Kia’s first quarter 2024 business results document is full of the usual sales and financial numbers that we won’t bore you with. To accompany the press release, the Korean company also released a recording of its CEO Investor Day which took place earlier this month. We discovered some juicy details about product planning.
The EV9 GT will be released in January 2025 with “tremendous power” from an upgraded dual-motor setup. Kia claims it will go from 0 to 62 mph in less than four seconds, which is impressive considering the weight of the big SUV, weighing in at nearly 6,000 pounds. We expect a significant power increase over the 379 horsepower and 516 lb-ft offered by the most powerful version on sale today. The extra punch will help the GT version shave more than a second off the sprint time.
Unless battery improvements are planned, battery life may suffer. This is what typically happens when an electric vehicle gets the performance treatment at the expense of efficiency. The EV9 GT-Line available today goes 270 miles on a single charge, according to the EPA. Kia mentions that the full GT model gets a beefier suspension setup and upgraded brakes.
This isn’t the only Kia electric SUV about to give birth to a GT version. Although it was not mentioned during the CEO Investor Day, the EV5 GT has already made a first appearance in China. It was recently approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, with images appearing on the MIIT website.
Later during the presentation, which we have attached below, a product roadmap was displayed in the background. An updated EV6 is expected to hit the market in the second quarter of this year. The sporty EV6 GT will follow at the start of the fourth quarter. Kia also plans to tweak the popular Sportage in the final quarter of the year. Elsewhere, the very first EV3 and the new K4 will arrive in the third quarter, while the large K8 sedan, unavailable in the United States, will inevitably get a facelift mid-cycle.
But first, a five-door hatchback version of the K3 compact sedan, also not for America, is coming soon.
