EV6 Sales Collapse Inside Kia’s Record September

Kia sold 835 EV6s in September, down 61 percent from a year earlier, in the same month the brand posted the best September and the best quarter in its history.

The EV9 fell too, to 1,955 from 3,094, while the new EV3 added 514 sales in its first month on the market. Kia’s total of 77,009 vehicles was up 18 percent, carried by hybrids, whose sales rose 152 percent, and by eight gas and hybrid models with double-digit gains, so the brand’s two established EVs went backward while almost everything around them set records.

The figures come from Kia America’s September sales release of September 30, which does not mention the EV6 or EV9 anywhere outside its sales table. Through nine months, EV6 sales stand at 6,264 against 11,077 in 2025, a 43 percent drop, while the EV9’s 12,429 is almost exactly level with last year’s 12,448. Both are built at Kia’s plant in West Point, Georgia, which makes them the only US-assembled EVs in the lineup.

The slide has not shown up in 2027 pricing. Kia held every 2027 EV6 trim at its 2026 price, from $37,900, and moved the 2027 EV9 up by as little as $90, to $54,990. The discounting is happening on the outgoing cars instead: Electrek reports $5,000 in customer cash on the 2026 EV6, $10,000 on the 2026 EV9 and $1,500 on the 2027 EV3 as Kia clears inventory.

The EV6’s problems predate this year. CarBuzz notes it ended 2025 down 40 percent from 2024 and points to tougher competition and a design that dates to the 2022 model year. Motor1 reported in March that the end of federal EV incentives had hit sales across the industry and that Kia had paused the EV6 GT in the US until further notice, with EV6 sales down nearly 60 percent at that point. Since October 1 the EV6 has also had to share showroom space with the EV3, which starts at $29,890 and offers up to 321 miles of EPA range.

For US buyers, the practical upshot is that the EV6 and EV9 are the cheapest they have been. A 2026 EV6 with $5,000 on the hood lands near the price of a loaded EV3, and a 2026 EV9 with $10,000 off undercuts the 2027 car by a wide margin while the 2026 model still holds the IIHS Top Safety Pick+ rating. The same release notes the EV3 was named Green Car of the Year by Green Car Journal, which gives Kia a new EV to promote while the older two find a floor.

The HyundaiHQ Take

Buyers have not left Kia, they have left the EV6. A brand that sells 77,000 cars in a month and grows its hybrids by 152 percent does not have a demand problem, it has a product that the market has priced out, and the EV3 arriving at $29,890 only makes that clearer. The EV9 holding flat for the year is the quiet win here, because a $55,000 three-row EV keeping its volume without a federal credit is a better result than most rivals can claim. The EV6 needs what the Telluride and Sorento got: a real redesign, not another round of customer cash on a car that has not changed since 2022.