Kia EV9 family SUV launches with healthy supply, short wait times

Kia Australia is confident it will have ample stock of the all-new 2024 Kia EV9 electric SUV flagship to avoid lengthy wait times that have quelled sales of much of its current line-up.

Until only recently, the Korean manufacturer has battled with incoming stock for hot-ticket EVs including the Kia EV6 and EV6 GT, and it continues to juggle demand for its most popular combustion-engined models.

These include persistent wait times of up to 12 months for the Kia Sorento and Sportage SUVs, and even the Cerato small car, which has subsequently seen the brand’s overall sales volume fall by 2.7 per cent this year in a rebounding market.

With more than 12,000 expressions of interest registered on Kia’s Australian website as it readies the Kia EV9 for launch nationally this week, Kia’s national allocation of 100 vehicles per month appears quite scarce.

However, officials are adamant they can meet demand – which says much about how many of those 12,000 prospects are actually converting to sales.

“Availability will certainly be better than it was when we launched EV6 in Australia because it was hand to mouth there and we were virtually selling 30 to 50 units a month,” Kia Australia chief operating officer Dennis Piccoli told carsales.

“With EV9 our expectation is availability will be much better than that and we expect to get to 100 a month from the get-go.

“We have 137 dealers, the expectation is we’ll have cars in most of those dealerships from launch.”

The one exception to Kia’s improved supply chain is the mid-level Earth variant of the EV9.

Unlike the entry Air and flagship GT-Line, which are both rolling into showrooms this week, the Earth won’t come on stream until early 2024.

“Unfortunately there were a couple of component shortage issues and there is a very slight delay on Earth variants. It is homologated but we’re still two months away, so you should see Earth in our showrooms in early 2024,” explained Kia Australia product planning boss Roland Rivero.

Piccoli believes Kia Australia will be in a position to deliver local EV9 orders within three to four months, bearing no huge supply setbacks or spikes in interest.

“The wait time will depend on the colour and what you’re after … The factory has been quite supportive to increase the supply of EVs,” he said.

“I think within three to four months people will have their vehicles. The network has already commenced pre-sale orders for the first and there would already appear to be a couple of hundred orders out there – 200 to 300 at this moment.

“If the car starts to take off over and above where we expect it to be for supply, then we’ll continue to argue our case upstream. I think there will be supply upside heading forward.”

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