The Kia EV9: A Seven-Seat Electric SUV From $59,995 — but the Cheapest One Goes 121 Kilometres Less Than the Next — Rated 6.9/10

The EV9 is a genuinely unusual object: a three-row, seven-seat electric SUV at a price that starts with a five. Kia Canada sells it as a 2026 across seven configurations, and the spread between them is wide enough that the ends of the range are almost different vehicles.

The ladder opens with the Light rear-wheel drive at $59,995, which uses a 76.1-kilowatt-hour battery and is rated at 370 kilometres. The Wind rear-wheel drive at $62,995 moves to the 99.8-kilowatt-hour pack and 491 kilometres — the longest range in the lineup, and 121 kilometres more than the entry car. From the Land all-wheel drive at $64,995 upward, every EV9 uses the big battery and gains a second motor for 379 horsepower, 516 pound-feet and a 5,000-pound towing rating, against the rear-drive cars' 2,000. Packages take the Land to $70,495, $75,495 and $79,495, and the range tops out with the GT at $85,295, which produces 502 horsepower and reaches 100 km/h in a claimed 4.6 seconds.

Kia's headline price excludes $2,185 in delivery and destination charges — identical across every configuration and every province — and is not net of incentives; the provincial rebates available in Manitoba and Quebec are not deducted from the displayed figure.

The range figures deserve a precise description. Kia's own footnote describes them as Kia-estimated, produced by internal testing using Natural Resources Canada methodology. That is not the same as a published NRCan rating, and it is different again from the EPA figures quoted in the United States. Charging runs on a 400/800-volt system that Kia says takes the smaller battery from 10 to 80 per cent in about 20 minutes and the larger one in 24 on a 350-kilowatt charger, and the EV9 now carries an NACS charge port, as does the IONIQ 5 with which it shares a platform.

The seating arrangement is where buyers will have to think. The Light, Wind, Land and Land with the Plus package seat seven; the Premium and GT-Line packages and the GT seat six. Cargo space is identical across the range at 573 litres behind the third row, 1,233 behind the second and 2,314 behind the first. Vehicle-to-load power is rated at 1,900 watts but only appears from the Premium package upward.

Equipment is strong at the bottom of the range, which is not always true in this segment. Every EV9 gets dual 12.3-inch displays plus a separate five-inch climate screen, and every one gets Highway Driving Assist 2, forward collision avoidance with junction and lane-change functions, blind-spot and rear cross-traffic avoidance, lane following, safe exit assist and eight airbags. A fourteen-speaker Meridian system arrives from the Premium package up.

One number this desk will not print is the vehicle's peak charging rate. Kia Canada states charger ratings — 50 kilowatts, 350 kilowatts — but never the rate the car itself will accept, and we are not going to infer one from a charging time.

The credentials are real. The EV9 took both World Car of the Year and World Electric Vehicle in 2024, was named North American Utility Vehicle of the Year the same season, and was crowned Canadian Electric Utility Vehicle of the Year for 2026 by the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada.

A 6.9/10 from the Torbrook Rating Agency reflects an ambitious, well-equipped vehicle whose Canadian entry price buys markedly less range and capability than its headline figures suggest. The specifications above are Kia's; the score is ours.