Kia Motors recently conducted the 2024 Investor’s Day. Among many announcements, Ho Sung Song the president and CEO of Kia Motors made some interesting announcements for India. He confirmed that two new EVs will enter the Indian market including the Kia Carens EV within the next 18 months. He also mentioned that they plan to launch the globally popular Kia EV9 before the end of 2024.
The Kia Carens EV will be the first mass-market EV based on an ICE derivative in India. It is expected to come with six and seven-seat configuration options. The battery and motor configuration are not yet confirmed. We can, however, expect the Carens to come with 400 km to 500 km of range.
The second EV coming to India is the Kia Clavis EV codenamed AY-EV. We have already seen this EV in various spy shots and it is being tested in India. Kia India could use the same battery and motor configuration for the Clavis and Carens.
Both the Carens EV and Clavis EV are expected to be launched in the second half of 2025.
Kia has set some ambitious goals for their EV arm. As per the official statement, Kia has set a goal of achieving 5,87,000 units of mass market EVs by 2026. By 2027, Kia plans to launch 15 EVs in the market. The Kia EV3 is slated to be launched this year followed by EV2, EV4 and EV5. While all these launches are set for global markets, which of these will make it to India is still unclear. Kia India currently has only one EV on sale in the guise of the EV6. However we do expect to see more EV launches from Kia India in the next year.