2026 Kia EV9 | Should You Pick THIS or a Telluride Hybrid?? (NEW Nightfall & More)

What's going on YouTube? So when the Kia EV9 first came out a couple years ago, it was a trailblazing electric three-row that impressed us quite a lot. But since then, a new Telluride has come out and it even has a hybrid option. So for the same price and with improvements this year, is this the superior Kia three-row? Well, let's go ahead and find out. All right, let's get things started with a quick spec dump. So the Kia EV9 is powered in most versions by a 99.8 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery pack. With the dual motor all-wheel drive system, it has 379 horsepower. This model is rated for 280 miles of range and it has new max charging for 2026. Now the base price of the EV9 is $55,000. However, you can routinely get discounts of $10,000 or more on these. And if you're looking to buy one or any vehicle, we'd encourage you to check out Of course, we'll take it out for a spin to show you the performance. But first, we need to go ahead and shut up the hood, take a look at the outside as well as the surprisingly nice interior. Now, if you follow the channel, you might know that we have a long-term Kia Telluride. You can actually kind of see it in the background. And as a matter of fact, it's the exact same color as this EV9 Wolf Gray. And that's not the only reason why we're making this kind of comparison between these two Kia three rows is the fact that like Mesa was saying, the prices are surprisingly similar. The MSRP is a lot more for the EV9, but you can get big discounts on this. And depending on your state, you could even get enough discounts. This could be the cheaper alternative. So what is the difference between them? Well, when it comes to the styling, you can see that this is going to have a little bit of a sleeker look. It's still boxy overall, but you've got things like the sealed off grill and a little bit more of a sporty look down here on the bottom. Now for 2026, there's a new nightfall edition as well. But what you're looking at here is the GT line, which already has a pretty sporty design. And let's move into the headlights. As you can see, we have a very premium stacked crystal design on board. We also have a different light signature that starts way up here and then bends down and goes into the grill. Speaking of that, this part of the grill is illuminated at night, which gives it a very distinct look. Continuing to the rear, you will see the boxy, but still sleek design continue. Yeah, it doesn't have quite a signature of a look as a tell you ride, but overall it's pretty sporty. We have the large spoiler right here. We have a wiper integrated underneath our Kia branding right here. And let's take a look at our taillights. So our taillights kind of have that spider design and they are fully led. That includes your brake light, your turn signal and your reverse light. And then as we drop down to the lower fascia, this is going to all be a piano black. And as far as your tow capacity, it ranges from 2000 pounds on the lower end EV nines, all the way up to 5,000 pounds for higher end examples like this one. Moving on to the wheels, you have choices between 19 and 21 inch alloys. The designs themselves are very geometric and they look very, very similar to what you can get on a tell you ride. The biggest thing that's actually different from this to the tell you ride is the fact that the sets a little bit lower to the ground ground clearance with all wheel drive is 7.8 inches. Now you have some gloss black trim, which goes around the wheel arches there and the lower part of the body, as well as up here on our mirrors. These mirrors have lots of nice features, including blind spot monitoring, heating and power folding as standard equipment, plus auto dimming on the land trim and above. Now at the side of the EV nine overall vehicle length is 197 inches, which does mean that it's a few inches shorter than the new tell you ride. And in terms of design elements, you'll see that all of our window surrounds are going to be blacked and there's a new for 2026 option of a black roof. And I have to say, I would totally choose this option. It makes the overall design look a lot better in my opinion. And that's actually something you can't get on the tell you ride. You also have the raised roof rails up here at the top. And when it comes to safety systems, you get all four active safety features as standard equipment on the EV nine. And in addition to that, you also get things like highway drive assist 2.0, which allows for some automatic lane changing and that's standard on all models as well. But guys, let's go ahead and check out the inside. But first, if you're new here, we're brothers and we've been reviewing cars since we were 12 and 16. We started young and since then we've reviewed over 2000 cars at every price point. And if you want to know about all the latest and greatest rides, then make sure to subscribe to be a part of our car confections family. Let's learn a lot and have some fun with all the newest cars. All right, now on to the inside. First stop is the key fob. We have the typical Kia key fob, but it has the white finish. You have