- Kia says Tasman pickup revealed in Oct. isn’t for U.S. market
- Brand hasn’t decided on a U.S.-bound Kia electric pickup
- Push toward more hybrids and PHEVs may show the direction in a truck
Kia is still considering a pickup for the U.S., but whether that amounts to a gasoline-fueled truck or an EV remains to be determined, according to two top U.S. executives for the brand at the Los Angeles auto show last week.
In either case, that pickup won’t be the Tasman, which was revealed in October and is intended initially for Australia, Africa, and the Middle East.
The Tasman, an old-style body-on-frame gasoline midsize pickup with a live rear axle and an available diesel engine, has a polished cabin look but otherwise fits the mold of a workhorse.
“Tasman is not for this market,” Kia chief operating officer and executive VP Steven Center said on Thursday to Green Car Reports in an interview at the show. But that doesn’t mean there might be a different gasoline truck that’s a possibility, the executive explained.
2025 Kia EV9
Meanwhile, the Kia electric pickup previously confirmed as under development, and sharing some of its underpinnings with the EV9, isn’t a shoo-in for America either.
“We still haven’t decided we’re bringing it,” top Kia America marketing executive Russell Wager said in a separate LA show interview, adding that the electric truck remains “a possibility.”
The hesitation may have something to do with how such a truck would be positioned. In 2022, when the brand first confirmed the Kia electric pickup project globally, Wager told Green Car Reports that in order for it to make sense for North America such a model would need to be positioned as an upscale electric truck, not a high-value model with a low price.
Kia EV teaser
Factor in what’s increasingly looking like a market saturation of high-price fully electric pickup entries, and it may be easy to see why Kia’s cautious in this area. The high-end electric truck market has grown and includes models from Ford, Chevrolet, GMC, Rivian, and Tesla—with upscale electric trucks from Ram and VW’s Scout brand also on the way.
Further clouding the picture was a piece of news from the South Korean business publication Pulse that broke last week around the time of the LA auto show. Hyundai Motor Group and General Motors are reportedly pursuing the joint development of an affordable pickup truck for Latin America, and perhaps beyond. Under the memorandum of understanding this is built on, GM and Hyundai are also collaborating on EV and hydrogen tech, and sourcing, but it’s unclear whether the pieces might fit together.
The answer, for Kia and a U.S-bound pickup, may lie somewhere in the middle, between a fully electric truck and a throwback like the Tasman—and perhaps involving a long-rumored product related to the Hyundai Santa Cruz, from its corporate cousin. Kia plans to add more plug-in hybrids and hybrids to the lineup—with more models, sales volume, and electric range, even perhaps a modest EV layout with a range extender. Any of those options might give Kia and its customers some of the up-front value the truck market is missing right now.