Kia Prepares Cheap Electric City Cars And Stinger Electrification Plans

Kia Stinger GT-Line. (Doc. Kia Global)

JAKARTA Kia is preparing to expand its electric vehicle line by presenting city car entry-level and several new models under consideration. This South Korean automotive brand is increasingly serious in working on the EV market by registering trademarks for EV1 to EV9 ranges, some of which are still waiting for launch time.

According to Kia President, Ho-sung Song, a model like EV3 is projected to replace Kia's iconic city car, Picanto, in the long term. This effort is an important step for Kia in reducing EV technology costs to make it more affordable for consumers.

However, Song admits that presenting a city car EV at competitive prices is still a big challenge. He hopes that Kia's future model can be marketed at a price of around 30,000 euros (IDR 511.9 million) or even down to 25,000 euros (IDR 426.5 million).

"This is what we are preparing for our customers," Song said in an interview with Autocar, quoted Wednesday, September 18.

"We are optimistic that we can offer EVs under 25,000 euros, and may be close to 20,000 euros. However, that won't happen in the next two years," he added.

In addition, Kia also plans to convert several existing models into fully electric versions, one of which is the Styler sporty sedan. Although still in the consideration stage, Song is optimistic that this plan is very likely to be realized.

"We are currently conducting a study on this matter," he said.

The transformation of Stinger into EV is not something that is impossible, considering that Kia already has a flexible and suitable E-GMP platform for the electrification era. This platform has been successfully used for models like EV6 and EV9. If Styler is built with the platform, it's no surprise that this car will come with all-wheelers (AWD) and double electric motors capable of generating more than 600 dk of power.