Korea’s First Electric Pickup Won’t Be Made By Hyundai Or Kia

KG Mobility’s Musso EV pickup will probably be Korea’s first EV truck, beating Hyundai and Kia to market of their house nation.
The Musso EV options unibody development and shares its underpinnings with the KGM Torres EVX.
Its crossover cousin has a 73.4 kWh battery, bestowing it with as much as 287 miles of WLTP vary.

There was quite a lot of speak about electrical pickup vans from Hyundai or Kia, and each are anticipated to supply such automobiles. Nevertheless, they received’t debut this 12 months, which suggests the KGM Musso EV will beat them to market because it’s anticipated to make its official debut in South Korea someday within the first quarter of the 12 months.

If KGM (the shortened type of KG Mobility) doesn’t ring a bell, that’s as a result of it’s a carmaker that lately rebranded itself after submitting for chapter in 2020 and discovering a brand new proprietor. The corporate was previously generally known as SsangYong, a South Korean producer of crossovers and SUVs, tracing its roots again to 1954 with many fashionable high-riding fashions underneath its belt.

One in every of tts most well-known fashions is the Musso, which is being become an EV-only sub-brand inside KG Mobility. Its first product is the KGM Musso EV, a pure electrical pickup previewed by a close-to-production idea in 2023 (pictured). The collection mannequin stays very near the idea when it comes to design—it’s virtually an identical to the research.

5

KG Mobility

Beneath its relatively good-looking pickup physique lies the identical platform that underpins the Actyon, a BMW X3-sized SUV, in addition to the smaller Torres. The latter has a totally electrical variant known as the Torres EVX, which has a single 190-horsepower motor driving the entrance wheels and a 73.4-kilowatt-hour battery, giving it a WLTP vary of 287 miles (462 kilometers).

We don’t know if this identical battery pack (constituted of cells equipped by BYD) will energy the Musso EV pickup—its stretched wheelbase might accommodate a bigger pack. The idea had “Torres” embossed into its tailgate, hinting it was a pickup model of the two-box crossover. KG Mobility confirmed that the truck will characteristic all-wheel drive, which suggests it would have a dual-motor powertrain. So it ought to pack extra oomph than its crossover sibling.

In response to Drive.com.au, KG Mobility plans to promote the Musso EV pickup outdoors South Korea. Australia and the UK will get right-hand-drive variations of the mannequin, but it surely’s unclear if it would attain different markets, resembling Europe. Given the pickup’s crossover-derived underpinnings and unibody development, this Ford Ranger-sized EV is not going to be a heavy-duty providing. It is extra of a life-style truck, like a Hyundai Santa Cruz.

Since KG Mobility hasn’t launched any images of the manufacturing mannequin that we are able to use, we have embedded a video walkaround from the revealing posted by a channel known as VehicleLuv. The video is in Korean, nevertheless, so you will must activate the translated captions if you wish to know what they’re saying. Nonetheless, it is our greatest look but.

Kia has additionally confirmed it’s engaged on an electrical model of the Tasman pickup, however we don’t know when it would arrive or which markets it would attain. The combustion-powered Tasman will debut within the first half of the 12 months in Korea, however it would even be bought in Australia, the Center East and certain different markets which have but to be introduced. However it’s undoubtedly not coming to the U.S.

Final 12 months, there have been a few sightings of what seemed rather a lot like a Kia EV9 with a crew cab and a mattress within the again. It was both a mule that used a part of an EV9’s physique for testing functions, or Kia actually goes to launch an EV9 pickup. Again in 2022, the automaker introduced its plan to introduce 14 new EVs by 2027, two of that are pickups—this might be the second mannequin after the Tasman EV. It may be a mannequin extra suited to North America.

Hyundai can be identified to have no less than one electrical pickup venture within the works, but it surely received’t merely be its model of what Kia is engaged on. Current reviews recommend that it might use a platform equipped by Basic Motors as the bottom for its EV truck. In response to the Korean Automobile Weblog, the EV9-based prototype noticed final 12 months is, in reality, a mule utilized by Hyundai, not Kia, to check its upcoming electrical truck (which might be a spread extender), because it additionally featured elements from a Hyundai Santa Cruz.