Ute News

Kia Australia has some sway when it comes to the Tasman, with our know-how having a big effect on the ute globally.The brand's local Chief Ride and Handling Engineer, Graeme Gambold, explained how the brand was aware of the monumental task it faced in making something competitive for Australia.“One of the big challenges for us, for this vehicle, is because of this market’s dominance. When we were doing the initial discussions with Korea, we were saying, you know, you’re entering into the Olympic Games of utes coming to Australia, so it’s got to be very good and that means a very wide user demographic. We have fully laden operators and we’ve got people who are looking for unladen urban SUV-style ride dynamics.” he said.“So the whole dynamic package and ride and feeling package has been tuned around trying to optimise the balance point in those conflicting requirements. We think we’ve got it in a very good place.”The Tasman gets an Australian-specific tune, complete with standard frequency-selective shock absorbers and hydraulic rebound stoppers, as well as “optimised” bushings in the lower front control arms and rear leaf springs.In addition, the brand said Australian input was significant when it came to the shift mapping for the eight-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission, and the software features for towing.In a rapidly changing dual-cab landscape though, with hybrids already having an impact via BYD’s Shark 6 and the long-awaited Ford Ranger PHEV, does Kia Australia think it’s put its best foot forward when it comes to powertrain, especially in an increasingly tight emissions environment thanks to Australia’s new vehicle efficiency standards (NVES)?The brand’s Australian General Manager of Product Planning, Roland Rivero thinks so: “I think for our first foray into the ute category we’ve chosen the right one” he said of the Tasman’s sole 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine, sourced from the brand’s passenger car range.“Other markets have got the 2.5-litre turbo petrol, not great for us when it comes to an NVES perspective. It’s got a little more power but down on torque so I think we’ve got the right one for our market and obviously we can monitor it and move forward with what needs to be done under NVES.”“We need to get the fundamentals right, and over 80 per cent of this category is four cylinder diesel,” he said.Rivero said “In this category the diverseness of usage is unparalleled. At the end of the day you know, others will experiment and obviously try new things out, which is great, it’s good to have that healthy competition, but you can’t deny that there are going to be customers which still have a very definitive need by way of towing capacity, payload, off-road capability and a locking rear diff, for example.”Kia also has bold sales predictions for the Tasman to help justify the cost of production for a ground-up ute in the years leading up to its launch. According to information revealed by the brand at a recent Investor Day, it intends to sell 80,000 Tasmans globally, with the local division aiming to do 20,000 units of the ute annually.As the Australian division’s Chief Operating Officer Dennis Piccoli said, the Tasman will need to make up a significant portion of Australian ute sales if it is to hit its targets. Something the team is confident it will be able to do despite challenges, like the ute market plateauing out in the first months of 2025 after some years of reasonable growth.“The market might be back a little at the moment and it’s moved forward a bit in the last couple of years — Ford with Ranger has been very active. The market at the end of the day is probably well into now. In terms of where we’re going to sell cars, the reality is that we think that our market share will probably equate to eight, nine, ten per cent and we’ll be pulling a couple of percentage points off the major players," said Piccoli.When pushed as to whether this means HiLuxes or GWM Cannons, Piccoli added: “The market is going to become very, very fragmented, that’s pretty obvious with the number of products coming through, so we’re happy to take a couple of cars off everybody.”While the brand added it had up to 2000 firm orders in the bag already, it didn’t have enough information yet to determine from where those orders were coming in terms of buyers trading in rival products.“Once the dealers start selling, we’ll get that information on what those trades are,” added Kia Australia CEO, Damien Meredith.Order books for the Tasman are open now, although first customer deliveries aren’t expected until late June or early July.

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