I charged a Kia EV9 for the first time and it was more expensive than filling up my gas-powered car

[Bos1021]

I registered for an account just so I could say how ridiculous this article is. Just garbage. The equivalent ICE article would be “I found a gas station charging $15/gallon and it turned out to be expensive! I see you trying to justify this crap in the comments like “people should know about this.” It goes without saying that people should know what things cost, and it’s just moronic to assume you can go to any charger at any time at any rate and achieve savings. Is your aim here really to educate people about EV ownership - because this ain’t it. It’s totally misleading. I don’t even charge at home ever and still achieve about 50% savings over gas. Take your L on this one - terrible article.

 

[Cbolt]

Price gouging is what it is. My local fast charger is $.10/min, and I’ve found some Chargepoint fast chargers that were free.

 

[Bos1021]

I almost never see a single comment in a Tom's Guide article, but apparently there's a group of people that take up arms the moment someone says something bad about EVs.

Nah, that ain’t it. There’s plenty of VALID criticism of EVs, and I’m all for it. I’m back and forth between which car I want next and appreciate constructive EV vs ICE analysis. This article is just straight up trash, and that is what people are reacting to. Totally misleading, uninformative, which of course reeks of an agenda. Dumb stuff.

 

[bazeemuth]

I registered for an account just so I could say how ridiculous this article is. Just garbage. The equivalent ICE article would be “I found a gas station charging $15/gallon and it turned out to be expensive! I see you trying to justify this crap in the comments like “people should know about this.” It goes without saying that people should know what things cost, and it’s just moronic to assume you can go to any charger at any time at any rate and achieve savings. Is your aim here really to educate people about EV ownership - because this ain’t it. It’s totally misleading. I don’t even charge at home ever and still achieve about 50% savings over gas. Take your L on this one - terrible article.

Well I'm sure we're all overjoyed that you took time out of your busy day to say that. The article was just a set of facts, but it's obvious that this particular set of facts has cheesed you off. That's why we come here though, to find out what has upset some random guy to the point of registering for an account.

 

[panther550m]

If the concept to save cost is to charge over night, how about coding the car to be programmable to charge at certain times with the prediction of the amount of charge gained, ie. Start charging at 12am to achieve 80% or charge to 100% for 6am and the computer figures it out.

You can return home from work, plug the car in and leave it to charge when the rates drop and not have to remember to plug it in manually at that time or have it start charging immediately when plugged in. Android phones will charge to 80% and then stop, only to top off shortly before an alarm or a calculated wakeup time. For the price of an EV this should certainly be possible.

 

[jnkml2018]

Waaaaaaaaaah boo-hoo, who cares about the planet or the convenience of refueling my car at home. All that matters is whether I saved 50 cents over filling up my polluting stink-juice gas guzzle mobile.

 

[freeman949]

Regardless of how much they cost to charge. When I stop seeing EVs burning on the side of the highway I’ll consider buying one. Wish i could post videos on here. This will be remembered as the biggest cash grab in history. Fear based Marketing. Society weaker than it’s ever been due to a chemically poisoned environment. Playing on anxiety from low Testosterone levels. So easy to trick animals into responding this way. We, as a society, have adopted the “sky is falling” mentality. I read chicken little as a kid. How has common sense been replaced by panic?

Just so everyone understands -- this is trolly misinformation. Gas powered cars are substantially more likely to catch fire than EV's. There were literally 1529 fires per 100k Gas cars in 2023, and 25 for EVs. That's means a gas car is 60 times more likely to catch fire than an EV. I'm sure this poster has literally _never_ seen a ICE car catch fire, if they are even a human. Just BS.

Also -- as an owner of two EV's -- a Tesla M3 and an EV9, let me tell you both are just exceptional vehicles. Much more powerful and serviceable than any of the pretty decent ICE cars I've owned or leased in my life.

 

[m2pc]

I own a 2012 Honda Pilot (seats 8) and am considering buying an EV for our next family vehicle. I just paid $81.83 to fill the tank from nearly empty. I'd gladly pay $46 to charge an EV for probably similar range! I agree, this article needs a valid comparison of the EV9 to a similar ICE vehicle, not a small car with a 13 gallon tank!