all the buttons you could want with the smart entry system as well as preconditioning. And you have smart park and digital key as well for this model. Now, when you walk up to the vehicle, it senses your approach. It pops out the door handles and folds out the mirrors. And then let's check out this interior. There's really a lot to like inside of here, but let's start with the seats, which then themselves are a thing that is really, really likable about this vehicle because they are extremely comfortable. So all models will come with a syntax, which is a faux leather. It feels very realistic, though. This is the GT line, so it has the nicest grade. It has perforation, color contrast, stitching details. It's very soft and supple. And also the headrest up here has this mesh finish, but it's extremely plush. Now, for the actual adjustments, all models will have a power adjusting seat. However, we've got the highest amount of adjustments. We even get ergo motion massage on the GT line as well as the relaxation seat. So when you're charging, you can pop out this recliner and hang back and have an epic nap. As far as over here on the door trim, you'll see that's where you have your heated and ventilated seat controls. Memory seats are included in all but the base trim. Let's go ahead and climb inside. Now, closing up the door, let's look around at the rest of the cabin materials. Overall, it's maybe a little less plush than the Telluride, but it's still a pretty nice place. Over here on the door trim, we have a leatherette. You have cloth finish through here, leatherette through here, and then a gray trim in the center section. It does have a conventional door handle versus the Telluride. Soft touch plastic up here at the top, cloth accenting across the dashboard with your ambient lighting kind of behind there. More of this kind of faux aluminum trim right to the center section, and then padded cloth and leatherette through the middle part. Let's fire it up with the push button start. I should say start it up. Now, jumping into some individual details, we'll start with the gauge cluster. This is a 12.3-inch digital gauge cluster as standard equipment. You will get on all but the base model a blind spot camera system, and you can change the design of this. If you want a head-up display, you need to choose the loaded GT line. Now, moving back to the steering wheel, compared to the Telluride, we have a totally different design. If you like symmetry, you'll notice the Kia logo is in the middle, and overall, it's less of a squared-off shape. We have a new terrain mode controller this year right there on the steering wheel next to the drive modes, and as far as the wheel itself, it's power tilt and telescoping and heated on all to the base trim. Let's turn over here and take a look at interior storage. Of course, being an EV means that it can be packaged differently than traditional products like the Telluride, and what they've done is actually emphasize the storage for the back, but not so much the front. As you'll see, we only have three donuts inside of this very small center console, but there's a lot more storage in front of that. It's just kind of open, so you've got your wireless phone charging pad right there. That's standard equipment. Slide this back. We have our two cup holders, or you can use it as storage if you pop them in, and then you have the giant pass-through area where you can stick things kind of inside of this enclosed, semi-enclosed area. Now, taking a look at the shifter, just twist up for drive, twist down for reverse. When you go into reverse, you'll see a 360-degree camera system on all that the base trim level does have nice resolution, and you also have the ability to spin around the vehicle in 3D. Press the end there for park, and as we look back at this area, you have a fingerprint reader, and then a few more controls for your parking sensors as well as your automatic brake hold system. Now, continuing up the dashboard, we've got our climate controls. We have a three-zone automatic system. It is standard equipment on all models. You can easily adjust your temperature with this physical control here, and then you have a secondary climate display, which is about five inches. That's where you can get into a few additional controls that don't have buttons, or you can expand it out to go over the entire screen. Now, also in this area, we have the volume knob. You have a standard eight-speaker sound system, and then the Landon GT-Line models come with a 14-speaker Meridian sound system. That's what we have. Let's hear it. Yeah, so this week, Mason and I have really enjoyed this audio system. It has a good and balanced sound and fills up the cabin nicely. All right, let's zero in with the main infotainment system now. This side is also 12.3 inches, just like the gauge cluster, and it has the CCNC software, which is common across Kia and Hyundai's lineup. We have wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, which is what you're looking at right now, and as I go into the main display, you'll see you have built-in navigation as well as some specific EV applications like that. Moving up top here, we've got an auto-dimming mirror. We also have