- 2015 Kia K900
- Interior / Exterior »
The K900 is a long car, with the classic proportions of a rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan, including a long hood, a shorter and high trunk, and short overhangs. It rides on large 19-inch chrome multi-spoke wheels and tires. Like most new sedans, both the windshield and the rear window are steeply raked. At the front, Kia’s signature chrome-ringed grille is low and almost upright above a band of air inlets in the bottom of the front fascia, with a pair of quad-LED headlight arrays swept back under a clear lens in each fender on the V-8 model—perhaps its nicest single detail. A strong shoulder line at the rear leads into a slightly upswept lip on the trunk lid, with wraparound LED lights below it and a pair of chrome-outlined exhaust ports in the lower bodywork.
From many angles, the K900’s styling produces echoes of other vehicles: the front is something like that of a Tesla Model S, which has an oval grille and swept-back lights, and the rear carries distinct echoes of the most recent Lexus sedans. Save one crisp accent line on the flanks, the forms are largely soft and rounded, especially at the front end—as opposed to the mix of rounded and crisply lined design found on the latest German models. It all works fine, but absent the distinctive grille, you might be hard-pressed to identify what brand produced the K900. The K900’s one truly dissonant exterior note is a chrome-trimmed “vent” on each front fender between the front wheelwell and door. Not only does it have no function, it’s shallow enough to be visibly fake.
Inside, the Kia K900’s cockpit is comfortable and stylish, largely fitted with soft-touch materials and luxury surfaces like wood and matte silver metal. There’s quite a lot of glossy piano black plastic in the dashboard, a material we fear is quickly become a cliché. On the high-end V-8 model of the K900, the seats and certainly other surfaces are covered Nappa leather in black or white with contrasting piping (it’s optional on the V-6 model). High-gloss walnut or poplar wood trim are matched to the two colors, respectively. The usual luxury touches—a heated, leather-wrapped steering wheel, LED ambient lighting, dual-zone climate control—are all present, as is a console-mounted knob to navigate through the menu options on the large central touchscreen display.
It’s all pleasantly straightforward and easy to use, but the effect falls somewhere between premium and luxury. A few surfaces are still hard plastic, in places passengers likely won’t touch, and there’s nothing remotely extravagant compared to the features found in German sedans or various Lexus models. Perhaps the best way to view the design would be quiet luxury, for those with little need to show off a prestige brand and a desire to get value for their luxury-car dollar.
- Performance »
We noticed some lag in throttle and shift response when flooring the accelerator, more so than in the Jaguar XJ sedan, which uses the same eight-speed transmission paired to a V-8 engine. The K900’s shift lever could be moved into a manual-shift mode to control the transmission, but oddly, paddle shifters behind the steering wheel are not available, even as an option. When pressed hard, the exhaust note rises perceptibly, but it’s a generic mechanical sound rather than the distinctive sound you might find in a Jaguar or Maserati.
A second powertrain, consisting of a 311-hp V-6 engine with the same transmission, will follow shortly after the launch of the V-8 versions. We have not been able to drive that model. We’d also note that all-wheel drive, an option on both medium and large luxury sedans from Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Lexus, and Mercedes-Benz, is not offered at all in the Kia K900.
The driver can select among Normal, Sport, and Eco drive-mode settings, which remap the transmission’s shift points and also change the feel of the electric power steering. The sport setting made the powertrain slightly more responsive, without notably changing the K900’s road feel, and the Eco mode downgraded the performance without the wet-blanket effect such settings often induce on smaller cars. In the end, we left the K900 in Normal mode for the bulk of our test drive—as we suspect all but a handful of likely buyers will do.
The large Kia’s suspension is well-damped, but tuned more toward the comfort end of the scale than for roadholding. The big car corners flat, to its credit, and the combination of traction control and stability control made it well-behaved even on lumpy and cracked country roads. The traction control can be turned off, allowing the driver to spin the rear wheels—but why?
