2025 Kia Tasman: “Failure is not an option”

The success of the 2025 Kia Tasman in Australia will be critical to the boldly-styled ute’s survival and global success.

Kia Australia has committed to 20,000 sales annually, which equates to 25 per cent of the Tasman’s 80,000-unit per-annum production run.

Only the Tasman’s home market, South Korea, is forecast to sell as many examples as ours.

“Failure is not an option,” Kia Australia CEO Damien Meredith said.

“That’s the number we have to get … we are pretty confident we will do that 20,000.”

If Australian sales fall short, it will jeopardise the chances of the Tasman going on beyond its first generation.

That arguably makes the Tasman the most important vehicle launched in Australia since the demise of local manufacturing, when the survival of cars like the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon depended on local acceptance.

Appropriately, the Tasman is also the Kia model which the local business has had the most influence over; its product department and chassis tuning consultant Graeme Gambold have been intrinsic to development.

In its dependence on a single market to essentially guarantee its survival, the Tasman has a predecessor in the Kia Stinger which was essentially developed for the North American market and while a success elsewhere, it wasn’t there.

As a result, it was cancelled after the first generation of production, much to the chagrin of local rear-drive sport sedan fans.

While describing himself as “nervous” about the challenge ahead, Meredith insisted it would be achieved.

“We just have to make sure that we do those numbers and we'll do it in an ethical, market-led way,” he said.

“We won’t do anything silly to get that 20,000, but I think we have proved over a long period of time that when we set ourselves a goal, we do it.”

Of course, if the Tasman doesn’t succeed in one of its other markets, be it Korea, the Middle East or South America, that could also place question marks on its future.

“Then there would be more pressure on us to keep the volume up,” Meredith said. “That's a reality.”

And while Meredith was readily prepared to acknowledge the global responsibilities of Kia Australia to the Tasman, he was also keen to emphasise what the 11-variant range of dual-cab, single-cab, pick-up and cab chassis models could deliver for the local business.

“It’s the most important car that Kia Australia has ever launched because of its importance in that segment,” he said.

“It’s a big segment. It makes us jump up a couple of plateaus in volume terms.

“And it is giving us a great opportunity to Australian-ise the brand.

“So those three things are probably the most important aspects. And we’ve never had that opportunity before in Australia with any brand.”

Off the back of Kia’s sports celebrity-studded preview advertising campaign, the first signs of public interest are high.

Kia Australia’s public website is reporting four times the traffic on Tasman as any other model.

The highest initial order interest has been in the flagship X-Pro, but Kia is expecting that to widen with the release of pricing for single and dual-cab chassis.

The publication of a five-star ANCAP rating for the three S-badged 4x4 dual-cabs is also important news for fleet buyers.

Kia is forecasting 20,000 sales will place the Tasman fourth in the ute segment in Australia behind the big three of Ford Ranger, Toyota HiLux and Isuzu D-Max.

It’s likely competitor for that fourth place slot is shaping to be the plug-in hybrid BYD Shark 6, of which 10,424 examples were sold in the first six months of 2025.

Meredith forecast a rise to 25,000 sales per annum within “three to five” [years] for Tasman and for the 2.2-litre turbo-diesel engine to account for the vast bulk of those sales.

A new-generation 2.5-litre turbo-petrol hybrid, that just made its world debut in the new Hyundai Palisade, will be added to the Tasman line-up, but not for a couple of years. 

The Tasman’s sales rate and forecast increase is modest considering Ford sold more than 60,000 Rangers in 2024 and should go close to that number again in 2025.

But Meredith was clear that Kia Australia wasn’t keen to build too much reliance on one vehicle – the vast Ranger line-up accounts for 60 per cent of local Ford sales.

“We’ve got four, maybe five models that sell over 10 per cent of our total sales,” he said.

“We don't like a heavy reliance on one specific model in our mix, because the market moves pretty quickly, and if one comes off a little bit, well, we’ve got other options to do that.

“We’ve had that in play for quite a long time, that strategy. So what we’re looking at, the launch model walk that we see here, we’re not going to see more variance added in the short to medium term … over the next two or three years.

“The product life cycle is 10 years, you know, better keep your powder dry sometimes.”

Tasman volume will be a key factor in Kia climbing to a forecast record 90,000 sales in 2025.

After six months, Kia has sold 40,750 vehicles in Australia, a dip of 1.3 per cent compared to the same period in 2024.

“There's a bit of work to do, but we're pretty confident that we’ll get there,” Meredith said.

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