Why Hyundai and Kia haven’t taken the jump into the pickup truck segment before now is unknown. However, we shouldn’t forget the Santa Cruz small pickup. In every segment the South Korean automakers are in, they do well for quality, features, and sales. After this past week of several Kia concept reveals, now it is saying two electric pickups are in the works. 

There is even a name already, “Tasman.” Regarding the coming EV pickup, Kia design head Karim Habib told Australia’s CarSales, “Our role as designers is to serve the brand and serve customers. We design products for people to use within the framework of our brand. So the design has to have those attributes, and that automatically creates a family look.”

Will the Kia pickup share its design with another model?

That means with the recent reveal of the EV concepts and the EV6 and EV9, the Tasmin will share a similar design. Earlier rumors suggested that the Kia Mojave SUV would get a pickup variant. But it doesn’t have any similarity to the EVs, so we can put that one to bed. 

With the series of EV SUVs coming over the next two years, a pickup variant wouldn’t be hard. Or two of them; as Kia says, there will be two EV pickups by 2027. 

Does Kia make an EV pickup truck already?

At least the first of the EV pickups will be body-on-frame. Motor1 says to expect an over 2,000 lb payload, with a 7,700 tow rating. And it may only initially be available with a gas burner under the hood. 

Last year, Kia said it would debut a “strategic” pickup first. This strategic truck should be out by mid-2024. Kia already offers a pickup with an EV option. The Bongo is a staple of its vehicle lineup, having been around for decades. And an EV version of the Bongo was launched in 2020. 

Has Kia teased trucks in the past?

Kia has been playing around with producing a pickup over the past couple of decades. If you remember, the first appearance of a Kia truck was the KCV4 Mojave concept from way back in 2004. And it was an EV, no less.

Then, five years later, Kia was at it again with the “Soul’ster” minitruck concept. It even won the 2009 Concept Truck of the Year award at the Detroit Auto Show. The concept was a pickup mostly in name only, but still, it shows that pickups have been on Kia’s radar for a long time, even before the Santa Cruz. 

There are so many variables that the dates we’ve given may change. There are still lots of issues that plague vehicle production, with everything from microchip shortages to robotics suppliers getting behind on building assembly line-specific robots. But with so many other great vehicles Kia keeps cranking out, we can’t wait to see what their version of a truck has to offer.