No Apple Shock, Kia’s “Invest 10 trillion in 5 years…60 trillion in sales this year”

Kia will provide 11 models of pure electric vehicles by 2026, raising the annual sales of eco-friendly vehicles to 1.6 million units by 2030. In particular, by launching the first model of purpose-based vehicle (PBV) next year, the sales volume of this division is also expected to increase to 1 million units by 2030.

On the afternoon of the 9th, Kia held a’CEO Investor Day’ through an online channel, and announced its ambition to transform into a specialized electric vehicle and PBV company in the future to shareholders and analysts.

Until last year, Kia launched only derivative electric vehicles based on internal combustion engine models, but this year, based on the new electric vehicle platform’E-GMP’, the first exclusive electric vehicle’CV’ (project name) was first released next month and will be officially released in July. Based on this, the company plans to build a lineup of 11 electric vehicles, including 7 exclusive electric vehicles and 4 derivative electric vehicles, by 2026, one year ahead of the previous plan to accelerate the transition to electrification.

Kia-exclusive electric vehicles are basically ‘5·4·3’. It can run 500 km per full charge, and the charging time required for a driving distance of 100 km is 4 minutes, and the zero back (time to reach 100 km per hour) is 3 seconds. This is the best-in-class performance, Kia stressed. In particular, the CV, which will be released next month, will be equipped with autonomous driving Level 2 (partially autonomous driving) technology, and Level 3 (conditional autonomous driving without the need to hold the steering wheel) will be applied to dedicated electric vehicles to be released from 2023.

Kia President Song Ho-sung emphasized, “We will sell 1.6 million eco-friendly vehicles annually in 2030 and increase the proportion of eco-friendly vehicles to 40% of the total sales.” PBV is also an area that Kia pays special attention to. With the release of the first model,’PBV01,’ next year, the sales volume of this division will increase to 1 million units per year in 2030. In this way, it will become the unrivaled number one in the global PBV market.

As Kia has secured special design capabilities and production lines through its military vehicle development experience for the past 48 years, it is also considered the most specialized company in PBVs in the Hyundai Motor Group. Starting next year, Kia plans to meet the needs of various customer groups by developing PBVs by dividing it into dedicated taxis, vans, and vehicles for logistics purposes, and vehicles exclusively for vehicle and leisure. The mobility business is also aggressively increasing. Kia’s car-sharing service’Webble’, which is currently being operated for individual customers in Madrid, Spain, will be expanded to corporate and point-type services this year, and the’Kia Mobility’ service, which was operated only in Italy and Russia, will be released in four European countries this year. .

Kia announced its business goal to achieve 3.7% global market share by selling 2.922,000 units (wholesale basis), up 12% from last year, in the global market this year. For the first time, the sales target was set at 65 trillion won, well over 60 trillion won. The increase in the proportion of luxury vehicles, including sports utility vehicles (SUVs) such as the new Sportage, is expected to play an important role in increasing Kia’s operating profit this year.

Kia plans to invest a total of 29 trillion won by 2025, of which a total of 10 trillion won or more will be invested only in future projects.

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