{"id":376579,"date":"2026-04-13T00:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T00:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/376579\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T00:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T00:12:16","slug":"kias-next-ute-might-not-come-to-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/376579\/","title":{"rendered":"Kia\u2019s next ute might not come to Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The North American pickup market is so lucrative that almost every big brand already has or is planning to launch an offering, now extended to Kia.<\/p>\n

Kia only launched its first ute, the Tasman, in Australia and other \u201cglobal emerging markets\u201d last year, where it hasn\u2019t made as big of a dent on the sales charts as first expected \u2013 due in part to its controversial exterior styling.<\/p>\n

The Tasman was never intended to be taken to North America \u2013 not least because of its very Australian-centric name \u2013 but now Kia has confirmed it wants to launch a new pickup in the market by 2030.<\/p>\n

Details at this stage are light, however Kia says its American pickup will include hybrid and extended-range hybrid variants, both of which will be key to winning over fuel-conscious customers.<\/p>\n

\"\"Kia Tasman Weekender concept<\/p>\n

Running on a body-on-frame platform like most of the successful mid- and full-sized pickups in the market, it\u2019s possible Kia will lean on its parent in the Hyundai Group for access to its upcoming ladder-frame chassis.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month<\/a>, Hyundai\u2019s Boulder SUV Concept showed off the carmaker\u2019s first body-on-frame platform to be made for the US market.<\/p>\n

Set to be exclusively designed and produced in North America using US steel, the body-on-frame chassis will be made for the local market, and debut underneath a mid-sized pickup, taking on popular offerings such as the Toyota Tacoma, Chevrolet Colorado and Ford Ranger.<\/p>\n

Like Kia, Hyundai has announced plans to produce a mid-sized pickup for North America by 2030, in addition to making two pickups in a partnership with General Motors, the latter pair of which will be for the Central and South American markets.<\/p>\n

\"HyundaiHyundai Boulder Concept<\/p>\n

As reported by Automotive News<\/a>, Kia is aiming for the new pickup to contribute about 90,000 sales annually in North America by 2034, at which point the majority of its rivals would have likely followed suit with electrification.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not likely that we\u2019ll see the next Kia pickup in Australia though, as the Tasman is doing its duty in our competitive ute market, even if it hasn\u2019t been the success story Kia had hoped for.<\/p>\n

Kia had said the Tasman could achieve 20,000 annual sales in Australia, which would require more than 1660 average monthly deliveries. In 2025, its monthly average was about 600 deliveries, while across the first three months of 2026, Kia delivered a total of just 1338 Tasmans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The North American pickup market is so lucrative that almost every big brand already has or is planning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-376579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}