Hyundai Group's plans to electrify its brands are progressing smoothly. Their intentions are ambitious, but not unreasonable, especially given current events. The next steps should position them as one of the world's top three electric vehicle manufacturers by 2030. To achieve this, they are relying on strong sales of electric vehicles from Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.
In fact, Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis are already expanding their range of electric models . There isn't a market niche or segment they won't have a model in, and they'll even venture into others they aren't currently present in. One of these is the PBV segment. Do you know what kind of vehicles they are? They are specially designed electric vehicles (PBVs) to facilitate mobility in large cities. We've already talked about them, but now we have some new information.
The Kia factory for its PBV vehicles will start its activity in the year 2025 and is located in Gyeonggi (South Korea).
Kia's purpose-built vehicles (PBVs) focus on the delivery vehicle niche . As a preview, they've released a couple of teasers that offer a glimpse of what they might look like. While the final designs won't be identical to those shown, they serve as a perfect introduction. This latest teaser features what appear to be three medium-to-large vans and another smaller, more practical model.
The fact is that, being electric vehicles developed from scratch, they require a technical center for assembly. To this end, the Hyundai Group has approved an investment of 1 trillion won (690.074.700 euros) . This is one of the largest investments we've seen in recent years and aims to develop the "eS" scooter platform, design its models, build the factory, and sell them.
Interestingly, the eS platform allows for flexible combinations of various body styles. Kia plans to unveil its first model of this type, currently under development and internally codenamed SW, in 2025. It will be a mid-size PBV designed to meet diverse commercial needs, including deliveries, transportation services, and business-to-business (B2B) transactions.
Soon after, Kia plans to expand its PBV product line into the large segments for logistics, fresh food delivery, passenger transport, and even mobile offices and stores. Small PBVs and mid-sized robotaxis with autonomous driving technology will also be available. All of these will be produced at the technical center they are beginning construction on in Gyeonggi, South Korea.
2025 is just around the corner, and if Kia gets its models right, it could become a leader in a market niche that's currently underserved. We'll see…
Source – Kia