Kia to go electric

By Kim Da-ye

Kia Motors will unveil its first electric car in November 2011, a senior official of the Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group said Tuesday.

The vehicle hasn’t been named yet, and is a crossover utility vehicle (CUV) similar to Kia’s popular small-size CUV Morning.

The CUV will be first released in a gasoline model in September next year and in an electric model two months later.

“I believe Kia Motors’s CUV will open a new era for electric vehicles’ functions. A BlueOn is a passenger car while the CUV can be used as a truck with two passengers,” said the auto-giant’s director of its Electric Vehicle Department, Hong John-hee.

Korea’s second largest automaker follows the suit of its brother company Hyundai Motor which has developed the nation’s first high-speed electric vehicle BlueOn.

The Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group plans to supply a total of 2500 electric vehicles by the end of 2012. Only five hundred of them will be BlueOns, and the rest the CUVs.