Kia Tasman gross sales a ‘disappointment’ says world exec, design and powertrain ‘counter measures’ within the pipeline | CarExpert

One of Kia’s senior executives globally has candidly labelled the Tasman ute’s early gross sales efficiency as a “disappointment”, with plans to handle its design and powertrain already underneath dialogue.

Speaking with Australian media in Seoul, Spencer Cho, senior vice chairman and head of worldwide enterprise planning sub-division at Kia’s world headquarters, mentioned the Korean model is already engaged on short- and mid-term “countermeasures” for the dual-cab ute in response to sluggish gross sales and buyer suggestions.

“Clearly we are not satisfied yet. We have a lot of expectations [for the Tasman] and we are still in the starting point, and we still have a lot of time [on our side], so we will carefully monitor the market, the reactions and early disappointment we have in the Australian market – that gave us a lot of good lessons,” Mr Cho mentioned.

“Currently we are working on every area in which we can improve the performance of the Tasman, especially in the Australian market. We will provide counter-measures for the coming years, and we will also have other powertrain choices if we can, and also design changes or improvement or any other offerings for new features and content and technologies.”

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Pressed additional on whether or not the “other powertrain choices” would come with a bigger engine or a hybrid powertrain, Mr Cho responded: “All the options are on the table right now.”

Beyond design and powertrain updates, Mr Cho added that any further options and applied sciences that may be made out there to the Tasman are additionally on the desk.

“We are monitoring the customer feedback and market reactions throughout digital media and customer voices. As you know, Kia Australia is getting a lot of feedback from the media and also dealers and actual customers,” Mr Cho continued.

“So we are collecting all the feedback from any way of means [and] distributing that information within our company, with the R&D and design [divisions], and the purchasing or even production divisions. We are preparing for the countermeasures which we will make [to improve] the competitiveness of the Tasman.”

To the tip of April 2026, the Kia Tasman has returned 1658 registrations in Australia yr thus far throughout 4×2 and 4×4 variants, with the overwhelming majority of consumers going for the latter. By comparability, the Ford Ranger does greater than double that quantity in a month.