Video: We Bought a 2024 Kia EV9

So the EV9 has a much more usable third row than the third row in our model Y, which was optional. (sad horn sound) This one's actually fit for adult use, and it's the size of the EV9 that makes it one of the most family-friendly, three-row EVs out there. Think Kia Telluride, Hyundai Palisade, Volkswagen Atlas, Honda Pilot. That's the size of the EV9. And we have editors on staff with different size families. So we are going to share this, and see if the EV9 can be the real deal family hauler. You can expect road trips, towing, charging tests, efficiency tests, and more during our year of ownership. All right, so what did we buy? Well, we bought the land trim level. Now that's the second to the highest trim level, and one of the reasons we wanted to do that is because you can unlock the maximum towing capacity with the land trim level of 5,000 pounds. This also has 280 miles of EPA estimated range. It's all wheel drive with 379 horsepower, and it costs $74,305. That's the retail price with destination, but we didn't pay that much. So this car was advertised for $66,000 on cars.com, which included $8,000 in discounts. And we called and asked if that was the everybody price, and it was. And so we bought it. It was a pretty simple experience, but the first dealership we visited didn't include any of the discounts, which at the time of buying there was $5,000 customer cash on this car, and then they included a $3,000 markup. And so that is not something you have to accept on this car. There are plenty out there. They're being discounted. There's lots of incentives on these. So if you encounter a dealer markup situation, you can know that you can walk away and find another deal. It's important to know that when we buy cars for our long-term test fleet, we want that off-the-street experience. So we go in with our personal emails and information, and we're not going in as cars.com. Only until after we had the deal negotiated do we reveal that we are cars.com. And that really gave us two unique experiences, which was interesting for the EV9. One, no discounts, $3000 markup. The other, all the discounts, very easy buying experience, and hopefully that's helpful when you're buying an EV9. So I spent a lot of time in our model Y, and I traded it in at the dealership for the EV9, and I was relieved taking the EV9 home because ride quality is great, and then using it for the weekend with my kids, two kids under six, it was just so much easier to install car seats and get them in and out of the car. Big fan so far, this is my first time driving the EV9, but we're gonna share the EV9 with editors of different families, older kids, younger kids, no kids and just see how it does. Other things we're looking forward to testing, the vehicle to load feature that plugs into the large capacity battery and lets you charge or power AC devices like a regular household outlet. Is it gimmicky? Can we really use it? Kia will unlock Tesla supercharger access in 2025 with the use of an adapter, so we will be able to test that at any supercharger. And then a couple of early issues observed in the EV9 community including 12-volt battery drain issues, the 12 volt battery, the low voltage battery powers accessories, and helps start the vehicle. We've got a charge pack, jump pack just in case ours experiences that. And then also Hyundai, Kia and Genesis EVs, some of 'em have been susceptible to an integrated charging control unit failure. Has that carried over to the EV9? Will we experience that? Those things we're gonna be keeping an eye on and more during our ownership. If you wanna read more about our EV9 purchase, including how much we got as a trade-in on our Model y, be sure to head to cars.com/news. And if there's anything that you wanna know about the EV9 or want us to test, be sure to let us know in the comments. (upbeat music)