Kia EV9: Is this the giant, electric, seven-seat SUV Aussies want?

November: EV9 driven in Australia

Kia's massive EV9 is a unique thing, for Kia and the market alike, which could result in a surprise success – even at $100k a pop.

Story continues: EV9 pricing revealed

August: Is the EV9 ‘right-sized’ for Australia?

The upcoming EV5 will be roughly Sportage-sized – with the usual Tardis-like interior space advantages of a dedicated EV – but would a more Sorento-sized EV7 or EV8 suit local buyers better than this big new EV9?

Despite an emphasis on “upper large SUV” in the press release, I asked Kia Australia operations boss Damien Meredith at this week's first local look if he would’ve preferred something smaller than the EV9.

“Well, it is what it is,” he said – not with disappointment, but seemingly in acknowledgement of the global reality that many models are developed first for the behemoth-loving and big-selling US market. Even with Australian feedback being an important factor.

“We’ve got it and we’re pretty excited about it, frankly,” he said. “Look, it’s an array of things. [Some] people are going to buy it because it’s electric, because it’s got seven seats, because it makes a really strong individual statement. I don’t think it’s going to be a LandCruiser or Patrol killer. It’s going to be a subset of a lot of different demographics that are interested in EV9.”

To validate Meredith’s point, I ran a survey. Of one.

My sister has just had her first child, and suddenly she wants to upgrade from her perfectly suitable 2016 Tucson to something bigger, like a Nissan Patrol. In fact, exactly like a Nissan Patrol, but the EV9 now has her interest. Or maybe it was my video on the EV9…

“Is it as big as a Patrol?”, she asked me via Facebook Messenger. “I want the new Patrol (what ‘new’ Patrol I wanted to ask…), but this looks amazing! The Patrol, even the 2022 model, looks quite dated with the woodgrain.”

I do love getting these insights into the consideration factors of the average buyer. (To be fair, it's her partner pushing for the Patrol – he loves V8s and off-roading. 💪)

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Back to Meredith: What about a similarly massive SUV of a more premium cachet, like the BMW X7 or Mercedes-Benz GLS. Could the EV9 sway buyers away from those two?

He pauses, then commits: "Ah, Yes. There’s a lot of ‘badge’ to those, but I believe so. The difference between sophisticated Asian markets, to mature Western European markets, to Australia, is… we still, fortunately, we still look for the value equation,” he said.

“To answer your question, I believe we’re going to be like this (Meredith gestures with his arms wide) with where we get volume from with this [the EV9].”

Kia Australia marketing head Dean Norbiato: “It goes back to those ~7000 expressions of interest – we’ve seen a lot of interest from 'new' postcodes."

"The upper north Shore (of Sydney), the lower north shore, the eastern suburbs – not traditionally heartlands for the Kia brand, but this product is something of a Trojan Horse into those areas. Once they get to purchase, we’ll see if that translates, but that’s where we’re seeing the hot spots and it’s interesting.”

For now, as Norbiato puts it, the EV9 represents something of a “unicorn” in Australia, with no direct rivals with that combination of big, electric, a proper seven-seat design, and a likely price tag that no premium badge will match.

“We see it as quite a unique product, it’s a unicorn when you compare it. It’s an upper large SUV, and when you compare it to what’s in that segment – it’s not going to compete with the off-road credentials of those two (LandCruiser 300 and Patrol), but we see it as being quite unique”, he added.

“We’ve shown it to a lot of existing Kia owners, and they’re interested in this product, at both a purchasing level but also… ‘that’s now in the Kia family, it makes me prouder to own my Picanto, to own my Seltos’”.