10 Things I hate about you… Kia EV9 gripe #2
Le sigh.
After 8 months and 10,000 miles, I am extremely happy with my 2024 Kia EV9 GT-Line. Nothing is perfect, though, so I’ll walk you through my top 10 gripes with the EV9:
#2 Infotainment
Like some other issues pertaining to the Kia EV9, the infotainment operation is a mixed bag. If you’re not familiar with the term, infotainment loosely refers to the collection of non-drive control audio and visual displays and controls in a vehicle. Controlling all of your audio sources, information displays, GPS-based mapping and route planning, etc. is a large task.
Doing it well harmonizes everything into a logical, intuitive, and (preferably) beautiful interface. Doing it poorly makes the ergonomics of performing, or switching between, functions arduous - and, at worst, it can be dangerous by requiring more driver attention than necessary.
The Kia’s built-in interface is actually pretty nice. Its functionality is limited, and it’s only minimally configurable, but that does contribute to an easy-to-use apparatus. Overall, I have had a decent experience with the native infotainment, though recent updates do seem to have broken the Bluetooth implementation a bit. Unfortunately, this Bluetooth issue disproportionally affects me because I use either Bluetooth audio or calling for the entire time I operate the vehicle. When else am I going to listen to Pod Save America?
Despite the onboard mapping being pretty good, there are times that I prefer Google Maps. Considering that the car supports both Android Auto and Apple Carplay, I would forgive you for thinking that the experience would be good. It’s not, and it’s not really Kia’s fault, in my opinion. Google and Apple’s car interfaces make a lot of sense when you don’t have an updateable, Internet-connected vehicle. The idea was always that your car’s capabilities would be tied to the connectivity and upgradability of your phone, and not the hardware in your car (which is typically replaced after several years).
But, like I said, the EV9 is updateable and Internet-connected.
The issue is one of a bifurcated interface experience. You have your native controls, and you have your Adroid Auto/Apple Carplay controls. Some vendors, like Cadillac, take the extra time to make the tie-up very deep. Others opt for pretty much casting the Auto/Carplay into the display. Want the other functions, switch out of the interface container into the other. Yuck. I definitely have some ideas of how to make the experiences better, without violating the interface requirements that Apple and google have put in place, but nobody asked me.
Aside from the multiple interfaces, there’s a bit of fighting over audio sources (especially when it comes to Bluetooth streaming audio), the vehicle microphone getting directed to the native vs. external interface, and other, less important quibbles.
A solution for that is to not allow these external interfaces at all, a la Tesla. I also saw that GM is ditching them for upcoming EVs. Time will tell which approach is better for consumers.
For the time being, though, I think the situation is a bit of a mess. My EV9 has more infotainment problems than my old 2017 Kia Sorrento did. Sure, there are significant differences in the technologies involved, but it’s also reasonable to expect that the user or functional experience won’t be significantly set back with progress, either.
