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Kia’s global product planning boss confirmed the brand has pumped the brakes on two rumoured models, a small EV and a new SUV.
While many anticipated an even smaller electric SUV to join the brand’s line-up below the Kia EV2 - something as a twin to the Hyundai Inster - it’s been confirmed the brand won’t be adding any new model lines in the near future.
This also means the potential for an SUV sibling to the Kia Tasman, which would follow the popular trend of ute-based SUVs, is off the cards.
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Spencer Cho, Kia’s Senior Vice President and Head of the Global Business Planning Subdivision said adding more products to the range wouldn’t be useful when the brand’s line-up is “big enough” already.
When asked about the rumoured Tasman-based SUV, which CarsGuide had been told had been discussed within Kia Australia at a conceptual level, Cho told journalists the focus is solely on options within the existing line-up at the moment.
“Well, there might be options, but at this point, we are trying to focus on what we can and what we can do better, and of course, we can give much more choices to the customers,” he said.
“At this time, as you know, we have the ICE line-up, and we also have close to the full EV line-up as well.
“So our model line-up itself is big enough.
“Instead of adding other model lines, we try to focus on product improvement and also improve our competitiveness with what we have in our hands right now.”
Cho’s comment about Kia having ‘close to the full EV line-up’ might seem to point to the potential for a smaller EV to sit below the EV2 (which won’t come to Australia at this stage).
The idea of a Kia EV1 has been floated by Kia representatives in interviews with media, especially in Europe, but Cho said the current line-up of EVs needs the brand’s attention for the foreseeable future.
“We will consider any opportunities for the new segment, but at this moment, we are very much focused on the EV line-up we have right now.
“As you may know already, we have almost a full range of the EV line-up in this moment. We recently launched EV2 in the European market, and EV3 is the one of the global success models we have.
Cho pointed out the series of EV models Kia has now spans EV2 through EV3, 4, 5, 6, and 9, with the chances of anything extending that on either side of the smallest and largest models unlikely.
“We already have the full range of the SUVs, so we are open to develop any spaces or any market demand for new products, but we already have good choices of the line-ups, so we will focus on what we have today.
“We will keep an eye on any opportunities in the marketplace, smaller than EV2, but probably the chances are quite less, because the EV1 or whatever, smaller than the EV2 target market is not that much bigger than the global market.
“So a simple answer is, we will focus on what we already have in the BEV lineups, even just the EV models.”
