them are coming from Land Rovers and other premium SUVs. That’s because this is a six or sevenseater and a proper one, a big one. It’s 5 m long. And it’s got a proper price as well. It starts from £66,000 for a 200 horsepower rear wheel drive one in the entry- level trim. You probably want a dual motor really for a bit more punch. That’s £74 grand. This one here is topsp spec and it is £78,000. It’s the most expensive Kia you can get. There aren’t really any options other than colors, but 78 grand. Pretty punchy. Better be good. It is. In terms of looks, EV9 is a brick, but like one you would find in say Gucci’s Quarry. It’s quite a stylish brick. I think you’ve got LED headlights on all of them, though. Midspec GT Line and Topspec GT Line S ones like this get adaptive LEDs with these cubes in. It’s got quite an imposing presence. I think I’ve said it’s 5 m long. It’s absolutely vast and very boxy. In terms of colors, red is the free color. Then everything else is about 750 quid. So you’ve got blacks, whites, grays, blues, and then there’s a matte blue, which is getting close to two grand and does look quite cool, but I wouldn’t want to have to keep it clean. Now, the entry- level model is called the Air, and that comes on 19in alloys, then the Midspec GT line, which comes in 20s. There’s a pattern here, isn’t there? Do a little drag down thing in XL, and you get 21 in on this topsp spec GT line. But I’ve seen loads of these on the road and sorry obviously and I think it looks quite good. Certainly I’d have one of these over a Defender in the looks department. Ooh, a big chunky EV is going to be heavy and this is very heavy. If you get a single motor it’s 2 1/2 tons. This dual motor as it sits here with that train about to go past is 2.7 tons. Now, thankfully, they all get a 360 camera as standard, but it doesn’t get any clever stuff like air suspension or rear wheel steering that you find on some more premium things. They’re going to horsesh the poor people at just over 5 m long. It is basically the same length as a Defender 110. That’s the five door non-long wheelbase. New Defender, but this has actually got slightly longer wheelbase, so you get more interior space. Now, if I was being a nitpicky bastard, which I am, I would say the interior of this does feel very similar to other Kia models costing half the price. So, for £80,000, maybe it should feel more special, but it feels perfectly fine to me. And every single one of these EV lines gets heated and ventilated front seats and things like that. They all get twin big digital screens with a third one sandwiched in the middle for climate control. It is just really perfectly fine. I really like it. Now, this has wireless Apple CarPlay now, which it didn’t do when I first drove it. That’s come via a software update, which is good. The only thing I would say infotainment system is I end up resting my hand on the bar at the bottom, which means I end up changing menus when I’m trying to use it. You’ve also got a driver attention system, which is going to beep at you quite a bit, but you can just hold the mute button on the steering wheel to turn off the speed limit bong and turn off the lane keeping assist. Now, the controls for the heated, ventilated, and massage front seats on this Gline S1 ones are on the door. You’ve got cup holders down there. You’ve got my tripod stuffed down there along with more storage. And you’ve got a wireless phone charger up here. Uh, as you go up the trim levels, you just get things like a head-up display on this topsp spec one and a 14 speakeraker Meridian premium audio system that you don’t get on lesser ones. You also get the sunroofs as well on a GT line. The midspec GT line just adds things like electric memory seats and stuff like that. Um, and an electrically adjusting steering wheel. But otherwise, I think even the basic one of these is going to be fine. I really like the headrests as well. They’re sort of Hang on. They’re sort of this mesh. My camera’s not going to focus on going to focus on my face. There you go. I put my face next to it. They’re really soft and really nice to relax on as well. So, I really like the cabin. It’s just perhaps not as plush and has doesn’t have as fancy leather as a Land Rover product, but kind of don’t care. Now, most versions of the EV9 have got seven seats. So, you’ve got a three-seater bench in the middle row of two seats at the back. Because this is the GTline S, you can get it for an extra grand, I think it is, with just two seats in the middle, individual seats. They’ve got a party trick. You’re going to have to see my bum, so apologies for that. But there’s a little lever here. And if you pull it, that rotates. That has is so you don’t need to get one of those fancy rotating really heavy child seats. Just get a normal one, and you can rotate it to get your child in and out really easily. And you can also obviously fold the seat as well to get it out the way for getting in the back, which I’m going to do in a second. But let me just show you middle seat space for an adult. Sorry, my bum again. But in terms of back seat space for an adult, the only thing better than this really is an MPV or a van. You can adjust the recline of the seats. These are also heated and cooled in the second row of controls there. Got a door bin there which can fit a large bottle of Coke. Mat pocket there. USBC’s on the side of the front seat. And you’ve got this little cubby thing tray which pulls towards you. And it’s actually illuminated as well. So you could prop