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The biggest Kia electric car is the company's least popular model, but the EV9 is said to be doing its job drawing customers into other models in the range – rather than selling up a storm.
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Sales of the largest and most expensive Kia sold in Australia to date are on target – despite being the company's slowest-selling model on average – executives for the South Korean brand say.
Kia has only reported 534 EV9s as sold from January to November 2024 – each priced from $97,000 to $121,000 before on-road costs and premium paint – for an average of 49 per month.
While company executives acknowledge fewer expressions of interest on the EV9 prior to launch converted to firm orders, they say it was not meant to be a top seller, and has lifted other models in the Kia range.
"We had a really high expression of interest on EV9. However, from a pricing standpoint, it was probably out of a few people's targets," Kia Australia general manager of marketing Dean Norbiato told a local media briefing last week.
Asked by Drive if the low conversion rate indicates it is too expensive, Norbiato said: "I think with EV9 what it did is translate to sales across the board.
"It's our number one vehicle in terms of lead gen[eration] to the Kia website, and then test drives on other vehicles.
"So it really is our halo vehicle, and we're confident that it's doing a tremendous job with regards to that."
Kia Australia chief operating officer Dennis Piccoli added: "I was going to say that we've got to take into consideration the size of that segment. When we look at that upper large SUV [class], it's not a huge segment."
About 23,000 vehicles of that type have been reported as sold so far this year – but more than 22,000 have either been LandCruisers or Patrols.
It comes as sales of electric vehicles have tapered over the course of 2024, and were down 24 per cent in November – though the decline has been driven by a sharp slump in Tesla deliveries.
Kia Australia CEO Damien Meredith said the brand made a deliberate decision to start its range of dedicated electric cars with the EV9 and smaller EV6.
"With the EV line, we could have started with EV3 [small SUV], that could have been our first car and we could have built up to EV9," he said.
"But the effect was we started with EV6 and EV9, so we were telling the technology story. And I think in the long-term that'll play to our advantage with EV3 and EV5 [mid-size SUV], and potentially EV4 [small hatch and sedan]."
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Alex Misoyannis has been writing about cars since 2017, when he started his own website, Redline. He contributed for Drive in 2018, before joining CarAdvice in 2019, becoming a regular contributing journalist within the news team in 2020. Cars have played a central role throughout Alex’s life, from flicking through car magazines at a young age, to growing up around performance vehicles in a car-loving family. Highly Commended - Young Writer of the Year 2024 (Under 30) Rising Star Journalist, 2024 Winner Scoop of The Year - 2024 Winner
