Kia discontinues K9 luxury sedan after sales crash 87% to 1,581 units

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Kia is ending the K9, the sedan Americans once knew as the K900.

Sales dropped from 11,843 units in 2018 to 1,581 units in 2025.

The K8 will soon becomes the largest sedan left in Kia’s lineup.

Remember the Kia K900? The luxury rear-wheel-drive sedan that tried to convince American buyers a Kia could go toe to toe with BMW and Mercedes? The model was discontinued from the US market in 2021 , but it soldiered on in South Korea as the K9. Kia has now decided to drop it entirely, ceding the executive sedan segment to Genesis and closing the book on its most ambitious sedan experiment.

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The Kia K9 arrived in 2012 as a replacement for the aging Opirus, sharing its underpinnings with the Equus and Genesis sedans from Hyundai . The second-generation K9 debuted in 2018 on Genesis G80 bones, with a mid-lifecycle update in 2021 and a refresh in 2024. Each round of updates bought the car a little more time, but never the sales to justify it.

More: Kia’s Carnival Grows 11 Inches Taller In Korea

The flagship sedan never turned into a sales hit, and that failure eventually forced Kia to rethink the car’s future and scrap plans for a successor.

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Back in 2012, the K9 moved 13,931 units in South Korea , marking its strongest year ever. Interest flickered back to life in 2018, when the redesigned model found 11,843 buyers. From there the decline was steep, sliding to 1,581 units in 2025 and just 734 sales through the first half of 2026.

More: The $28K Flagship Hyundai Sedan Americans Called The Azera Closes In On Genesis

For comparison, the mechanically-related Genesis G80 racked up 41,291 sales in 2025 despite its more premium positioning. The front-wheel-drive Hyundai Grandeur which is a sibling to the Kia K8, sold an impressive 71,775 units over the same period.

According to a report from Korea’s Hankyung, citing industry sources and labor unions, the last K9 is expected to roll off the line by the end of 2026. That will close out a 14-year production run and leave the slightly smaller, front-wheel-drive K8 as the largest sedan still standing in the Kia range.

More: Does Korea’s New Kia K8 Make You Wish The Cadenza Would Return?

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By discontinuing the slow-selling K9, the automaker will free up R&D resources for more profitable projects. Furthermore, the production lines currently occupied by the sedan will be repurposed for future EVs and PBVs (purpose-built vehicles).

The Kia K9 never got a hybrid option, relying on V6 power ever since the naturally aspirated V8 disappeared in 2021. The current model currently starts at ₩60,340,000 (about $40,000 at current rates) in South Korea and tops out at ₩79,940,000 ($53,000) for the range-topping Masters trim with the twin-turbo 3.3-liter V6 and AWD.

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