 

[darrenphughes]

This nonsense clickbait article was enough to convince me I’ll never click on another Tom’s guide article ever again. You probably get more money from uninformed clickers anyway so you’ll continue to go through life calling yourselves “journalists” but the reality is you work in advertising, nothing more.

 

[TesseractOrion]

Regardless of how much they cost to charge. When I stop seeing EVs burning on the side of the highway I’ll consider buying one. Wish i could post videos on here. This will be remembered as the biggest cash grab in history. Fear based Marketing. Society weaker than it’s ever been due to a chemically poisoned environment. Playing on anxiety from low Testosterone levels. So easy to trick animals into responding this way. We, as a society, have adopted the “sky is falling” mentality. I read chicken little as a kid. How has common sense been replaced by panic?

🤡🤣

 

[Bos1021]

Well I'm sure we're all overjoyed that you took time out of your busy day to say that. The article was just a set of facts, but it's obvious that this particular set of facts has cheesed you off. That's why we come here though, to find out what has upset some random guy to the point of registering for an account.

LOL. Uhhh, obviously you did come here to find out random guys’ thoughts, ya genius. Why else would you be here? Yes, this particular set of facts “cheesed” me off - whatever the hell that means - just like 90% of the other commenters. Who is “we” by the way? Speak for yourself. Your imaginary “we” doesn’t make your nonsense any more compelling.

 

[droopoo2]

This article is clearly a hit piece against electric cars by a reviewer that clearly doesn't understand the technology. It is poorly written, leaving out key details. It sounds like he charged the car back to full from an 180 mile depletion. He should have mentioned this detail. It is common knowledge among EV owners that it takes a lot more energy to top off an almost full battery, especially if it is a Lithium ion architecture. For example, at a Tesla supercharger, you pay a lot more money per kwh to charge your car from 80-100% than you do to charge from below 80 up to 80%. Going from 90-100% can be quite expensive. Budget conscious Tesla owners know this, and try to keep their charge levels between 20 and 80%. If the author of this article had done this, it likely would have been much cheaper to charge than to fill up his Corolla. Either way, this article is trash and should never have been allowed to be published.

 

[dc30307]

Regardless of how much they cost to charge. When I stop seeing EVs burning on the side of the highway I’ll consider buying one. Wish i could post videos on here. This will be remembered as the biggest cash grab in history. Fear based Marketing. Society weaker than it’s ever been due to a chemically poisoned environment. Playing on anxiety from low Testosterone levels. So easy to trick animals into responding this way. We, as a society, have adopted the “sky is falling” mentality. I read chicken little as a kid. How has common sense been replaced by panic?

LOL, statistics from multiple sources have shown that EVs are SIGNIFICANTLY less likely to catch fire that gas cars. Like an order of magnitude less likely. They are harder to put out if they do catch on fire, but the chances are extremely low. "Fear based marketing" indeed, it seems you've been subjected to it. No big surprise from a user named "AntiEV1979".

 

[Dersky]

Hydro/Electricity rates will only increase with time and the amount of EVs being put on the road. Infrastructure needs to catch up as well. It will always be more expensive than gasoline, and the cost to buy an EV will always be higher. It is not cost effective and it is not more economical to buy an EV.

 

[Ned Jeeoh]

Regardless of how much they cost to charge. When I stop seeing EVs burning on the side of the highway I’ll consider buying one. Wish i could post videos on here. This will be remembered as the biggest cash grab in history. Fear based Marketing. Society weaker than it’s ever been due to a chemically poisoned environment. Playing on anxiety from low Testosterone levels. So easy to trick animals into responding this way. We, as a society, have adopted the “sky is falling” mentality. I read chicken little as a kid. How has common sense been replaced by panic?

I'm also 1979. Just bought the EV9 this past March, after years of waiting for the kinks to iron out with EVs in general. I posted actual usage results - the savings are a no-brainer. No panic here - simply a decision to no longer deal with ICE maintenance with my old ICE SUV and save even more by not paying for gas. The KIA warranty literally covers everything for 10 years. I sold the ICE SUV and using the proceeds to get a home battery soon so I can charge the car for free when I start collecting solar energy during the day. I still have my sports car so I can have fun shifting gears to the beach every weekend or so. The whole "better for the climate thing" is not even an incentive for me. It's cost.

