Kia’s New Tasman Pickup Looks Like No Other Truck on the Road

Kia’s long-awaited first entry into the pickup segment is aimed at global-market heavyweights like the Toyota Hilux and the Ford Ranger, and it’s going to be hard to ignore. While it’s too early to tell whether the Tasman is better than the competition, what’s certain is that it looks like nothing else on the road.

Years in the making, the Tasman was developed as a true off-roader with body-on-frame construction. It was designed in-house, it’s not a badge-engineered version of an existing model, and it’s available in a dizzying number of configurations ranging from a bare-bones workhorse with black steel wheels to a fairly upmarket cruiser with lots of screens. Two-door, four-door, and cab-chassis variants will be offered.

Kia claims the Tasman’s exterior design “follows its own path,” which is the least we can say. It features a wide, upright grille, headlights pushed as far out to the corners as possible, and funky-looking black plastic rectangles above the wheels. We’ll let you, dear reader, decide what to make of the styling. At least it’s not boring.

Designers took a more conventional approach to shaping the interior. Kia has only released pictures of the higher-end trims, which get a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, a 5.0-inch middle display, and a 12.3-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system. There are a lot of clever features scattered across the interior, including a center console that folds into a table, several hidden storage bins, and a household-type power outlet. The electronic driving aids even have a towing mode that takes the trailer into account.

At launch, the global range will include two engines. The first, which will likely be the volume engine, is a 2.2-liter turbodiesel four-cylinder rated at approximately 207 horsepower and 325 pound-feet of torque. It’s linked to either a six-speed manual or an eight-speed automatic. The second is a gasoline-burning 2.5-liter turbo-four that delivers about 277 horsepower and 310 pound-feet of torque and that’s only offered with an eight-speed automatic transmission. Rear and four-wheel-drive models will be available.

In its most capable configuration, the Tasman can tow up to 7,700 pounds and haul 2,600 pounds. The X-Pro trim level boasts nearly 10 inches of ground clearance and can drive through roughly 31 inches of water. Kia clearly designed its first pickup for demanding use cases and challenging road conditions.

Deliveries of the Kia Tasman are scheduled to start during the first half of the 2025 in South Korea, and the truck will later go on sale in Australia, Africa, and the Middle East. The company expects Saudi Arabia will stand out as one of the model’s main markets, and we’re betting that Australia will be big as well.

The United States is conspicuously absent from that list, and it’s not like we don’t buy trucks. Kia doesn’t even need to comment on why the Tasman won’t be sold here: it’s the Chicken Tax. The same 25% tariff that prevented Volkswagen from selling the single-cab Bus here in the 1960s is keeping the Tasman away.