Kia Motors to launch 7 new EVs by 2027, debut new design language
Kia Motors has laid out its electric vehicle strategy, the Korean carmaker is set to launch seven new EVs globally by 2027. These launches will be across segments with the first car, codenamed CV, coming in 2021.
This builds on Kia's Plan S strategy, one that was announced earlier in 2020. Along with the new launch and EVs already on sale, there will be 11 all-electric Kia models on the road by 2025. In this time it wants BEVs to account for 20 per cent of Kia sales in markets like Korea, North America and Europe. By 2029, the plan is to grow this to 25 per cent. Most of these EVs will be based on the Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) that is also going to be the base for Hyundai's Ioniq EV sub-brand.
To maximize the potential of these upcoming EVs, Kia is also making deep changes to its organization, in keeping with different buying and ownership trends that such vehicles have brought with them. The upcoming CV model will debut a new design direction for Kia, with deeper focus on the brand's EV goals. Right from the vehicle planning, development and production stages Kia will develop vehicles for specific use cases and cater to the unique needs of customers in each segment that it enters with these cars.
Sales and service practices will also evolve to cater to new needs such as subscription services, battery leasing and rental programs, and other 'second-life' battery-related businesses. It will develop its own programs to train EV technicians and increase EV work bays to 2,000 in 2023 from the 600 it expects to have by the end of 2020. Aside from a strategic investment in Ionity, a European company set up by BMW, Daimler, Ford and Volkswagen that specializing in high-speed EV charging, Kia will also install thousands of chargers in Europe, North America and Korea.