10 Things I hate about you… Kia EV9 gripe #5
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:
#5 HVAC Controls
It’s worth noting that these complaints are not in any particular order, but I think that’s self-evident from the relative impact of some of the items.
At #5, we have an item that’s not particularly serious, but it is pretty stupid. And inconvenient. I’d imagine the origin of the issue would be designers wanting to do something like this:
The Cadillac Escalade EV’s ridiculous dash
…but then a procurement worker gets involved and tells the design team that the vehicle needs to be able to sticker around $50k. The solution ends up being a combination of a 12.3” dash screen, a 5” HVAC touchscreen, and a 12.3” touchscreen for the infotainment.
Observe the design of compromise!
There isn’t a problem with this, per se. The displays are behind a continuous piece of glass, so they don’t look separated. The issue is that the steering wheel blocks the view of the HVAC screen, and it doesn’t much matter how you have your seat, or the steering wheel, positioned. In fact, the screen is more visible to the front passenger, who can’t really reach it from where they’re sitting.
It didn’t have to be this way.
This design wasn’t inevitable.
The infotainment screen isn’t canted towards the driver, so there’s no reason why it shouldn’t have been centered over the middle air vents. Doing so would have pushed the infotainment screen over a few inches. Guess what? You just push the HVAC screen over, too. Having a gap between the dash and HVAC screens would not matter, since the glass would just be blacked out in that space anyway.
As it is, it’s an ergonomic faux pas in a cabin that’s largely beautiful and well-executed. As a much more minor gripe, it’s clear that the HVAC screen’s display properties are not well matched to the 12.3” screens. Oddly, it bears some resemblance to my old Z32’s HVAC pod:
…party like it’s 1990
Is this really a big deal? No, it’s not. It is worth taking a look at for the mid-cycle refresh, though. For the most part, I’m really impressed with the design language used throughout the interior and exterior of the Kia vehicle lines, but this seems like an obvious miss.
