A Super Bowl ad for Kia’s EV9 vehicle was named as one of the best ads of the night by the New York Times.
Dad of the year uses his Kia EV9 to light a pop-up ice rink so a young figure skater can perform for her ailing grandfather. (Or at least that’s what it looks like.) High-horsepower tear-jerker.
After launching the EV9 last fall, Kia’s first three-row electric SUV is already outselling the Toyota bZ4X. Kia EV9 sales nearly doubled that of Toyota’s electric SUV in its first full month on the US market.
Kia opened EV9 pre-orders in October after seeing “significant consumer interest,” according to the brand’s VP of sales, Eric Watson.
Less than two months later, the EV9 received reservations in all 50 US states. Kia calls the EV9’s $54,900 starting price an industry “wake-up call.” At 197.2″ long, the EV9 is slightly bigger than the Telluride but has the same height and width.
Kia says the EV9 features “true SUV capabilities” with over 81 cubic feet of cargo space (behind the first row), up to 5,000 lbs towing capacity, and seating for seven adults.
Despite its boxy design, the EV9 features a drag coefficient of 0.28. This enables the electric SUV to get up to 304 EPA-est miles range. With 350 kW DC fast charging, the EV9 can charge from 10% to 80% in 24 minutes to get you back on the road quickly.
Beware of “reservations” numbers on EVs. Count the deliveries instead.
I saw the ad when it ran, and I know I’m a broken record and big ole party pooper with EVs, but to me it was just another in the long line of super expensive vehicles for the wealthy. The ad shows a white upper middle class family with a granddad who owns a large country home with his own flood lit private pond/ice rink. Then he’s surprised when his professionally trained granddaughter performs on it.
That’s a tiny niche market that Kia is hitting with that ad. True, it’s the market that would buy that vehicle, but they’ll hit the wall on sales with it as that niche market saturates, and as far as having a real impact on climate change it’s minimal.
The other danger is that EVs will be labeled as a vehicle only for the elites, and the ad reinforces that impression – made worse as it ran during the Super Bowl with high visibility.
We need an affordable priced EV with marketing something like the Kawasaki ad for the other 90% of the country:
https://youtu.be/Vpg2xfdbP8E?si=lLUhK_Oa5kqmBDl4
The complaint that you have about EV ads targeted to the wealthy also applies to almost all tv car advertisements. I’ve known no teenager who got a brand new car when they turned 16. I’ve known not a single person who has gotten a car for a christmas present or birthday. But according to these commercials, it seems pretty common. I do agree on the need for an affordable EV car. For me, I’m holding out for an affordable EV minivan or even that Volkswagen bus thing depending on the price. Unless my scratch tickets make me a multi-millionaire, then it is an EV pickup with an extended cab for large dogs.
60K for a huge 3-row EV SUV that gets 300 mile range with 350 volt charging is going to appeal to a LOT of people, not just a niche audience. Too bad they don’t have a US factory for these.
Well, we’ll see I guess. It’s true that new and used car prices have skyrocketed the past 5 years, driven by financing and an increasing willingness of consumers to have high debt. It’s madness, IMHO, but then I’m not the target.
I’m not the target either. The average new price for a SUV is now about 80K, That tiny Kawasaki Ridge? 33.5K and it’s not an ev!
I remember when I was a kid the schmancy cars that had electric windows and our boss in 1984 had a car with a CD player. EVs (and PHEVs) will be the norm sooner than we think, especially outside of the US. We’ll get there in the US in spite of the its perverse system of capture by car dealerships.
(You can borrow one of my many wet blankets, if you like.)
The comparable Rivian SUV is 83K, so the KIA is a relative “bargain”.
https://electrek.co/2024/02/16/kia-ev9-marked-up-dealers/