The 2024 Kia EV9 lowers the price barrier for three-row electric vehicle family haulers, but is its price low enough?
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The 2024 Kia EV9 will start at $54,900 for the Light RWD trim before destination fees or adding options like a bigger battery or two extra motors for AWD. When announced earlier this year, the EV9 caught everyone’s attention since there are few (and costly) seven-seater fully-electric vehicles on the market, and the automaker’s entry looked like it was primed to disrupt.
The EV9 will come standard with 19-inch wheels, dual 12.3-inch screens up front, a 5-inch screen for HVAC controls, CarPlay and Android Auto, a wireless phone charger, advanced driver assistance features like automatic braking and cross traffic check, and support for ultra-wideband smartphone key access (though that requires a subscription). It can charge its battery from 10 to 80 percent in under 25 minutes when connected to a 350kW DC fast charger (Car and Driver’s preview found it supports up to 230kW speeds).
Other options for three-row electric SUVs are limited and include the Tesla Model X that costs at least $83,490 with seven seats, and while the cheapest Rivian R1S starts at $78,000, ordering one with a shipping date in 2024will have you looking at a $92,000 quad-motor configuration. And while a bit cramped, Tesla’s Model Y with seven seats costs $52,990, and it qualifies for the $7,500 federal tax credit.
But by comparison, similar-size gas-powered three-row SUVs are still available for quite a bit less. Kia’s own 2024 Telluride starts at $36,000 (about $40,000 when said and done). The EV9 is about the same height and width and just slightly longer than the Telluride.
Kia’s EV9 will initially ship from South Korea for availability by year-end. It doesn’t yet qualify for the federal tax credits due to complex new rules that foreign automakers are pretty mad about. But the EV9 might qualify after Kia starts assembling it in the USA sometime next year at a new factory in West Point, Georgia. Other trims in the lineup, including the Light Long Range, Wind, Land, and GT-Line, will have prices announced “later.”
