New spy shots from
Auto Spy show a pickup truck development mule from Kia. Aside from commercial vehicles like the Bongo, Kia has never built a consumer-grade pickup, especially not for a North American audience.
Based on what we can see from these photos, the test mule is built using body-on-frame construction, meaning it competes against midsize trucks like the Ford Ranger and Toyota Tacoma, not the smaller Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz.
The front-end styling looks like the 2023 Kia Telluride, but it 2023 Kia Telluride, but it has more in common with the Kia Mohave, a larger three-row SUV that's only sold in South Korea. The Mohave is Korea's version of the Kia Borrego, which was only sold in the US for two model years. We can see the headlights are roughly the same shape as the Mohave's, and it also shares the SUV's six-lug bolt pattern.