Production ready Kia EV9 is put through its final tests

Kia EV6 just launched officially in the US and took the country by storm with its GT model. Not wanting to let the momentum slip away, the company is finalizing testing of the upcoming EV9 - am electric SUV. We first saw the EV9 in 2021 at the Automobility show in Los Angeles.

The tests are progressing quickly, only recently we published photos of the EV9 testing in Germany, that car was still wearing quite heavy camouflage. The car we have here today doesn’t hide anymore, its camouflage is more of a design feature than anything else.

The production ready Kia EV9 is shockingly close to its prototype, starting at the front we see the vertical headlights and the LED light running across the car. They are almost identical to the ones from Concept EV9, the front spoiler, the bumper, the shape of the bonnet - all of it is retained from the prototype.

From the sides it’s again the same situation - this is pretty much the prototype we saw in a production form. Yes, the door handles are the same items we get on EV6 and the door will open in a standard way but overall shape of the car, the windows are the same. The exaggerated bulging wheel arches from the Concept EV9 are replaced with slightly toned down versions and still present.

The first impressions are that Kia have stuck pretty close to the prototype it showed us last year. Clearly the company was surprised by the positive response from the public and decided not to mess around too much with the initial design. It worked with the EV6 so “if it ain’t broke don’t try fixing” approach seems to be the motto here.

Kia EV9 is a larger SUV, the prototype was 194 inches long (4.93 m) and we don’t have a reason to believe the production car is going to be much different in that department. It will make it just a little bit shorter than the ever so popular Kia Telluride.

The technology running the car is familiar already, we will see the same batteries and motors we get with Kia EV6 since the two share the platform. We can expect to see the 82.5 kWh battery (77.4 kWh usable) matched with either single motor with 228 hp for the entry level model and the AWD version will have two motors with a healthy 325 hp output.

Will we see a GT version of EV9? You bet we will! Kia will compete with the likes of Ford Mach-E GT and Chevy Blazer EV SS and the only ace it has up its sleeve is the 585 hp twin motor version.

It will be one heck of an SUV to drive and to own - stylish and fast. And expensive - Kia no longer qualifies for the EV tax credit which will make a lot of people think twice before they go for a South Korean electric car again.

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