Staying positive! Kia aims for huge EV sales growth and hybrid expansion in Australia in 2025 to avoid CO2 emissions penalties
Kia has declared its ambition to claim a vastly larger chunk of Australia’s slow-growth EV market in 2025 and place itself among traditional market leader Tesla’s primarily Chinese band of pursuers.
The Korean brand is aiming for at least 11,000 EV sales in 2025 based on up to 6000 EV5 medium SUV sales and around 4000 EV3 compact SUV sales with the balance taken up by the larger and more expensive EV6 and EV9. It has recently axed its first EV launched in Australia, the Niro.
Kia sold only 3610 EVs in Australia in 2024. But based on current sale levels after the first three months of 2025 and before the EV3 has any serious sales impact, Kia has already pushed itself up to number four EV brand behind Tesla, MG and BYD.
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While Tesla is the clear EV sales lead on 5160 sales, the other three are grouped close together on 1920, 1848 and 1653 sales respectively to the end of March.
BMW, with 1481 sales, is the only other brand to have sold more than 1000 EVs in Australia in the first three months of 2025.
Kia’s 11,000 EV target is a cornerstone of its plan to sell a record 90,000 vehicles overall in 2025 while also avoiding New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) financial penalties.
“There’s a lot we have to get right in regard to mix of sales,” said Kia Australia CEO Damien Meredith.
“We have done permutations and combinations thousands of times and we know what we have to do to sell 90,000 … We have to achieve a certain percentage of EVs sales.
“We are well aware of what we have to do. The challenge for all manufacturers is the market has to accept what the mix of sales has to be. That’s the challenge.”
Kia will face a strong sales obstacle from Tesla with its new Juniper Model Y, an expanding line-up of MG EV Models including the MG S5 compact SUV that launches in June and an inevitable expansion of the BYD line-up. There are also more new Chinese brand arriving including XPeng, Deepal and Geely.
“You’ve got a multitude of Chinese brands entering the market,” said Meredith. “There doesn’t seem to be much coming out of Japan or Western Europe, so if people are going to buy EVs in the amount the [federal] government wants them to do then it’s either going to be us or the Chinese.”
Reaching 90,000 sales would be an all-time record for Kia in Australia, surpassing its 81,787 sales in 2024.
While the EV3 and EV5 are the key contributors to reaching Kia’s EV sales target, an EV6 facelift will arrive in the third quarter to provide a boost and the brand new EV4 passenger car is scheduled for the fourth quarter.
Also due later in 2025 will be the EV9 GT, which will be high-priced and extremely low volume.
The other key Kia initiative to avoid NVES CO2 penalties will be a substantial increase in petrol-electric hybrid models, including cheaper versions of the Carnival and Sorento hybrid and the addition of multiple Sportage all-wheel drive hybrids.
There will also be a throttling back of supply of some orthodox internal combustion powertrain options to encourage the take-up of hybrid.
Meredith stressed the aim in 2025 would be for Kia to not only break even with its NVES target but to finish well in credit.
“It’s always a good idea to be in credit in case the shit hits the fan down the track and your mix of sales aren’t what you want it to be,” the always blunt Meredith said.
“We are going to sell as many EVs as possible to be in the positive rather than the negative.”
