10 Things I hate about you… Kia EV9 gripe #7

After 9 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:

#7 The Charge Door

This isn’t a Kia-specific issue, but the charge door is an issue. It’s flimsy and extremely large. I’m not into sailing, but I feel like the charge door could be used as a spinnaker sail, in order to eke out a bit more mileage on a charge.

Separated at birth?

The ridiculously large size means that it’s easy to bump into or snag things on. Being an EV, it’s also more likely to be vandalized. It’s not like the CCS connector is small, but there is plenty of opportunity here to make this more streamlined, while retaining effective controls and indicators. It will be very disappointing if this isn’t redesigned when NACS is put into production.

The issue here really isn’t that the door has any operation problems, as it doesn’t - the problem is that the design makes it more likely that the door will be damaged at some point. If your charge door sustains damage, it’s safe to say that the repair won’t be cheap. It’s also possible that your vehicle will be immobilized until the issue is resolved (there are some charging-related interlocks).

I’m not meaning to imply that the charge door itself is a simple engineering problem. Gasoline filler doors are already reliable and usable in nearly all conditions. Like their dinosaur juice relatives, charge doors are parts that just need to work, all of the time. That means that the hinge mechanism must be good. It means that the actuator must be reliable. It also means that the door must be able to operate in terrible conditions, like the car being encased in ice - because that happens in some of the places that this vehicle will operate.

Kia winter proving grounds, Fortress of Solitude

Maybe do the minimum, and make it to where the door can’t be snapped off by a small child?