Of 4 million sales goal, Kia wants green cars to fill in the half

Kia Motors, a sister company of Hyundai Motor, is aiming to sell 4 million vehicles globally by 2030, with half of them being eco-friendly models, the company said on Thursday.

The carmaker will expand the portion of electric vehicles and hybrids in overall sales from the current 17 percent to 52 percent by 2030.

For markets with state-supportive policies for EVs –- Korea, North America, Europe and China -- Kia said it will pull up its EV and hybrid sales portion up to 78 percent by 2030.

Starting with the carmaker’s flagship model EV9 slated for a launch in 2023, Kia Motors will launch at least two EV models a year until 2027 to complete a full 14-model lineup. 

“Last year, we changed our mission, logo, product and design. Such efforts paid off as we saw good feedback from global brand evaluations,” said Kia Motors President Song Ho-sung during the CEO Investor Day held online Thursday. 

“We will continue to seek dynamic change this year to develop as a sustainable mobility solutions provider,” he added. 

Kia will also strengthen its products’ value through technology, such as putting the Over the Air connectivity update function as a standard setting in all vehicles launched from 2025. From 2026, all Kia vehicles sold in global automotive markets will have an advanced autonomous driving function. 

Regarding its new business in purpose-based vehicles, Kia said its goal is to become the No.1 brand in the global PBV market by 2030. In three years, it will release a unique skateboard-inspired PBV model.

Through brand solidification and profit structure improvement, the company said it will achieve 120 trillion won ($99.7 billion) in sales and 10 trillion in operation profit. 

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)