MOTORING REVIEW | So you want to go electric?

This is, by quite a distance, the South Korean manufacturer’s biggest, most luxurious and expensive vehicle that it sells in the UK. But it is living up to that billing having also been the UK Car of the Year for 2024, plus best Large EV SUV at the Great British Fleet awards.

The EV9 is a big step up for Kia which used to have as its range leader the Sorento (which it still sells). But it is now knocking on the territory that the likes of Land Rover and BMW have dominated in the past. Having driven it for a week, it remains one of my top vehicles driven in 2024 … I could very easily live with it.

The new Kia EV9 GT-Line looks every bit a proper contender in the large SUV market It is also a full-size seven-seater that could even manage that rarity of comfortably carrying adults in the rear row of seats, albeit not of the large, rotund variety like myself. The top-of-the-range model can also be optioned as a six-seater, meaning that the rear bench can be replaced by two ‘captain’s chairs’, which can turn to face those sitting on the electrically folding rear seats.

Even its – in at least Kia terms – hefty price tag of £73,275 means it can still stack up favourably against the likes of some Land Rover products and even the Tesla Model X. A Jaguar I-Pace might also be a competitor, but it only wins on looks and loses on price and interior space.

Such a large vehicle needs a lot of battery power. So the EV9 has a serious battery bank of 99.8kWh and that’s enough for the single motor two-wheel-drive version to get 349 miles for a full charge, while the all-wheel-drive model is rated at 313 miles. The solo motor has 200hp driving it, while the twin motor option I tested has 378hp at its disposal.

The EV9 can take a high-speed charge of up to 210kW, which will take the battery from 10-80% in less than half an hour and even the charge port on the car closes electronically, which is quite neat. The model I tested was the GT-Line model and with its twin electric motors driving all four wheels, it has blistering pace for such a large machine and can do the timed 0-62mph charge in 5.3 seconds – which is faster than a five-litre V8 Range Rover! That’s not bad for a car that weighs more than three tonnes.

Acres of space and some easy to sue gadgets are the interior highlights of the Kia EV9 And the Kia will come with all kinds of extras that even a top-of-the-line Rangie would be hard to match, including keyless entry, fully electric front seats with massage facility – which took me a bit by surprise when it kicked in – and a smart power tailgate which is even height adjustable.

Despite being a full-size SUV, the Kia EV9 never feels sluggish at all to drive, with the steering light and responsive, with a chassis and suspension that seamlessly soaks ups the lumps and bumps of Scottish roads – which in my area, is saying something!

Kia has also taken a root-and-branch approach to redesigning the interior and there’s been no stinting on using premium materials and kit. Two 12.3in screens cover across the dash and there are heated and ventilated seats in the first and second rows as well as a heated steering wheel, with the downside that these can soak up a lot of power.

Rear passengers are treated to acres of space and with the third row of seats stowed away, there’s 828 litres of space and with the second row down flat, it become positively van-like. Even with the back row in place there’s as much room as in many hatchbacks.

In conclusion, there’s no call for any brand snobbishness with the EV9. In many instances, this Kia will be better than some of the premium SUVs that you might be driving at the moment, so get over it and give it a try – and you also get the back-up of Kia’s seven-year warranty.

The Mustang dilemma

It’s been one of Ford’s biggest dilemmas of recent years – ‘do we put the Mustang name on an all-electric vehicle?’

Well, in the end they did and like it or lump it, any notion of this being a growling, V-8 powered muscle car is quickly dispelled by the almost noiseless action of the Mustang Mach-E, which I tried last year in its Premium guise in rear-wheel-drive.

While it might pale a little up against the more usual performance from the ‘real’ Mustang powered by a mighty five-litre petrol engine (a more sedate diesel option never really caught on), when matched against its leccy peers, it stands up quite well.

Might not be what you expect in a Mustang, but this Ford is all electric and fully charged with goodies It can do the timed 0-62mph run in just seven seconds, it has 290hp available from its single electric motor, and has a range of up to 372 miles, with that latter figure more likely to be about 300 miles under normal driving conditions. The Mach-E can also whisk itself from 10% battery to 80% in about 45 minutes when using its high-power charging capability.

This prancing pony came with a whole host of indoor extras. Ford’s SYNC4A infotainment and control screen measures a handy 15.5 inches, plus a 10.2-inch digital instrument cluster, with an easy-to-use format that even I managed to master!

There’s also a wireless charging pad, rear view camera plus 360-degree capability, and some nice, perforated seat trim with accent red stitching. Both front seats have eight-way electric control, plus the bliss of heating controls.

As is usual now, there’s a complete suite of driving assistance aids, and some of the more annoying can be switched off – like lane departure control which never seems to fit in with rural driving.

Outside the cabin, there’s some nice iconic Pony badging – including some nifty exit and entry lighting with that prancing pony again – plus push button doors, privacy glass, unique front grille and bumpers, with 19-inch black machined alloy wheels setting the look off.

And those wheels handle the road pretty well and the Mach-E’s designers seem to have been able to balance the weight of batteries well for some excellent handling. Some all-in electric vehicles can feel quite ‘weighty’ under cornering, but not so the Mach-E which felt lively and responsive.

The battery set-up also allowed for a reasonable rear storage space of about 400 litres (add a further 1000 litres of room with the rear seats folded), plus there’s also a handy 80-odd litres of room under the front bonnet

The standard price of this model is £59,380 but the test car’s special Vapour Blue body paint and a tech pack that included a hands-free tailgate, a B and O sound system, and full panorama roof pushed the cost up to £63,030.

Another Ford option

Ford has another, slightly cheaper all electric SUV-style vehicle in its inventory – the Explorer Premium model comes in at a tad under £50,000 for much the same spec as the Mach-E.

Despite being that much cheaper and with less horsepower available – 284hp – it is actually faster off the mark at 6.4 seconds for the 0-62mph timed run. There’s a trade-off in range though, with the Explorer’s ‘combined’ figure of 354 miles likely to drop to under 300 miles in reality, but it will charge fairly quickly.

Chunky good looks from the new electric Ford Explorer As standard, the Explorer gets a 10-speaker B and O sound system, a 14.6-inch SYNC Move touchscreen plus a full digital cluster screen of 5.3 inches – both not as big as in the Mach-E.

Inside the cabin there seems to be a planet of space for five adults, plus 470-litres of space in the boot, though there’s extra underfloor storage and foldable rear seats to add space when needed.

Like the Mach-E, Ford’s designers have produced a responsive car that is, though, based on a platform shared with VW. That comes from an agreement that has also seen Ford undertaking to build VW’s Amarok pick-up for them but again with added tweaks from the home side.

Seal a leccy deal

It might not yet have come to your attention, but one of the names leading the Chinese assault on the European electric vehicle market, BYD, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of such.

Its main foray into the UK market is with the BYD Seal, a saloon-style vehicle that comes in two options – the Design which has a single motor for rear-wheel drive only and costs £45,695, while the Excellence model gets twin motors two motors for all-wheel drive and is priced at £48,695.

Both have the same 82.5kWh Blade-style battery – which has been developed by BYD for greater safety and durability – and this allows the single motor model to have a range of 354 miles, while the twin motors are rated at 30 miles less.

Fast and luxurious travelling with the BYD Seal It’s quite a strikingly good-looking motor too and knocks spots off the current battery champion, the Tesla Model 3, in this respect with its range also on a par.

But with the Seal you will get a heap of attractive goodies to tempt you away from the Tesla.

Both Seal models get 19-inch alloys, metallic paint as standard, LED headlights, electrically adjustable heated and ventilated front seats, a surround-view camera system, a 12-speaker Dynaudio sound system, and an electric tailgate. The twin-motor Excellence also gets a head-up display and more sophisticated chassis and suspension.

A likeable take on the usual centrally-mounted infotainment screen – in this case it’s a pretty huge 15.65-inches that is also the car’s control centre – is the fact that it can be changed to either portrait or landscape orientation. Like most units these days, this also plugs in to the sat nav, and there’s smartphone connectivity via either Apple CarPlay or Android Auto.

Behind the steering wheel there is also a 10.25-inch information display with all the vital data such as speed, battery charge levels and range information. It’s not complicated to get into its full range of options, but can take some time to make the most of … teenager will have it sorted in no time.

But for those with driving capability in mind, the Seal is a powerful beast, especially in the twin-motor version. This has 523 horses available and that’s enough to propel it from 0-62mph in a zippy 3.8 seconds, which is pretty sensational in this price range and testified by the badge on the Seal’s rear that highlights the figure 3.8s.

I’d say the tecchies have done a more than reasonable job with the weight distribution and handling. While it’s easy enough to enable even the heavy nature of battery-powered vehicles for motorways, it’s not so easy to get the balance right for handling rural roads and the Seal managed to handle these very well indeed, even with all that available power.

In that respect, the AWD version is probably the best suited to rural users and there are four driving modes to help you get the most out of it. There’s Eco, Normal, Sport, and even a Snow designation that tweaks the driving characteristics of the vehicle to suit.

Inside the vehicle, there’s some nice, quilted leather on the seats for your landing gear which can be moved around and pampered by electrical adjustment and heated and ventilated (for both front seats).

The boot has a 400-litre capacity with a further 53 litres of space beneath the bonnet – which is handy for the supplied charging kit.

Another standard add-on is an advanced energy-saving heat pump system which takes residual heat from surroundings, the powertrain, passenger compartment and even the batteries to enhance thermal efficiency, and reduces energy loss whether heating or cooling.