Kia is working on a small pickup truck, report says
The truck might share its underpinnings with Hyundai's upcoming Santa Cruz pickup.
We've long known that Korean automaker Hyundai is working on a pickup truck, previewed by the Santa Cruz concept in 2015. Now, a new report from Australia's CarsGuide suggests Hyundai's sister company, Kia , could be getting in on the pickup action, too.
"Work has begun" on the new truck, according to Kia Australia Chief Operating Officer Damien Meredith. He told CarsGuide the Kia pickup could launch around 2022 or 2023.
Interestingly, while Meredith acknowledges the existence of Hyundai's forthcoming pickup, it's not immediately clear if the two are related. The Santa Cruz will use a unibody construction, not unlike the Honda Ridgeline , but CarsGuide believes Kia's offering will be more robust -- Meredith says the platform is "brand-new."
"We're talking about a dual-cab, a single-cab -- what we've requested is the full gambit for the ute," Meredith told CarsGuide.
It seems somewhat silly that Hyundai and Kia could be developing two separate truck platforms, but of course, crazier things have happened. Let's not forget the Kia Borrego , which used an honest-to-goodness, body-on-frame truck platform -- something the Hyundai brand never did.
