Kia India will launch a mass-market electric vehicle in 2025.

The Korean company, known as a player in the premium segment, is benchmarking the Tata Nexon EV to determine the price bracket and the range of its forthcoming product.

When asked to define what it means by mass-market EV, Myung-Sik Sohn, chief business and marketing officer of Kia India, said: “We plan to have an affordable EV. It will be more premium than Tata Nexon. And it will have a range more than Tata Nexon.”

He was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of the new Sonet earlier in the week.

Tata Nexon EV, a five-seater e-SUV, has an ARAI-certified range of 465 km and is priced between Rs 14.74 lakh and Rs 19.94 lakh.

It is the largest-selling EV in the market so far, garnering almost 74 per cent of total EV sales in India.

Kia in its strategy to launch made-in-India EVs is preparing to set up the entire EV ecosystem in India.

“We are preparing for local production of EVs. We plan to localise the battery system. Localisation is the biggest challenge given the battery technology in India,” said Sohn.

The Korean company is also betting on exporting its Made-in-India EV products from India and is looking to make the country its EV hub, said Sohn.

On the charging infrastructure, Sohn said: “We want to install charging infrastructure before we introduce the mass-market EV. We already have 16 dealers who have 150kw fast-chargers, one of them is 240kw. We are planning to have 40 numbers of 90kw chargers in our networks in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities. We are also installing public chargers.”