Kia aims to revolutionize the commercial vehicle market

Kia will showcase its PBV, PV5, and PV7 concepts for their European premiere at the IAA show in Hanover from September 16 to 22, 2024.

This new concept from Kia is beautiful and refined, but is it a van, a truck, or a light vehicle? It’s actually a bit of all of those. Rightly proud of its 100% electric multipurpose vehicle concept, Kia is presenting them in Europe.

The acronym PBV stands for “Platform Beyond Vehicles.” Specifically, it refers to a unique fully electric, connected, and modular technical base. These PBVs from Kia offer an innovative approach to the light commercial vehicle market thanks to a modular and transformable body that can adapt to countless needs using a single chassis.

In practice, the front part of the vehicle, housing the driver and the entire engine system, separates from the interchangeable rear section. With electric technologies, everything becomes simpler in terms of modularity. The wheels, the flat chassis housing the batteries, and the various propulsion components stay in place.

These are, of course, just prototypes, and the enticing promotional video released by Kia is more based on virtual illustrations than on real vehicles. However, if Kia manages to bring its PBV concept into production, even limiting the number of configurations, it will be a significant achievement, as all manufacturers worldwide have struggled with this project so far!

Kia claims that the reality will be very close to the vehicles presented at the IAA. However, let’s wait for 2025 and the unveiling of the actual model, but Kia seems to be on the right track. Proving its ambitions, the Korean manufacturer has already announced a base price of 35,000 euros for the main structure!

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