Rumors about a potential Kiaute have been floating around for a while now, teasing the potential of something really damn fun. But things have actually finally been confirmed that there’s not only going to be a sweet beautiful ute—but that work is actually already in progress.
The news itself comes straight from Kia Australia’s Chief Operating Officer,Damien Meredith in an interview with carsguide.com.au, so you know it’s pretty legit. And the cherry on top is the fact that Hyundai should also be releasing their own ute around the same time, around 2022-23.
Here’s more from the article:
In good news for both brands, the vehicle in question is not a “lifestyle vehicle”, like the Hyundai Santa Cruz, but a fully fledged ute family that will take the fight to the heavy hitters of the dual-cab space.
“Work has begun,” says Meredith. “We’re talking about a dual-cab, a single-cab – what we’ve requested is the full gambit for the ute, and that (includes) a dual-cab with diesel and petrol (options).”
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That “lifestyle vehicle” part is key. It can be tough to define what a “lifestyle vehicle” actually is, but it’s become pretty synonymous with vehicles that are designed both for city driving but can also translate pretty easily to some light off-roading. This here will be an actual, honest-to-god ute.
Aside from that, actual details are pretty sparse; the release date is still pretty far away, after all. But Kia has mentioned previously that the ute platform will be brand new, not based on another model.
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Here’s more from CarsGuide:
“When a light commercial range does arrive in Australia, I’d be confident we’d be looking around that eight to 10 per cent market share in that range,” Meredith says. “Great product, great pricing and a seven-year warranty – it’s a pretty powerful package.”
With Australia’s ute market responsible for some 210,000 sales in 2018, that would see Kia secure some 21,000 new customers with the launch of a genuine workhorse family.
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Personally, I can’t wait to see what Kia and Hyundai come up with.
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