the digital camera rear-view mirror system with HomeLink remotes that's on your top trims, and then I'll go ahead and open up this dual-panel sunroof arrangement. So actually, if you get all that the base trim, you'll get these two different sunroofs. The front one does open up, the back one is fixed, and then the top model has a suede headliner. But what about the rear seats of the EV9? This is a three-row after all, so how practical is this electric SUV? Well, let's start by talking about the space. As you can probably see already demonstrated, there is a lot of space. So we're sitting at 42.8 inches of leg room and about 40 inches of headroom. Now, those are both really great figures, as I was mentioning, and it's very much on par with that new Telluride, which is a very good and very spacious rear seat. Now, of course, I brought along the official car confections ruler. The reason I do that is so I can get a realistic knee room figure for you. This seat is adjusted to Drew, who's 5'8", I'm 5'9", and look at that, we are sitting at 10 inches of additional knee room. That's really quite good. My feet can slide up underneath of the seats, and these seats are super comfortable back here in the rear. One of the most comfortable rear seats that I've ever been in. Now, in terms of the seating capacity, this is six-passenger seating. That's what's standard on your higher-end examples, or the lower-end models do have bent seating, which would increase your capacity to seven passengers. Now, there's a pretty cool feature that I want to talk about. We actually have the VIP relaxation seat package, and that's going to allow the entire rear seat area to be fully power adjustable, so I can slide it forward and back. I can also recline this seat an incredible amount. Also, we'll throw in the winged headrest, and we even have a power ottoman as well that will pop out. So, if you want to talk about a place that you can really have some epic road trips, this EV9's second row is really fantastic. That's for sure if you option on that package. Now, in terms of other features, we have two cupholders right here. Additionally, we are going to have this little pop-out table. So, as you can see, you have a little table to store things. You can also slide this back, and that's going to be really where most of your storage is that you saw was missing in the front. We have USB ports in each seat back, the very cool design with cloth in the back of the seat. And we're not done yet, because if you look over at the door trim, you'll find rear window sunshades, a nicely done door trim with a lot of soft-touch plastic and leatherette, as well as heated and ventilated seats. Those are going to be included on the Land and GT line trims, and you also have quite a bit of storage down in the bottom. Your climate controls are also integrated up here in the ceiling, as well as the vents right here. But what about the third row? In order to get back here, all you have to do is press that button, and that's going to go ahead and start the power sliding mechanism to allow you to get back into the third row. I will say it is a little bit on the slow side, but it is nice that you don't have to do anything manually, and the seat back does move, so keep that in mind for car seats. Now, coming back here into the third row. Okay, overall, not bad at all. So we're sitting at about 32 inches of legroom, and about 39 and a half inches of headroom. So compared to the Telluride, that's a little bit less on the legroom side, as you can see demonstrated. Now, this seat is slid all the way back, but I don't have any additional knee room at all. But the headroom is actually surprisingly nice. Believe it or not, this is actually my first time reviewing the EV9, so I'm pretty impressed with this third row overall. The thigh support is also pretty good, and we also have two seats back here. We have two cup holders over here on the side, as well as a USB port, and the rear glass is also pretty large with the vent right up here at the top. Although there is not third row seat heating, which is something you can get on the Telluride. Overall, how this is going to rank on our third row rating scale, I'm going to say that this is fit for adults. Walking up to the tailgate, of course, we have a hands-free Power One. And what about the cargo capacity? Well, behind the third row of seats, we're sitting at about 20 cubic feet of space for the EV9. If we fold those seats down, we're going to have 43 cubic feet, and as a maximum, 81 cubic feet of cargo capacity. Compared to the Telluride, that's around eight cubic foot less as a maximum. But overall, the numbers are pretty similar in terms of spacing. Now, if you're looking to cross shop this with any vehicle segment, we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com slash vehicle rankings. We've looked at almost every vehicle segment out there, including things like the three-row midsize SUV options, and ranked them in individual categories. Things like cargo capacity, third row, interior luxury, technology features, powertrain choices, and value. And you can sort the list based on the categories that are most important to you to really make an informed buying