Kia Carnival and EV9 owners abroad report blank instrument clusters: what NHTSA's 42,677 car recall says, and what India got

The complaint is always the same. The driver starts the car, or is already doing 80kmph, and the digital instrument cluster simply goes black. No speedometer, no fuel or charge reading, no warning lights. The car keeps driving.

This one has moved all the way from owner reports to a regulator's recall file, twice, and it touches models Kia and Hyundai also sell in India.

What owners describe

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's complaint database lists 210 complaints for the 2024 Kia EV9 and 126 for the 2025 Kia Carnival. Several in each set describe exactly this failure. One EV9 owner told NHTSA the "instrument display panel goes black" and that the speedometer could not be seen. Another reported the panel going blank at 55mph, with normal function returning only after a restart. On the Carnival side, owners report all screens flashing off together, one describing how the "whole dashboard went black and my head lights turned off" before coming back seconds later. Another Carnival owner logged blackouts in four separate episodes between the middle of 2025 and April 2026.

Owner forums carry the same thing. Search results show at least three separate threads on a Kia EV owners' forum about the EV9 cluster going blank and about the recall for it. Those pages would not open for us, so we are not giving post counts, dates or quotes from them.

The most uncomfortable complaint in the NHTSA file is from an owner who says the "blank screen software recall has not fixed the screen that goes blank" and that it was still happening after the dealer visit.

What the regulators and the makers say

This is not an owner theory. Kia has now recalled the same type of fault twice.

In October 2024, Transport Canada published recall 2024602 for the 2025 EV9, saying a software issue could leave the cluster screen blank at startup. The US version of that campaign covered 14,163 EV9s from the 2024 and 2025 model years, with an over the air update as the fix.

Then in January 2026 it came back wider. NHTSA campaign 26V046000, Kia's SC361, covers 42,677 vehicles: the 2025 K4, the 2025 and 2026 Sorento in petrol, hybrid and plug-in form, and the 2026 Sportage, K5, EV9, Carnival and Carnival Hybrid. NHTSA records the component as instrument cluster or panel, says the cars fail Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 101 and 138, and lists the remedy as a free software update delivered over the air or by a dealer. Transport Canada's parallel notice, 2026032, adds the EV4 and says the display can go blank "while driving".

Hyundai filed its own at the same time. NHTSA campaign 26V047000, Hyundai recall 293, covers the 2025 and 2026 Tucson Hybrid and Tucson plug-in, and the 2026 Ioniq 5, Kona, Palisade, Santa Fe, Santa Cruz, Sonata and Tucson, again for an instrument panel display that may fail. Cars.com put the two campaigns together at more than 84,300 vehicles.

India already had this recall, on a different Kia

Indian owners have seen this bug, just earlier and on a cheaper car. In June 2023, Kia India recalled 30,297 Carens built at Anantapur between September 2022 and February 2023 because the instrument cluster was not booting properly and was going blank. The fix was an inspection and a software update. That followed 44,174 Carens recalled in October 2022 over airbag control unit software.

We found no Kia India or Hyundai India recall notice for the Carnival, EV9, Ioniq 5 or Tucson cluster software. The US and Canadian campaigns cover vehicles sold in those markets.

What an owner can do now

Treat a cluster that blanks even once as a reportable fault, not a quirk. Note the date, time, speed and whether it cleared on a restart, and get it written into the job card at the service centre so there is a record. Ask the dealer in writing to check your VIN against every open software campaign for your car, including cluster and head unit updates, and ask for the software version before and after.

If you imported or are tracking a US or Canadian car, run the VIN on nhtsa.gov/recalls or Transport Canada's recall database. For an Indian car, escalate through Kia India or Hyundai India customer care first, then the National Consumer Helpline on 1915 or consumerhelpline.gov.in if the fault returns after a software update.

Sources

• NHTSA recall campaign 26V046000, Kia SC361
• NHTSA complaints, 2024 Kia EV9
• NHTSA complaints, 2025 Kia Carnival
• NHTSA recalls by vehicle, 2026 Hyundai Ioniq 5, campaign 26V047000
• Transport Canada recall 2026032, Kia
• Transport Canada recall 2024602, Kia EV9
• Kelley Blue Book on the Kia EV9 blank screen recall
• Cars.com, 84,000-plus Hyundais and Kias recalled for instrument panel displays
• Autocar Professional, Kia India recalls 30,297 Carens