 

[freeman949]

As an EV9 owner I'll agree the title of the article was clickbait -- but in the article the author does explain more clearly that basically home charging is cheap, and charging on the road can be pretty expensive. Where I am I'm paying about .23c/Kwh at home and -.45-.50/Kwh on the road.

Delivery costs are also fairly high from our utility, and that's about 60% of the electric cost.

That said -- I also have Solar panels and backup batteries (Tesla). The thing to know about Solar is that generally speaking panels are pretty cheap, batteries are expensive, and any reasonably size solar array with good sun exposure is going to substantially overproduce during the daytime hours. When looked at vs. the loan cost on the panels -- I'm definitely paying <.10/Kwh on the solar side.

So first, if you have solar -- charge your car when the sun is up. This is the cheapest way to drive electric.

And... one option with the EV9 is to use the V2L capabilities (power your house from your car) My house batteries have 27Kwh of capacity. the EV9 has 99Kwh.... interesting right?

I won't go into the details and possibilities on that one -- but with a bi-directional 99Kwh battery and an inexpensive solar installation, there's definitely a route to both very inexpensive driving _and_ house power, if you want to adapt to a different model.

 

[DrPlanarian]

There is so much wrong with this story that I hardly know where to begin.

First, just like gas stations, EV charging stations charge vastly different prices per KWH of recharging. You might have done better to compare prices from nearby sources.

Secondly, you are comparing the cost of refueling a particularly efficient compact car (a Toyota Corolla) with a very small gas tank to refueling a great big 3-row SUV like the KIA EV9. I believe you would find the cost of refueling a comparable ICE vehicle, even a relatively efficient one like a Kia Telluride, to have been FAR greater.

That's enough for now. I could go on but why bother?

 

[MushyWaffle]

EV's are a scam that only suckers that dont' do their homework believe, or they want to virtue signal about their superiority, when everyone is just laughing at them. EV's have been around for over a 100 years and still aren't viable to the majority of people. But keep drinking that kool-aid like good little sheep.

 

[bob f]

So this guy is surprised it costs more to drive a 3 row EV 9 GT SUV then a Corolla using public charging ? Ok whatever. Story could also say..... Rant from guy who has no idea how cars work....

 

[captainhook290]

The article while true in facts is very misleading.

1.) Your new EV9 came with 1000kw from Electrify America. That's worth $500.00 Why didn't you take advantage of it ?
2.) Prices on charging stations goes from free to $$$. I live in Ocean City MD. There are free 50kwDC charger and 7kw chargers.
3.) The hotel next to my house has 4 Blink chargers @ $0.03/Kw Cost me $1.75 for a 175 mile trip.
4.) Home charging on Level 2 cost me a total ~ $0.20/kw. Electric $0.10/kw delivery charge $0.10/kw. This includes all the taxes. At that cost the equivalent miles at $3.75/ gallon is 60mpg 60miles/3kw per mile equal 20kw. 20kw*$.020=$4.00 If your gas is above $3.75 you save more. If less milage goes down. The problem is, if you own an electric car you have to have a brain and think. The other option is a plug-in hybrid if they want to take advantage of electric. My wife's 2017 plug in Sonata has averaged a combined 70mpg in the last 75,000 miles. You have to remember to plug it in at night.
5.) EV have a place just like my 2001 3/4-ton 200k+ Suburban that get 12mpg. The 36 gallon tank cost over $100.00 per fill up. Not a daily drive, but it can haul a lot of stuff.
6.) There are a lot of misleading press articles/ radio/ broadcast about EV's like this article. When I talk to my friends abut EV's I hear the same BS until I show them the math and they drive mine.
7.) My 2022 Kia Niro has cost me a grand total of $200.00 in maintenance to get the oil changed twice in the reduction gear case. over the last 45k. Yea i will need new tires about 60K.
While everything that was said in the article is true, it was very misleading. People only remember the headline