Kia thought-about a Ram 1500, Ford F-150 rival

With the Tasman, Kia is lastly rolling out a rival to the Toyota HiLux and Ford Ranger, however it thought-about a good bigger mannequin to tackle large names from the US.

Kia is rolling out the Tasman in markets like ours, whereas it has additionally beforehand confirmed a separate devoted electrical ute – which CarExpert understands shall be bigger – that’s anticipated to be constructed within the US.

“The primary case research that was truly studied was for North America, to tackle… the Ram [1500], F-150. That hasn’t eventuated,” Kia Australia product planning normal supervisor Roland Rivero informed CarExpert.

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“Then from that concept and that enterprise case for North America [Kia went] ‘Let’s take a look at different alternatives and gaps within the Kia product vary’ and the smaller brother, the Tasman, got here to life.

“The worldwide enterprise case for Tasman labored out to be far larger a possibility than the person North American mannequin.”

Mr Rivero didn’t specify when this case research was carried out, however Kia has beforehand confirmed Tasman growth started in 2020.

The Tasman shall be offered not solely in Australia, but additionally varied markets throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Center East.

An F-150 rival, in distinction, would probably have been offered throughout a smaller pool of markets, albeit with the main US market being one in every of them.

The Tasman hasn’t been confirmed for the US, the place tariffs on mild industrial autos – known as the Rooster Tax – would require Kia to construct it regionally lest it show prohibitively costly for its phase.

The phase is far much less various within the US than it’s right here, with prime sellers just like the Mazda BT-50, Mitsubishi Triton and Volkswagen Amarok not provided there.

Kia Australia had been pushing for a HiLux rival for a while.

“I believe that’s the function of company headquarters is all the time to maintain learning market alternatives all over the world, and a giant F-150, Ram-like car was studied and has not been given the inexperienced mild,” continued Mr Rivero.

“As they do, they research all of the respective regional alternatives and that was studied and sadly that didn’t get the inexperienced mild.

“Once you research a brand new addition, as all the time you haven’t bought a definitive timeline. It goes via a course of after which when it passes a sure stage, then you definitely take a look at it for that subsequent part as effectively, but when it didn’t even go that first part no timeline ever actually existed.”

Whereas the F-150 rival by no means eventuated, Kia has provided giant V8-powered SUVs and sedans within the US market with the Borrego and K900. The previous lasted a single mannequin yr, whereas the latter offered in small volumes.

Kia’s Ram rival, too, would have confronted severe headwinds.

Toyota leads the phase beneath within the US, with its Tacoma outselling the Ford Ranger, Chevrolet Colorado,
GMC Canyon, Jeep Gladiator and Nissan Frontier.

However even mighty Toyota has by no means been capable of come shut by way of sheer gross sales volumes to the pickups from the American Huge 3 – the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado, GMC Sierra and Ram 1500 – with its Tundra.

Within the US, in line with gross sales knowledge printed by Good Automobile Dangerous Automobile, Toyota averaged round 114,000 annual gross sales between 2005 and 2023.

In distinction, the top-selling Ford F-Sequence vary – which admittedly consists of heavier-duty Tremendous Responsibility fashions – averaged round 730,000 annual gross sales throughout the identical interval.

If the Tundra is a distant runner-up, nonetheless, it prevented the picket spoon standing that plagued one other Japanese try at an F-Sequence rival – the Nissan Titan.

Supplied for 2 generations earlier than being axed in 2023, the Titan – just like the Tundra – featured related dimensions to the F-150 in addition to V8 energy and even heavy-duty XD variations with a Cummins turbo-diesel V8.

Regardless of showing to match its American-branded rivals on paper, the Tennessee-built Titan averaged round 33,000 annual gross sales between 2005 and 2023.

Neither Hyundai nor Kia have ever tackled this phase, nor have any Japanese manufacturers bar Toyota and Nissan.