The quiet life

Being a UN Environment Programme partner, the notion of trialling a giant SUV generally doesn’t excite us. We can go on about the big frontal areas being bad for fuel economy and pedestrian safety, and how irresponsible it is to consider something with that bulk in the 21st century.

But what if that SUV is all-electric?

That’s something that bears inquiry.

Upon seeing the Kia EV9, a few things come to mind. First, the most exciting car design is coming out of Korea, specifically the Hyundai group, which includes Kia. It has a boxy silhouette, but the details delight: the half-octagonal wheel arches, the thin LEDs within the vertical headlight and taillight housings, the gentle flares in the wings. The blacked-out A, B and C pillars, drawing your eyes to the triangular D-pillar, giving the rear some definition. The roof racks neatly integrated into the styling. Kia’s bold, confident logotype front and rear. For a car in a muted shade of grey, it was surprisingly attractive—and it made a clear statement.

‘I’m here.’

Kia calls its design philosophy ‘Opposites United’, so the EV9 looks both imposingly and assertively businesslike on one side, and chunky and toy-like on the other, especially our test GT Line with 21-inch Continentals with alloy wheels, complete with aero covers.

Secondly, this is a big vehicle: nearly 2 m wide, over 5 m long, and 1·75 m tall. Wheelbase is a whopping 3·1 m. We’re talking the footprint of a Range Rover here, but with a more upright rear. Is it appropriate to have a vehicle that’s this gigantic, even if it is propelled by a 99·8 kWh battery?

Hidden door handles emerge when you unlock the car. Step inside and it’s clearly Kia’s technological tour de force. Retailing at NZ$134,990—the most expensive Kia sold in New Zealand—the cabin is airy and pleasant. The first thing you notice are the small, clear LCD screens that take the place of rear view mirrors. You then realize the mirrors on the doors aren’t there: they are small cameras, projecting the image on to the screens. It works remarkably well. Then your eyes turn to the dashboard, where twin 12·3 in displays appear within a single flat-screen housing, separated by a 5 in module for ventilation. Together, they give the appearance of a wide panoramic screen. It’s more than a step up from what we saw in the Sportage in 2022: this is Kia letting its designers reimagine what a luxury vehicle driver wants to see ahead of them, and that includes clear, classy, custom typefaces that are lighter and gentle on the eye; logical, at-a-glance displays that give you the pertinent information, whether it’s the map, how much charge you have left, or the 3D rendering to show the car’s position when parking. The head-up display, with speed limit reading and the current speed, helps keep your eyes planted on the road.

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The display modes are on a panel on the dashboard, without physical switches, and these proved easy and unobtrusive, while the climate control has physical toggle buttons. It’s a good mix of the two types: you want to be able to get the temperature or fan speed up with physical switches that make sense. The sound system has a physical button, too: roll for volume, push for on and off. Again, simple, but very well thought out.

We’re still puzzled by foreign reviewers who talked about resting their hands on the screen panel. If you’re doing that, you can’t possibly be driving. Two hands on the wheel, please: the power steering might be well weighted, but it would seem irresponsible to be single-handed when piloting the EV9. More on this later.

The voice recognition works well, as did Bluetooth pairing, while USB-C ports abound, even for passengers in the back.

The seats are among the most comfortable we’ve sampled on any EV or SUV: cossetting and supportive without hard bolsters on the sides, while you want to rest yourself on the headrests, feeling gentle and cool with their perforated mesh fabric. And if you want even greater comfort than the design permits, then there are massaging modes, at least for the driver.

The seats’ sheer beauty is a little at odds with the plastics used in the interior, but these are soft-touch and colour-coordinated, to the point where it isn’t even a complaint. It’s all screwed together well, in Korean fashion. While a Range Rover or Bentley Bentayga might be more sumptuous, you’re playing plenty more—without the assurance of confident Korean build quality.

You can use the key fob to move the car forward or backward without being inside, but why wouldn’t you wish to be inside this cabin for as long as possible? It is like a modernist lounge, with the best chairs in the house. No wonder it needs those dimensions if you’re to travel in this comfort. The three rows of seats have multiple configurations, placed atop a flat floor, so ‘lounge’ is an apt description.

Active safety includes collision avoidance, for front and blind spots, which definitely helps given that the D-pillar is far away when you look back in the cabin, and the shape does prevent you from seeing something that might be immediately in front of the car.

On the road, Kia’s dynamic torque vectoring distributes the appropriate torque to each wheel when turning, while the multi-link suspension at the back helps the EV9 feel smaller than it really is to manœuvre. You wouldn’t be flinging the EV9 on B-roads, but if you did, you’d find it forgiving and capable. The steering is more responsive than you might expect. Round town, its comfort is undeniable. It’s quiet, astonishingly so.

The front and rear disc brakes are effective. And with all the safety features and the cameras, the EV9 is simple to position and park yourself if you don’t want the car to do it for you.

Charging brings with it some gimmicks, too, as the EV9 announces in a synthesized voice, ‘Charging,’ to confirm that the job is being done. Maximum range on WLTP is 505 km, which isn’t far from the 460 km we estimated we were getting.

By the end of our time with the EV9, we didn’t want to see it returned, a sign of how much a car becomes part of your life. And in that respect, it earned its stripes as a family hauler, and it is probably appropriate for those who need the space and the seven seats, and wish to convey their passengers about in comfort.

The giant EV had seduced us with its charms and competence, and the knowledge that there were no tailpipes for anything to come out of was reassuring. There are active safety features to keep those around it out of danger, though of course vigilance remains important when driving something this large.

We could go on a lecture now about how the bulk still requires more power to shift it, even for an EV, though Kia has managed to get the EV9’s drag coefficient to a wondrous 0,28.

Kia has tried to answer the problems of having a big SUV as capably as it can, so for those with good reason to have one, then they would be hard pressed to find something as friendly to use and to live with, conveying passengers around in serenity.

We looked over at a full-fat Range Rover during our test—and were quite happy where we were. •

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