Our friends at Shortscar captured a Rivian R1T Electric Pickup using Korean test vehicle plates near Hyundai ‘s R&D Center in Namyang and sparked rumors about the launch of its own electric pickup truck.
According to the latest announcements and plans from the manufacturers, Kia planned to have an electric pickup…..by 2027, but that doesn’t mean that Hyundai’s pickup won’t arrive earlier.
Kia in particular announced two pickups, one that will use an electric vehicle-only platform and an internal combustion engine-based architecture, respectively (the latter was already spied testing as a test mule). It is expected that the former will be developed for the North American market and the latter will be developed for the emerging market and use a market-tailored strategy.
Currently various manufacturers are in the seeking of launching electric pickups beyond the traditional manufacturers that all already had combustion engine pickups in their portfolios. One of these brands are Volkswagen, that will rebirth Scout nameplate for the North American market in order to launch an electric pickup and 7-seater SUV.
So after all, it won’t be a surprise to found this model at Hyundai R&D Center. Most car manufacturers buys their competitors cars to reverse engineer them and figure what works for them and possible they can improve on their models.
What are features you would love to see Hyundai or Kia to “borrow” from Rivian pickup? What features do you recommend not to be copied?
