- kia has updated its recently announced plans and now says it will have 11 evs by 2026. seven of them will be built on the hyundai motor group’s e-gmp architecture.
- just last month the automaker said it would achieve this goal in 2027.
- the automaker is also planning on launching its own subscription service globally later this year.
after announcing to the world on monday that it is no longer working with apple on an autonomous electric car, kia motors president and ceo ho sung song announced that the company would be accelerating its electrification roadmap. speaking today during the automaker's investor day event, the ceo announced that 11 ev models will be available by 2026. of those, seven will be built on the hyundai motor group's e-gmp (electric vehicle platform) architecture. that's a year earlier than what the automaker announced just last month.
kia currently offers two electric versions of gasoline-powered vehicles, the soul ev and the niro ev, and now plans to add four more vehicles derived from its existing lineup. each will be a dedicated evs using e-gmp as the underpinning. the first of these new dedicated electric vehicles (teased above) is code-named cv, and the automaker is targeting 300 miles of range and a partial recharge time of 20 minutes. more details will be revealed next month, kia said.
kia's goal is that by 2030, evs, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids will make up 40 percent of all its sales, with a target of 1.6 million vehicles sold. the company said it is hoping that 880,000 of those will be evs.
kia is also looking to increase its purpose-built-vehicle (pbv) business by expanding into autonomous delivery vehicles. kia's first electric pbv will be unveiled in 2022, and it hopes to sell one million of these types of vehicles by 2030 by working with other companies to develop platforms for them.
finally, kia announced that the kia flex subscription service, which has been out in korea since 2019, will go global later this year. it will be renamed kia subscription and will be run by the hyundai motor group's sixt leasing division. it's likely that insurance, maintenance, and the vehicle will be included in monthly payments, it’s unknown if the service that comes to the united states will allow monthly car swapping as kia flex does in korea.