Kia has announced plans to expand its all-electric vehicle range to as many as 14 models by 2027, while also confirming two will take the form of battery-powered bakkies.

If you’ve been patiently waiting for a Kia-badged double-cab bakkie, prepare to wait a little bit longer. The good news, however, is that such a thing will eventually exist, with the South Korean firm having finally confirmed plans to launch not one,but two bakkies.

Interestingly, neither will draw its urge from a clattery turbodiesel engine, with power – in both instances – coming exclusively from electric motors and battery packs. Kia made the announcement when detailing its roadmap to 2030, which includes key business targets it plans to hit by the time the end of the decade rolls around.

By 2030, the automaker – which just grabbed the 2022 European Car of the Year award with its EV6– wants to achieve annual sales of 1.2 million fully electric vehicles (EVs) and reach four million annual vehicle sales in total. Naturally, it plans to accelerate its transition to electric mobility by aggressively expanding its pure-electric product line-up. Starting in 2023, Kia says it will launch at least two new EVs each year, eventually building to the aforementioned full line-up of 14 models by 2027.

That number includes what the international press material describes as “two electric pickup trucks”, words that certainly caught our attention. While official information is scarce at this stage (it’s not even clear whether these vehicles will be unibody or ladder-frame in construction), Kia has dubbed the first a “dedicated” electric bakkie, which we’ve worked outwill be built in North America from around 2024 (and thus in left-hand-drive guise for that market). If we had to guess, we’d say this model would take the form of a full-size pickup to tackle the Ford F-150 that is so immensely popular in that part of the world.

But it’s perhaps the second battery-powered bakkie that’s most intriguing for us down here in South Africa. Kia terms this bakkie “a strategic model for emerging markets”, suggesting there’s at least a decent chance it’ll be considered for a local introduction, even if its planned launch could be as many as 5 years away. Still,right-hand-drive production is by no means certain, with many South American markets – where the likes of the Fiat Toro and Volkswagen Saveiro sell in rather tidy numbers – also considered“emerging”. Time will tell.

Regardless, we’d speculate that this second electric bakkie would be smaller in size (though likely still double-cab in configuration), perhaps even slotting into the segment below the big-selling Toyota Hilux, Ford Ranger and Isuzu D-Max. That’d mean it’d be primed to fill the half-tonne void created by the demise of the Chevrolet Utility, Ford Bantam and friends. But perhaps we’re getting a little bit ahead of ourselves here…

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