World Car of the Year not coming to Oz

As you’ve no doubt read, the Kia Telluride – a large SUV built and sold only in the USA – has been named World Car of the Year for 2020, seemingly boosting its chances of becoming available Down Under.

That’s not the case, however, says Kia Australia, which has now confirmed the Telluride will not be sold here in its current form, making it the first WCOTY not to become available in this market.

Kia Motors Australia COO Damien Meredith has long talked up the chances of the Telluride coming to Australia, presumably in the hope of generating local interest to help bolster the case for right-hand drive production, which currently doesn’t exist.

However, KMAu spokesman Kevin Hepworth has now made it clear to carsales there is no chance of the Telluride being sold here.

“It's left hand drive and we're not getting it,” he said.

The news comes despite word that the Telluride’s mechanical twin, the Hyundai Palisade, will be produced in RHD for Australia following two years of lobbying by the former CEO of Hyundai Motor Company Australia, JW Lee.

Lee told carsales last year the Hyundai Palisade was “80 per cent” certain to be sold Down Under and insiders have since confirmed it will arrive here with both petrol and diesel engines by the end of this year.

Like the US-only Kia Telluride, the Hyundai Palisade is available in North America exclusively with a circa-220kW/355Nm 3.8-litre petrol V6 driving the front wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission.

In Australia, however, it will also be available from launch with the Hyundai-Kia group’s familiar 147kW/440Nm 2.2-litre four-cylinder turbo-diesel driving all four wheels, as well as a host of the Korean car-maker’s latest technologies.

Measuring 4981mm long and 1976mm wide, the new Hyundai Palisade is slightly shorter and narrower than the CX-9, but longer and wider than the Toyota Kluger and offers a between 509 and 1297 litres of cargo space.

Expect a $50,000-plus starting price for the 2021 Hyundai Palisade, which will be positioned above the sub-$45K Santa Fe as Hyundai’s premium large SUV.

For the record, Kia’s largest SUV is offered in the US with up to eight seats, a 10.0-inch infotainment touch-screen, 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, five heated/ventilated seats, seven USB outlets and 16 cup-holders.

Both the Telluride and Palisade are based on a stretched version of the monocoque platform that underpins the Hyundai Santa Fe and Kia Sorento, leaving both Hyundai and Kia without a direct rival for the popular Toyota Prado.

That’s likely to change when each brand rolls out its own all-new large off-road SUV based on the same ladder frame as the upcoming Hyundai and Kia utes.

Such a model would effectively replace the existing LHD-only Kia Mohave and could be powered by the new straight-six turbo-diesel that debuted in the Genesis GV80 large SUV.

Both Korean brands will also reportedly release an all-new, all-electric large EV coupe-crossover previewed in Kia’s case by the 2019 Imagine concept.

So while the Kia Telluride isn’t headed Down Under, Kia Australia will have access to plenty of large new SUVs, following the launch of the new-generation Sorento in June and the redesigned Carnival people-mover in late 2020.

These new and all-new models are in addition to the upcoming Stonic micro-SUV and next year’s redesigned Sportage mid-sizer, not to mention the on/off-again Soul and Niro EVs.

But Kia Australia – which until the Seltos small SUV arrived late last year had just two SUVs – has made it clear it wants a large SUV with a separate chassis and enough towing capacity and off-road capability to match the Prado.

“We need more [SUVs]. We need one or two more bigger ones,” Meredith told carsales in January.

“There’s definitely room above Sorento, or even beside Sorento, in a ladder-frame form,” added KMAu product general manager Roland Rivero.