Yikes! The 502bhp Kia EV9 GT will cost £82,185

Kia has announced pricing for the new EV9 GT here in the UK, and the headline is that it’s chuffing expensive. Prices start at £82,185 for the seven-seat version, and £83,185 for the posher six-seater.

Of course, you get a whole lot of car for the money. The standard EV9 is already a monstrous thing, and the GT ups the ante even further by pairing those ginormous dimensions with a twin-motor electric powertrain producing 502bhp and 546lb ft of torque.

That may be slightly less than the 641bhp of the newly updated EV6 GT, but it’s still enough to fling the big flagship SUV from 0-62mph in 4.6 seconds. Top speed is 136mph.

The GT shares its whopping 99.8kWh battery with the rest of the EV9 range, although the distances you’ll be able to cover will suffer as a result of all that power, so you’re looking at 280 miles of WLTP range on a single charge.

Kia does refer to this as a ‘grand-touring SUV’ though, chiefly because the 800-volt architecture should allow you to top up from 10 to 80 per cent in just 24 minutes if you can find a 350kW rapid charger. Once back on the move, if you’re trying to burn through those electrons as quickly as possible with some spirited driving you’ll be pleased to know that there’s a dedicated ‘GT’ drive mode. There’s also adaptive dampers and a ‘Road Preview System’ that scans the road ahead and prepares the suspension for potholes and broken road surfaces.

The GT also gets an uprated braking system with neon green calipers behind exclusive 21in alloy wheels. Inside there are sports seats trimmed with Alcantara inserts and more neon green touches, and you get paddles behind the wheel that can control a ‘Virtual Gear Shift’ system a la Hyundai Ioniq 5 N and EV6 GT. Essentially this gives you a fake six-speed paddleshift gearbox, a rev counter, redline and fake engine noise to try and add in a bit of driver engagement. We like it in the 5 N.

Order books are open now and cars should start arriving in the UK later this year. White paint will be standard, with five other colours available for £725 a pop. Yep, the £80,000+ Kia is here…