The upcoming Kia small electric SUV has been codenamed AY and it will be launched by 2025
Kia India made its local debut in August 2022 courtesy of the Seltos midsize SUV and it was followed by the Carnival premium MPV and Sonet compact SUV. All of them have been well received amongst customers helping the brand to record good sales tally consistently. The arrival of the Carens recently further bolstered Kia’s position as one of the top five automakers in India.
With the mainstream car producers looking to step into the EV space in the coming years with huge investments, Kia won’t be left out of the equation. The South Korean auto major will reportedly enter into the zero-emission space with the debut of an all-electric small SUV for the emerging markets and it will be manufactured at the brand’s Anantapur facility in Andhra Pradesh.
Internally codenamed AY, the development of the small electric SUV has commenced and it will be launched by 2025. Based on a flexible architecture, it will be a volume-based model as it will also be powered by a petrol engine. While the report claims that Kia will drive in the EV6 electric crossover in 2022, many outlets speculate that the 2022 European Car of the Year will be launched as early as next month or June 2022.
The company will be looking to build the necessary infrastructure over the next few years before bringing in a mainstream electric vehicle by the middle of this decade reportedly. Thus, the Indian market will see plenty of action by 2025 as Maruti Suzuki and Toyota are working on a global midsize e-SUV while the Curvv concept based electrified Tata SUV Coupe will arrive within the next two years.
Mahindra & Mahindra will debut the Born Electric Vision based eco-friendly vehicles in July 2022 and they will subsequently be launched in the coming years. Kia is also expected to launch the new e-Niro sometime next year to rival the likes of MG ZS EV and Hyundai Kona Electric. In the international markets, Kia plans to introduce as many as 14 EVs by 2030 as it aims to generate 50 per cent of its total volumes from eco-friendly models.
Kia has approved an A+ segment entry-level EV for emerging markets from India while an electric pickup truck and one more EV are waiting in the pipeline for developed markets. Kia has planned to roll out three lakh to 3.5 lakh units from its local plant by 2022 and 80,000 units of the total will be exported.