Here’s our first look at Kia’s EV9 three-row electric SUV

SEOUL, KOREA—In 2021, Kia used that year's Los Angeles Auto Show to debut a new electric concept called the EV9. Today, Kia took the wraps off the production version, which goes on sale in the second half of this year. The production EV9 is definitely an evolution of the show car but with some of the concept's more outrageous design details toned down a bit.

It's a large three-row SUV that uses Kia and Hyundai's advanced new electric vehicle platform called E-GMP, which has already impressed us and many others in new EVs like the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Kia's EV6. Those two are smaller crossovers, but the EV9 is bringing that 800 V technology to a larger vehicle, one that should be well-suited to North American tastes.

• The production EV9 has much less scalloped doors than the concept we saw in 2021. It's a little shorter than the Kia Telluride but with a much longer wheelbase. [credit: Kia ]

"The journey over the last couple of years to get to where we are now in terms of design could only happen when designers and brands work together, and this design philosophy—opposites united—is very much based on that idea of movement and richness through movement," explained Karim Habib, head of Kia Global Design. "It's about the juxtaposition of [a] man-made structure in nature and how that contrast actually can be very beautiful or even within nature itself."