I’ve previously called out that Kia is working on a mid size EV pickup and now a prototype model has been spotted cruising around the freeways of Southern California. Does this mean Kia is imminently planning to bring an all electric pickup truck to market in the US? My magic 8 ball says… Yes, and here’s why: Kia isn’t selling any kind of pickup in the US, currently, which means Kia has zero percent of the most lucrative vehicle segment in the US market. While it might make sense for Kia to bring a hybrid (HEV) or plug-in hybrid (PHEV) pickup truck to market as well or instead, depending, there is presently only one mid side EV pickup available in the US: the Rivian R1T. Thus, Kia wouldn’t have a lot of competition, until one or more of these other brands launches a mid size EV pickup too. Kia’s manufacturing capacity for EVs (in the near term) and battery supply is almost perpetually limited, so it makes sense for Kia to opt for a lower volume entry into the nascent EV pickup market segment. The mid size (rather than full size) pickup market in the US is a smaller, but still lucrative, truck market that also better “translates” to the international truck market too. Finally, by choosing to produce an EV pickup model for the US market, Kia may well be positioning itself to be the new value leader in the electric (or electrified) pickup segment. Kia’s new EV pickup would likely start at least $10,000 lower, if not more like $20,000 lower, than the Rivian1T. Thus, such an EV would immediately garner some fandom from the truck loving population and assuming so this would help Kia meet their EV growth targets while drawing in new customers to the brand.