decision. Once more, that's going to be at carconfections.com slash vehicle rankings, and we'd highly encourage you to check that out. Now, in terms of the features back here, we have a manual folding third row. It's super easy, though, to fold it down. And then, as far as the second row, because it's power, we do have these buttons over here, and that is going to, just with a simple press, allow the seat to go ahead and power fold, so I don't have to do anything myself, and I can get all of that folded down from the cargo area. And let's get our cargo length, width, and height figures. As far as cargo length, we're sitting at 86 inches. From the second row, with its lid all the way back, 48 inches. With the third row, 20 inches is your length. And the opening, pretty good, 49 inches wide. The height, not great, that's 29 inches tall, so that's probably an area where the Telluride would be a little bit better, just because it's a more boxy SUV. And then, the load-in height is coming in at 32 inches tall. Underneath of the floor, there's a little bit of extra space. We also have a 12-volt outlet right here, and there's even a frunk up in the front of the vehicle. Now, do be aware, though, it's only about two cubic feet of space, so it's enough for maybe just some fast food. Well, guys, here we are behind the wheel of the 2026 Kia EV9, and this test drive we'll be discussing quite a lot, as you can see on the screen right now. But first and foremost, let's go ahead and start with a hard acceleration. All right, 60 miles an hour with the EV9 GT line. So, like we talked about at the beginning, you have quite a bit of power with this model. There's several versions with different battery capacities, different amounts of power, but this is the most powerful one on the market in the US. It has 379 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque, so definitely a lot of torque and a good launch with the dual-motor all-wheel drive system bringing you to 60 miles an hour in about five seconds flat. Yeah, it definitely pushes you back in your seat pretty aggressively, and, you know, if you're talking about comparing it to a Telluride, it's not that the Telluride is slow in any capacity, but this certainly feels way faster to 60 miles per hour, that's for sure. You know, when you get that all-electric torque right off the line, zero to 60 in five seconds really is quite impressive. Yeah, nice punch of the throttle with the sport mode activated gives you kind of that nice maximum acceleration. This is certainly going to be quicker than any Telluride that you can get, including the hybrid, although not by a ton difference because obviously this weighs quite a bit more. It's got a pretty substantial battery pack, I should mention that as well. 99.8 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery pack on all but the base model. Yeah, and the base models come in at 76.1 kilowatt hours, and as far as the other powertrain options, you can see those on the screen right now as well as some other pertinent information like their range. This, of course, is the fastest option like Drew has been mentioning. The more basic versions are a little bit on the lower power side, 215 horsepower, but the zero to 60 is still very similar to what you would get out of a base engine Telluride as well. Now, we're cruising along on our designated stripper road to talk about things like ride quality, and we had the privilege of living with this EV9 all week long, and as you can see demonstrated with these bridge abutments, it does a really good job in terms of ride quality. I will say I think it's a little bit on the firmer side as compared to the Telluride comes to the actual ride quality itself. However, these seats more than make up for any type of difference that you might find. These seats are so, so incredibly comfortable. This is definitely a vehicle that, you know, if you're fine with charging, you can take it on really, really long road trips and be totally arriving refreshed. Yeah, these seats are almost too comfortable. Like, I need to be driving. I want to just go to sleep. They're like, they're as good as any Genesis for sure. All right, and we are speeding up to 55 miles per hour, so you can get our sound level reading. We have us on fan speed one, and the rear climate is powered off, and let's see how quiet the EV9 is. 55.1 decibels seems to be the number that we have settled in at. I don't sit here and guess how it compares to other three-row midsize SUVs. You can find that on our website, carconfections.com, and compared to the Telluride, we actually had a SX Prestige X-Pro down here for a week. That was sitting at around 54 decibels, so it's a little bit louder in this specific sound level reading. However, I do want to point out, you might actually be able to hear it on camera, but this moonroof, actually over the course of when we were filming this video, has developed a little bit of a wind noise, so we were not able to actually get the wind noise to stop, even by opening and shutting it again. That is definitely contributing to a little bit of the extra noise inside this cabin. Overall, previously this week, we had some really great experience with the quietness of this