The Kia EV9's range has a major asterisk that no one's talking about

It's hard to argue with the overall excellence of the 2025 Kia EV9. As you may have gathered from just about every reputable source, this is a highly impressive three-row electric SUV.

To wit, in our Large 3-Row Electric SUV Rankings, a catch-all category with no price restrictions, the EV9 currently sits in fourth place, trailing only the top-shelf Rivian/Lucid/Cadillac triumvirate and edging out the new Volvo EX90 and the Tesla Model X, among others. That's heady stuff for what is by far the cheapest contender in the class.

Having said that, the EV9's top range rating of 304 miles — prominently featured in Kia's marketing output, of course — demands a serious compromise, and no one seems to be talking about it.

Let's take a minute and set the record straight.

Which EV9 is rated at 304 miles of range?

That would be the EV9 Light Long Range RWD, which pairs the larger 99.8-kWh battery with a single rear motor. The entry-level Light RWD, by contrast, has a 76.1-kWh battery that only gives you 230 miles of range per the EPA.

The Light Long Range RWD has a base MSRP of $59,900, a seemingly reasonable $5k premium compared to the Light RWD's $54,900 starting price.

So far, so normal. Many EV lineups look like this, starting with a short-range RWD model and offering a long-range upgrade with a bigger battery.

A bigger battery is about more than just range

We often recommend precisely that upgrade — take the upsized battery, but keep the single-motor, rear-drive layout — because not only does it usually maximize the range, it also tends to improve the acceleration considerably.

For example, take the EV9's corporate cousin, the 2025 Hyundai Ioniq 5. Its base rear-drive specification is rated at 245 miles of range and a paltry 168 horsepower.

Step up to the Ioniq 5 Long Range RWD, however, and you get 318 miles of range (best in the lineup) and a much healthier 225 horsepower, good for a respectable 7.4-second sprint to 60 mph. Running just $4k more to start, it's a no-brainer pick over the standard setup.

Again, as a general rule, that's what happens when you increase the battery size: you unlock more power along with the extra range.

Here's where the EV9 gets weird

As it turns out, there's at least one major exception to that rule. You may have surmised that it's the range champ in the EV9 lineup, the Long Range RWD. The following comparison of all three available EV9 powertrains tells the story.

We're sorting by horsepower here to highlight the weirdness. As you can see, the Long Range RWD's power output is actually less than that of the base model with the smaller battery.

Minds blown.

Now, combine the added weight of the bigger battery with that 14-horsepower output reduction and the result is, predictably, much slower acceleration. In fact, we try to keep our database up to date with publicly available 0-60 times, and we can't find another EV on the market today that's as slow as the EV9 Long Range RWD at 8.8 seconds to 60 mph. Even the lowly Fiat 500e — the second-slowest EV — can do the deed in 8.5 seconds.

For context, the three-row Kia Telluride zips to 60 mph in 6.8 seconds, and that's normal for a gas-powered family SUV. It also starts at $36,190 for 2025, a whopping $23,710 less than the EV9 Light Long Range RWD.

So what's the best EV9 to buy?

Hopefully it's clear that the answer is not the one with the headline-grabbing 304-mile range rating, unless you want to pay $60k-plus for what appears to be the slowest new EV in the country. But nor can it be the base model with its skimpy 230-mile range, even though that one does get to 60 mph 1.1 seconds sooner, ensuring you won't lose an impromptu drag race with a Fiat.

The possibly surprising truth is, there's only one version of the EV9 that genuinely makes sense, and that's the Long Range AWD. For a shockingly reasonable $4k more than the Long Range RWD, you get up to 280 miles of range and a massive power upgrade that cuts the 0-60 time down to 4.5 seconds.

Think about the equivalent in Telluride terms — a special variant that does 0-60 in 4.5 seconds while barely hurting efficiency. There's no way it would only cost $4k more; it would be a $14k or $24k upgrade. The EV9 Long Range AWD is a stone cold bargain when you look at it that way, whereas the lesser EV9 versions both have significant limitations.

Wait a minute, if the Long Range AWD can do 280 miles with all that power...

Yeah, we've been wondering the same thing. Given that the Long Range AWD almost gets to 300 miles of range with two motors and nearly 400 horsepower, why does the Long Range RWD, which uses the same 99.8-kWh battery pack, only have 201 horsepower? Couldn't it have had a more powerful single motor that delivered better acceleration than the base model and better range than the Long Range AWD?

Our best guess is that the Kia folks asked themselves the same question, but they simply didn't have a suitable electric motor lying around with, say, 275 to 300 horsepower on tap. At present, the single-motor Hyundai/Kia/Genesis EVs top out at 225 horsepower. The EV9 Long Range RWD obviously cries out for a stronger motor to handle all that mass, and you'd think they could have whipped one up in time for production, but maybe it just wasn't possible.

What's the takeaway?

Look past the 304-mile headlines and you'll see that the 2025 Kia EV9 Long Range AWD is hamstrung by its underpowered motor. Forget the Fiat; even the humble Hyundai Elantra Hybrid beats it by four-tenths of a second to 60.

Or how about the Volkswagen ID. Buzz, which is something of a rival despite being a minivan? The single-motor, rear-drive Buzz does the deed in 6.6 seconds, a catastrophic 2.2 seconds quicker than the plodding Kia.

Given Kia's appetite for rapid product iteration, we won't be surprised at all if a revised EV9 Long Range RWD hits the market soon with a newly fortified single motor that can out-accelerate the base model while still surpassing 300 miles of range.

But until then, skip the Long Range RWD, and give the 230-mile base model a miss, too. The 2025 Kia EV9 is easily one of the best three-row electric SUVs on the road — as long as it has all-wheel drive. ⛐ md