00:00After years of hints and reporting suggesting that Kia has been considering producing an all-electric pickup truck,
00:07hard confirmation finally landed at an event hosted by the automaker in Korea.
00:13Per Jalopnik, executives came out and said that a Kia EV truck is happening, and that development is already underway.
00:20Here we should point out the obvious, that this new electric pickup is not the same thing as the bizarrely styled Tasman introduced for certain global markets last year.
00:31The two were never one and the same, even though like the Tasman EV is expected to be a mid-sized pickup as well,
00:38the electric truck, we've included renderings here of a would-be Telluride pickup.
00:42But the eventual production truck is more likely to resemble a pickup-a-feed EV9 SUV than anything else,
00:50also will get its own platform, something Kia has hinted at since 2022.
00:55Though it isn't yet clear whether that means it'll be adapted from the EGMP architecture that currently underpins almost every.
01:04Hyundai-Kia EV, including the EV9 three-row SUV, some have speculated the truck could be spun off of.
01:10But if it's truckier, it could possibly feature a body-on-frame type design.
01:15Kia outright says the electric truck it's working on will go head-to-head with offerings including the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma, or Jalopnik.
01:24Which means it'd also face up against the Nissan Frontier, Chevrolet Colorado, GMC Canyon, and Honda Ridgeline here in America.
01:32To some extent, we'd include the Rivian R1T in that group, since it's the only all-electric mid-sized-ish truck available,
01:41or, put another way, it's the smallest EV truck you can buy here.
01:45Even if its footprint lands it somewhere between traditional mid-size and full-size rigs.
01:51Oh, and Kia is targeting some 90,000 sales with the EV truck, given the global trade environment,
01:57which was just as topsy-turvy during the Kia event last week as it is today.
02:02We have to assume Kia is planning on building this new truck in America.
02:06Otherwise, it'd be subject to tariffs and not qualify for the EV tax credit, for as long as that's around, if the Trump administration decides to undo it.
02:16Kia has manufacturing resources here,
02:19So it's not a stretch to think that the automaker would be able to fire up more capacity for something with as much potential upside as an affordable electric truck.
02:27The only key question left.
02:29Besides details such as the truck's powertrain, battery capacity, hauling capabilities, and more,
02:36is when we can see this new Kia debut.
02:39With development vehicles already spotted in the wild,
02:42As Jalopnik points out,
02:44the wait shouldn't be long,
02:46look for the EV Kia pickup to show itself for the first time in some production intent form within a year or so.
02:52Has Jalopnik point out,
02:55Even if one wants to be long,
02:56I'm in Hawaii which is a
Comments