something up on that. It’s just the fact you can walk all the way through with loads of space which means you can get your kids in and out with real ease from one side of the car. And obviously I fix here as we’ll see in a second is fix in the back as well. Headroom is just about okay for me with the sunroof in this one. heater controls up here like you’re in an airplane and I can actually get my feet under the seat in front. It is almost perfect. I bloody love it. And you’ve got window blinds on this GTline S model as well. I’m almost on the edge of tears at how good this car is at carrying people without being a van. I’m a big fan of it though. Dead. Tell you what, it might be hard to get a decent camera angle to show you me in the back seat, but it’s not awkward to get in here. You’ve got a bit of a gap there to get it through, but then it’s just a flat floor and 6′ 3 me can sit behind this chair. I’ve had to slide forward a little bit, but they’ve still got leg room. You can fit adults in the back of this in actual comfort. They’ve got individual seats. You’ve got ISOIX back here. You’ve got armrest, you’ve got cup holders, and you’ve got USBC each as well and lights back here as well. Honestly, the best car for carrying people in the very back of that I can think of. got all excited. Don’t have a sunroof though back here, which is a bit of a shame. But you do have air vents up here, which you can kind of like twist and point at your face. Not bad at all. The EB9’s back end doesn’t look that interesting, does it? It can tow this much. I’ve forgotten how much it can tow. But really, the Majesty is within this capacious carpeted anus. Because you see, even with six seats in place here, or seven seats, you’ve got 330 L. So that’s on par with a small hatchback to be honest. That’s a usable space. And the parcel shelf lives under there of the tire inflation stuff. Now there is a little frunk on this car. So your cables can live out the way in the nose. But it’s what happens when you flip down. I say flip motorized fold the third row of seats. You get nearly 2,400 L of space. It is an absolute whopper of a boot. This is dream family camping car if there’s only four of you. Um, so yeah, you’ve got 12vt here and you’ve got a three pin socket there. It’s got loads and loads of features. I’ll show you the back seats. I’ve probably shown you the back seats actually, but yeah, it is huge. I love it. What What a boxy thing. This is why you buy an EV9 to carry loads of stuff in comfort. Did I really say carpeted anus? Might look into that. Do you think someone’s doing that in Turkey at the moment? Flap chat time. This has a 99.8 8 kWh battery and you can either have it with a single motor on the back axle of 200 horsepower or dual motors. Now, if you get the single motor version, range is officially just under 350 mi. If you get the dual motor like this, it’s 313. In real world driving, I’ve been seeing about 250 on the motorway and just over 300 in more mixed driving. So yeah, as I’ll say in the driving section, efficiency does really vary depending on how fast you’re going quite a lot cuz it’s such a brick. But it can fast charge at 210 kW cuz it’s on an 800 volt fancy pants architecture. It can fast charge from 10 to 80% in about 24 25 minutes, something like that. So despite having a massive battery, you’re not going to be sitting around picking bogeies for ages while it charges. Not that I do that. Right, we’re going to go for a drive in the Kia EV9. And I have to say, I do always find it quite satisfying driving something so large in silence. There’s something about a big electric car that really does appeal to me. And this is no different. Um it’s not actually that hard to drive at all despite the sheer size of the thing. Yes, it is longer than um Ron Jeremy’s You know what, but the view out the back is better than the view out of Ron Jeremy. And the mirrors are nice and big as well. It’s got 12.3 m turning circle, so it does take some space to turn around. It’s got no fancy rear wheel steering technology or anything like that, which would help, but the 360 camera, the kind of fact that you can sort of sense where the corners are, means it’s not a handful to live with on the daily. Now, performance, I don’t normally care about performance in a family car, especially one this size, but it’s quite impressive. the dual motor with 380 horsepower n 62 is 5.3 seconds. So when you boot it for something that weighs 2.7 tons, it does accelerate faster than it really needs to. Maybe they could dial that down and give us a bit more range out the dual motor. But hey ho, if you get the single motor, the 200 horsepower version, it’s a lot slower. It’s 9.6 seconds to 62 mph, I think. So almost half as fast as this. But in day-to-day driving, that’s probably just fine. You could save quite a bit of money and get more range doing that. But yeah, I like it apart from this. I complained about this when I first drove the car almost 2 years ago on its launch in Scotland and I thought maybe it’s just me being picky, but on motorways and I’m changing lanes, there’s still real thick B-pillar right where I want to look. So yes, you’ve got blind spot monitoring on the dashboard. When you indicate, you get a little backwards view down the left or right side of the car depending on which way you’re indicating. I actually end up using it in this, which is a bit weird because you have to look down there. Obviously, still do your shoulder check, but you can’t see much. You have to use the mirrors