Kia’s Ford Everest fighter: Kia Tasman SUV development accelerates with design studies in progress

A senior Kia executive has confirmed that the South Korean imprint is working on original merchandise that can half the physique-on-physique platform of the Tasman ute. The in all probability of these merchandise is an SUV version of the Tasman.

“The sweetness is that the [Tasman] platform goes to web a great deal of mileage,” Kia Australia general manager of product planning Roland Rivero educated Chasing Vehicles.

“It will fabricate its technique into diversified merchandise moreover. Whenever you already possess a platform which that you just can perhaps perhaps additionally possess invested in, the skill to develop upon it’s plenty more straightforward than starting up from scratch.

“The flexibility to turn around a [Tasman] SUV is plenty sooner.”

It’s miles general for a ute mannequin to be complemented by a rugged 4wd sibling, with the SUV mannequin most regularly providing a heavy-duty family automobile or hasty wagon possibility in Australia.

For rival imprint Ford, pairing the Ranger ute (56,555 sales in 2025) with the Everest SUV (26,161 sales in 2025) has been a business success that Kia would love to replicate.

“The platform is there. A lot love Ranger to Everest, it’s miles no longer a humungous job to adopt and regulate the [Tasman] physique,” talked about Rivero.

Kia engineers working on the Tasman program are understood to possess also worked on a 4wd wagon sibling for some years, and the belief is now advancing in direction of manufacturing.

After we requested Rivero if he had seen the web of the Tasman SUV, he was as soon as coy.

“I could perhaps possess. [Tasman SUV] is being contemplated. Replacement stuff gets contemplated, correct love the Tasman Weekender [concept].”

The arrival of a hypothetical Tasman SUV would likely approach after the ute adopts a stage of electrification in compliance with Australia’s emissions guidelines.

Tasman ute devices are anticipated to get a forty eight-volt soft hybrid system for the four-cylinder diesel engine a while in 2027.

But a huge-skill engine fair like a V6 is no longer anticipated with Kia executives having over and over poured chilly water on the postulate of a V6 on emissions grounds.

To this level, Tasman sales possess fallen quick of expectations situation by Kia itself. In its first half-year on sale, 4196 devices of the controversially styled opt-up were delivered.

A target of 20,000 annual sales of the Tasman was as soon as given to media at the originate of the mannequin in August 2025.