The idea is to launch a more luxurious and larger model than those it’s known for–but price it for value, undercutting the traditional competitors in the segment, so as to bring new buyers into the brand’s showrooms.And the K900 in its segment follows in the footsteps of the pricier and more luxuriou Optima Limited mid-size sedan, and more recently the somewhat larger Cadenza and Cadenza Limited, all of which have done well for Kia.
The K900 is definitely pitching good value for less cash, just as Hyundai did a few years ago with its Genesis and Equus luxury sedans. Kia’s first luxury vehicle is a decent opening salvo in a lengthy effort to put “a stake in the ground,” as one executive said during the first media drive. That indicates that Kia plans to compete in the luxury segment over the long haul. Today, the car itself falls somewhere between a premium model and a genuine luxury sedan that can compete with the Germans. Kia’s not there yet, but it will likely find buyers for its new luxury sedan.
The Kia K900 carries the brand’s signature chrome-ringed grille at the front, but its external design carries echoes of some other cars in the segment, from the Tesla Model S at the front to recent Lexus sedans at the rear. Lined up with its smaller Cadenza and Optima stablemates, it can be an initial challenge to tell them apart, aside from their size. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—brand identity is necessary for any car—but it prevents the K900 from standing out in a crowd of upscale sedans. Kia says the car’s buyers are more about the experience and don’t need to make a visible statement.
Inside, the big new Kia is comfortable, offering wood and leather trim, and a set of features that’s fairly standard for upscale sedans—but no unique features or capabilities that set it apart from the crowd.
Kia had only its highest-end V-8 VIP model of the K900 available for the initial media drive, but there will be two versions. The more powerful model uses a 420-horsepower V-8 engine—Kia’s first—paired with an eight-speed automatic transmission driving the rear wheels. There is also a base model powered by a 311-hp 3.8-liter V-6 engine, using the same transmission. All-wheel drive, now virtually a requirement in the large luxury-sedan segment, is not available, nor are diesel or hybrid powertrains for improved fuel economy. Fuel economy is only average, with the V-8 rated at 18 mpg combined (15 mpg city, 23 mpg highway) and the V-6 slightly better but hardly class-leading at 21 mpg (18 mpg city, 27 mpg highway).
On the road, the Kia K900 is pleasant enough to drive but doesn’t particularly stand out for any one aspect. It’s heavy and high-quality, but doesn’t have the bank-vault solidity of the largest Mercedes-Benz—nor does it have the sporty feel and roadholding of a BMW. It corners flat but without evincing any particular driving passion.
At a price of $65,500 for the top-of-the-line K900 V-8 with VIP package, it will likely find some buyers willing to forego the prestige brand by focusing on value for money. It’s notable that Kia doesn’t have the lengthy option lists that most of the Germans use to bump up their bottom lines significantly, whatever the base price may start at.
And that raises the question of exactly what the K900 competes with. In a presentation, Kia suggested that it falls between the mid-size luxury sedan segment (Audi A6, BMW 5-Series, Lexus GS, Mercedes-Benz E-Class) and their full-size counterparts (Audi A8, BMW 7-Series, Lexus LS, Mercedes-Benz S-Class). It’s quite clear that the K900 doesn’t go head to head with the S-Class, for example, which offers numerous technology features missing from the Kia. Nor will it attract customers who value the sportier driving character of BMW’s big sedans—and the same goes for the Jaguar XF and XJ, which Kia didn’t name.
In the end, Kia’s new K900 luxury sedan is probably most comparable to those from another formerly upstart make, Lexus. It’s comfortable, predictable, easy to understand, quiet, and seems to be well-built (though only time will tell on that front). Just as Kia said, it’s a stake in the ground, a first effort to highlight the brand’s upmarket aspirations—and light-years away from the simple, affordable models with which Kia built its brand in the U.S. That’s how Lexus started, and we won’t count the K900 out—but we wish it had a few more distinctive aspects or features.
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