and just stay on top of your game, which is a little bit of a shame. Uh, it’s one of the only cars I really feel that is a problem in. But otherwise, for I’m not going to say affordable, for a Kia that costs as much as this costs and where I’m going to be comparing to people like Land Rover and BMW and Mercedes, this drives better than you might think. It’s not going to put a massive grin on your face and it doesn’t ride with the same plush smoothness that something on air suspension would do from a German brand, but it’s pretty good. It’s pretty good. There’s nothing annoying about it. And on a really unsettled, bumpy bit of country road like we’re about to get to, the body control is sometimes a little bit loose. Like it sometimes, oh, feels a little bit weward. But in 90% of driving, you’re not going to notice it. So, I might as well not have bothered talking about it. But I know there’ll be people out there who might be thinking, “Oh, yes, that is a Range Rover Rival.” It’s not quite there in terms of sheer plushness. But, you know, it is quiet. It is refined most of the time, and it is actually genuinely a car I’ve been looking forward to driving. My kids have absolutely loved piling in the back. They’ve loved the space, and I’ve just kind of really got a real feelood sense about myself when I’m driving. I feel smug. Yes, it’s an 80 grand car. An 80 grand car should always make you feel like you’ve done well for yourself. This definitely does, despite the Kia badge. So, yeah, other than the blind spot, it’s pretty good going. Another negative, as you might expect, 2.7 ton car at motorway speeds, efficiency does tank at motorway speeds. It very quickly gets down to 2.4 or 2.5 m per kowatt hour, which is a real world motorway range of about 240 250. But if it drops to 60 on the motorway for a bit, I’ve seen it shoot up to 3.4 miles per kilowatt hour in mixed driving with a bit of 50 60 bit 70 on the motorway, which is over 300 mi of range. So that’s not too bad. It’s just how quickly it drops off when you boot it is quite alarming. Actually, before we go back for conclusion, I forgot to say you can adjust the regenerative braking using paddles behind the steering wheel. They’re quite plasticky feeling to be fair, but they’re not too unpleasant. And there is a one pedal driving mode as well. Now handling wise, it doesn’t lean as much in corners as you might think. Yeah, you’re not getting anything back through the steering wheel, but you can take this down a greasy leaf covered British B-road like this quicker than you might think. You do just end up with a little bit of lateral roll coming out of corners over bumps sometimes as it settles back on its suspension. There is no hiding the mass, but the brakes are good, the steering is accurate enough, and you don’t feel like it’s getting out of control. So, yeah, what’s not to like really, other than the blind spot and the motorway efficiency? Now, having been living with the EV9 as a family car for a week, I’m going to be very unprofessional and say my kids have loved it so much that it’s made me love it even more. They’ve just loved the sense of space you get inside the individual middle seats on the six seat version especially and being able to clamor into the back and still have their child seats and be in the back like the naughty kids on the bus. And I’ve just found it very very easy to live with which is great. It doesn’t annoy me. It drives well enough. It’s efficient enough for a big brick, although could be better at motorway speeds, but that’s kind of offset by the fact it charges really fast. I really like the way it looks. I like the fact it’s a Kia still, so you got seven-year warranty. And being a Kirus, perhaps it’s only real flaw other than being quite heavy as well. And that is because this has to appeal to quite welloff people who are going to be walking to BMW showrooms, Mercedes showrooms, Audi showrooms, Land Rover showrooms. And I would say for the people who aren’t massive badge snobs, this offers so much more for your money than things like the Volvo EX90, which I’ve not driven, but if you want a dual motor, it’s 14 grand more than this topsp spec dual motor, and that’s not a topsp spec Volvo either. Yes, it will feel posher, but I don’t know if it will have all the kit that this does. So, it’s kind of a one of those questions. It’s do you want to be seen in a Land Rover, or would you rather be happier in a Kia with more space and all the rest of it? So anyway, I’m going to give it nine Tim Roadies out of 10. It is being more impressive to live with than I thought it might be. Uh it’s just not exceptional in terms of driving dynamics, but it weighs 2.7 tons. What are you going to do? Anyway, hopefully you found this kind of helpful. Like it if you have found it helpful or just enjoyed it. Um and sorry to all the whales that I offended at the start. I know krill is your lifestyle, but it just it’s quite a funny word, isn’t it? Now you can go and fart, whales. Uh not you watching this. You have to subscribe. I’ll see you next time.
The Kia EV9 is a big unapologetic electrified brick. And the beauty of it is you can get it with six seats, giving kids (and adults, I guess) the pleasure of individual seating arrangements and a cabin they can run around in. But there’s more to it than that – join me for my thoughts after living with an EV9 GT-Line S for a week, including my efficiency rating, thoughts on practicality, driving dynamics and more.
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