cabin. It feels very much, like Drew said earlier, like a Genesis product almost, because it's very luxurious in here. As I fling around that corner, it's a good time to talk about the dynamics. I think this is a key place where it separates itself from the Telluride. This is definitely a lot sportier, a lot more fun to drive on a back road because the weight is down low in the platform. It gives it a nice balanced feel. I mean, it's surprisingly agile for a three-row. It's not exactly, you know, super fun to drive. That is kind of more reserved for maybe an EV6 GT. That's going to be more fun, but it does handle itself better than you would think. Yeah. Now, I also want to talk about ranges and the charging. So, the ranges range from 230 miles on the very base end with the base model, and then you go all the way up to 305 miles as a maximum, which is had in the light, long-range rear-wheel drive. That is up one mile of range for 2026 model year, as are a couple of the different versions. They have increased ranges this year. So, the specific model that we're in today is the GT Line. That comes in 280 miles of range, and that's up 10 miles of range as compared to what it was before. So, some nice improvements there, although it's not going to be like class-leading range figures by any stretch of the imagination. They also added the NACS charging this year. Yep. And with that, you know, you'll have access to Tesla supercharged stations and more places to charge up when you go on a trip. Yeah, and as far as the charge speeds, it comes in at 210 kilowatts or 235 kilowatts as a max speed, which once more is not the fastest out there, but it's going to be pretty good. And what about today's slam dunk and air bar? Favorite and least favorite element. Drew, do you want to kick us off with the slam dunk? The slam dunk is actually the similarities to the Telluride. I think a lot of times when you have EV products, they're compromised in a lot of ways, and this one really just doesn't feel compromised. It's still very much a functional family three-row, and it nails both the luxury side and the practicality side. Absolutely. Now, on the flip side, our air ball is just going to be the range. You know, we're sitting at 280 miles of range, and certainly that's not nearly as good as something like a Telluride hybrid that has over 600 miles on a tank of gas. I think for a lot of families, that's just going to be the holdup with the CV9 is the range. If they could get it closer to 350 miles or so, I think that that would maybe reduce that hesitation that a lot of families have with this. And pricing. So we start at $55,000 for the base model, go all the way up to around $72,000 as a starting point for this GT-Line all-wheel drive. Now, I do want to point out, obviously, those prices are higher than a Telluride, which is around $10,000-ish less. However, you can get some pretty hefty discounts on these models, at least in our area, same pretty much nationwide that you can get almost $10,000 off, which means that it is very similar in terms of pricing to the Kia Telluride. Now, this fully loaded example, we have every option that you can throw at this EV9. We're sitting at $76,670 as tested today. If you're curious as to where it's manufactured, it is here in the US, in West Point, Georgia. And if you're looking to buy an EV9 or any vehicle, we'd encourage you to check out carconfections.com. The reason you should do that is because we have a tool on our website that'll connect you with local car dealers in your area to get you the best price. It's also going to give you access to invoice pricing information, which is a great tool to use if you plan on doing dealership negotiation. You can find a link to that down below in our video description, as well as a pinned comment at the top of this video. And there's even things like a monthly payment calculator on there, so you won't want to miss out. But what about Kia's reliability and warranty? First up, let's talk about resale value. Kia, as a brand, is rated at 49.02% of estimated retained value after five years and 60,000 miles, and after 10 years and 120,000 miles, 21.13%. Now, that's right at the industry average for all vehicle brands. However, it is less than some of the main competition you could be looking at, such as Toyota, Honda, or Mazda. Now, we also have reliability data. Our combined reliability index with the latest 2026 data indicates that Kia is rated above the overall industry average against all other vehicle makes. Now, if you'd like to learn more about our reliability and our resale data, be sure to go to carconfections.com to find all of that out. Now, when it comes to warranties, you have a five-year and 60,000-mile basic warranty, a 10-year 100,000-mile powertrain warranty, and Kia does not do complimentary maintenance. And guys, that wraps up our week-long review of the 2026 Kia EV9. If you enjoyed hearing about the 2026 changes, as well as this model compared to the Telluride, we'd appreciate you subscribing down below. And if you're already a part of our family, thank you so much for your continued support, because you make this all possible. We'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies.