When the Kia EV9 went on sale final yr, it introduced battery energy and a wholesome dose of gravitas to considered one of America’s favourite automobile segments: three-row SUVs. Its 300+ mile vary, snug trip and a cavernous inside, together with aggressive pricing, made it a finalist for final yr’s InsideEVs Breakthrough Awards.
For mannequin yr 2026, Kia improved the EV9 much more with a factory-fitted Tesla-style North American Charging Customary (NACS) port for seamless entry to Supercharger stations. With this replace, Kia house owners may have entry to greater than 21,500 Tesla Superchargers throughout the U.S. That ought to virtually eradicate any vary anxiousness house owners might have on lengthy street journeys.
With a week-long EV9 press loaner at my disposal, I headed to a Supercharger for a 10-80% charging take a look at to search out out if this replace actually makes it a greater road-tripper than it already was.
2026 Kia EV9 Tesla Supercharger
Photograph by: InsideEVs
Even earlier than the NACS replace, the EV9 was already one of many fastest-charging EVs on sale, because of Hyundai Motor Group’s E-GMP platform, the identical 800-volt structure underpinning the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Ioniq 9 and Kia EV6.
The bottom EV9 with the 76.1 kilowatt-hour battery can cost from 10-80% in 20 minutes utilizing a 350 kilowatt public fast-charging station, based on Kia. It has an EPA vary of about 230 miles. Greater trims get the 99.8 kWh pack, which might do the identical in 24 minutes. Relying on the trim, the vary goes as much as 305 miles with the bigger battery. My take a look at automobile, a GT-Line AWD trim, was rated at 280 miles.
So, How Did The Charging Go?
The Supercharger juiced up the EV9 in 36 minutes, including roughly 230 miles of indicated vary in that point. It value me $43 at a price of 0.59 cents per kilowatt-hour. However that was not it—initiating the charging session was my most irritating charging expertise this yr.
In contrast to Tesla house owners, who profit from easy plug and cost at Superchargers, house owners of different EVs depend on the Tesla app to start the charging session. Hyundai and Kia EVs are purported to get plug-and-charge functionality at Superchargers by the top of this yr, however my press loaner didn’t have that performance activated.
2026 Kia EV9 at Tesla Supercharger
Photograph by: Suvrat Kothari
After I pulled up the EV9 at a V4 Supercharger in Harrison, New York, the expertise was buggy. After deciding on the right charging stall on the app and hitting begin, the app instantly flashed a warning: “Charging error: Plug the cable again into the put up and check out once more,” the alert learn. “If error persists, choose one other put up,” it stated. I did precisely that, however the warning didn’t go away, which meant charging wouldn’t start. So, I simply determined to make use of a distinct stall as a result of we didn’t have all day to resolve that subject.
The second stall wasn’t significantly better. Twice, the app claimed it was “initializing charging,” however nothing truly occurred. Fortunately, switching the automobile on and off once more solved the issue and it lastly began pulling electrons.
I think the app glitches have been linked to the Amazon Internet Companies outage, which had occurred only a day earlier than, taking massive parts of the web down, together with airways, meals supply apps and banking companies. A number of different EV house owners reported errors on their Tesla apps across the similar time, as per a number of Reddit posts.
Photograph by: InsideEVs
As soon as the electrons have been flowing, it was clean. Charging speeds instantly climbed to round 126 kilowatts at round 11% and maintained that degree all the best way to 80%, taking about 36 minutes, which is near the 34 minutes that Kia advertises.
The EV9 can cost quicker than that on paper, however the V3 Tesla cupboards cost slower than what the automotive is able to since they don’t have the required voltage and {hardware} simply but. Though V4 cupboards that help as much as 1,000 volts have began rolling out in California, they need to ship quicker charging speeds when a broader rollout begins.
Additionally value noting is that my different charging periods at Tesla Superchargers with the EV9 have been flawless, so the buggy expertise may have been an outlier.
But it surely nonetheless reveals that the NACS rollout isn’t as frictionless as automakers thought it might be. There are nonetheless loads of tough edges to clean out. Till then, let’s hope that the cloud infrastructure that hosts charging companies holds regular and gained’t go away drivers stranded after they want it probably the most.
Have a tip? Contact the creator: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com
