Extract from Fast Company
The electric Kia EV9’s headlamps contain the Hyundai-Kia-Genesis group’s brandmark ice cubes of light.
But on some trim levels, in place of the grille, there are more light cubes: a matrix of customizable lights animates with different patterns when you approach the vehicle.
Kia calls these glowing animations ‘welcome lights’, and they were born from an opportunity that came with building an EV, says Kurt Kahl, the chief designer at Kia Design Center America. “It’s an electric vehicle—we don’t need a traditional grille and all that cooling. We had this bit of a blank slate to come up with something new for EV9 for the face, and to have something very memorable and recognizable.”
The EV9’s two highest trim levels have the animated welcome lights. Approach an EV9 GT, and you’ll see a pattern Kia calls “Focused” play out on part of the front grille area; that one pattern comes with the car, and then owners can pay $250 for five more pattern options. One of these, called “Solid,” begins with the LEDs forming two arrows pointing toward one another, followed by a line of light that moves from the top to the bottom, and concluding with a line of three vertical columns, each smaller than the next. The five different optional patterns have names like “Active,” “Technical,” and “Elegant”; you can see some of them in an online video.
Kahl says the animation is “almost like your vehicle is acknowledging you—it’s just this kind of interesting interaction you can have with the vehicle as you’re approaching”.
The display is a clever design that involves 84 LEDs blinking behind a painted acrylic casing laser etched with a static pattern of tiny holes not noticeable to the eye. Kahl describes the etched pattern as very small windows where the LEDs can shine through and create the animated patterns.
Robby Degraff, who focuses on product and consumer insights analysis at auto market research and analysis firm AutoPacific, thinks all this is fun. But he advises caution about cost.
The EV9 models that support the welcome lights begin at around USD $70,000, which can make a frivolous add-on hard to stomach. Degraff says, “EV shoppers in general are very, very, very, very, very price-conscious. Kia has a great idea with these adjustable, customizable lightings, but I think they really need to be careful about how much they charge for it…$250 is a lot of money just to change some lighting”. That feeling is also illuminated on Reddit, where one poster called the price “insane” and others added that it should just come free to people who buy a GT-Line vehicle. Kia say the one-time purchase stays with the vehicle for its life, remaining activated even if you sell it.
“I love the idea of it,” Degraff adds. “I think it’s super cool, it’s very future-focused, it’s unique, but I just think that it might be a tough sell for people.”
