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After years of Kia Australia’s plan to make fun of us, it plans to launch an off-road vehicle suitable for Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger. The Korean automaker admits that the possibility of this car becoming a reality is almost zero — and the reason may be one very good.

In the past six months, CarsGuide noticed that Kia Australia is excited about its upcoming four-wheel drive ute, so we directly asked the company's chief operating officer Damian Meredith: What happened? Will there be a Kia ute? The answer surprised us.

"I think this may be a long-term attempt," Mr. Meredith replied.

"I think if they have done it and planned it, then it will be here now," he added.

The "they" referred to by Mr. Meredith are the bosses of Kia Korea's global headquarters. They heard the propaganda of Kia Australia four years ago.

ute is a commercial vehicle based on a trapezoidal frame chassis with off-road capability and braking towing capability, which can be matched with HiLux, Ranger and Isuzu D-Max models.

The timing makes sense: Australia has fully adopted Kia in their lanes and lives with Carnivals, Sorento SUVs and small Picanto hatches, so ute seems to be a breeze.

The business case is also meaningful. Since Australia's best-selling car is actually ute, and utes account for 20% of the total sales of the Australian car market, Mr. Meredith had predicted that he could sell 20,000 Kia utes each year. Song Haocheng, Kia’s global CEO, was impressed by the proposal and the numbers.

"About four years ago, we made a plan and said,'Look, we believe we can do so much.' Mr. Song almost fell off the chair and said,'This is impossible; you can't do so much'. But he started Count, and then he began to believe," Mr. Meredith said.

But Mr. Song doesn't seem to be completely convinced.

"We haven't got any clear answer from Kia headquarters," Mr. Meredith admitted. "Every time I see him, he will say, "I understand what you are saying, Damian, but let's wait and see. "

"We have completed our homework," Mr. Meredith said, "but it doesn't depend on us-it depends on Kia headquarters, they just didn't give us an answer."

The reason may be a very good one, and there may be two aspects.

First, Kia may not be able to easily use a platform with a ladder frame chassis suitable for off-road ute. Yes, the company has a commercial unit that produces light trucks, but their foundation cannot compete with Hyundai ute competitors (such as Ranger).

Can Kia ute use this ladder frame chassis?

Yes, we have seen Kia show off its military strength with armored vehicles, such as the KLTV built specifically for the South Korean army. We even speculate that because these light tactical vehicles have modular chassis suitable for different wheelbases, they can be used well in ute, but the application may be easier said than done.

Finally, Kia did sell an SUV called Mojave overseas, which uses a trapezoidal frame, but only for left-handed driving.

In order to compete with HiLux, Ranger or Mitsubishi Triton, Kia needs not only a ladder frame, but also a series of diesel and gasoline engines. As early as 2020, Meredith told CarsGuide that it expects "dual cabs, single cabs, diesel, gasoline-what we require is the full color gamut of the ute family".

If you want, Kia and its sister company Hyundai can develop an excellent ute platform with a trapezoidal frame from the ground up. As we guessed, the 205kW/590Nm 3.0-liter six-cylinder turbo diesel engine in the Genesis GV80 will make an impressive grunt. Voice.

This makes us understand why we have not seen the main part of Kia ute, that is, electric cars will replace their combustion counterparts in the next few decades, spending billions of dollars to design, develop and produce one for gasoline or diesel ute New platform, which may be eliminated shortly after launch.

What makes Kia HQ's prospects even less compelling is that it is likely to only build ute for Australia, New Zealand and some other small markets. Therefore, although the annual sales of 20,000 ute is a big problem for Australia, it is small on a global scale and may not be considered worthy of development.

Therefore, an off-road Kia ute with a trapezoidal frame and a diesel engine is likely to never happen, and for good reason.

"Don't be frustrated by this," Mr. Meredith told us. "We have a lot of good things about alternative fuels, and we are very excited about the future of this brand."

This makes us think. For Kia, it would make more sense to develop an electric or hydrogen fuel cell ute, which will use products such as Ford F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T, with excellent off-road capabilities, incredible towing capabilities and The important thing is that this will continue for a long time after Kia is fully electric in most markets by 2040.

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