2024 Kia EV9 Named IIHS Top Safety Pick
We came away from our first drive of the 2024 Kia EV9 quite impressed; the big three-row electric SUV is nicely finished inside, plenty spacious and drives well. Families looking to go electric with their kid bus can now rest assured that the EV9 will protect their brood, as it has been named a Top Safety Pick by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
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That award does come with an asterisk, however, as it only applies to EV9s built after January 2024, when Kia adjusted the aim of the headlights on the Land and GT-Line trim levels. Prior to February, the lights on those two highest trims in the lineup produced too much glare, earning a poor rating. (IIHS rates vehicle performance on a four-point scale: poor, marginal, acceptable and good.) Qualifying as a Top Safety Pick requires the standard headlights on all trim levels to be rated acceptable or good.
Earning Top Safety Pick honors also requires a vehicle to earn good ratings in a pedestrian detection test, as well as two frontal crash tests and a side impact test. IIHS also bestows a higher honor, Top Safety Pick+, on vehicles that earn an acceptable or good in a third front-crash test that is conducted with an additional dummy in the second-row seat behind the driver, but the EV9 has not undergone that evaluation yet.
While IIHS doesn’t parse its awards, shoppers will note that the headlights on the Light and Wind trim levels did not need to be updated for the EV9 to qualify as a Top Safety Pick. If you buy one of those built before February of this year and brag to your friends that you bought a Top Safety Pick, we won’t tell.
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