Kia has big plans. At an investor event last week, the company laid out its plans to introduce multiple new electric vehicles in the next few years. We may or may not be getting some of these — but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect we’ll be getting at least one of the two proposed pickup trucks.
Expect no less than 14 new EVs from Kia. Starting next year, the plan is to launch two EVs per year until 2027. That’s a tall order. The first of these will be the EV9 large SUV, something that’s coming earlier than I expected. It was previewed by the concept of the same name at last year’s L.A. Auto Show. Per Kia:
Kia plans to reaffirm its leadership in the EV market through its flagship electric vehicle the EV9, set for launch in 2023. Although the EV9 is a large SUV with a total length of around 5 meters, it boasts excellent acceleration of 0-100km/h in five seconds, and range of approximately 540km on a full charge. It can also provide 100km driving range on just a six-minute charge.
A first for Kia, the EV9 will also feature OTA (Over the Air) and FoD (Feature on Demand) services that will allow customers to selectively purchase software functions. In addition, it will be the first model to be equipped with Kia’s advanced AutoMode autonomous driving technology.
The biggest news is the arrival of two EV pickups. Kia wants in on the pickup game, and it’ll have two entries for two different marketplaces. According to Kia, one will be a “dedicated EV pickup” for emerging markets, and the other will be an entry-level EV pickup. It’s not known which of these pickups we’ll get, but Kia says that these models, along with the other EVs, will be built in the U.S. starting in 2024.
Of course with all of this comes the usual plans of connected car services, autonomy, and mobility services, all more industry buzzwords to get investors going more than things customers want.
And these plans won’t come cheap either. Kia expects to invest $23 billion over the next five years to get this strategy going with expected sales of 160,000 EVs this year, 807,000 by ‘26, and 1.3 million by ‘30.