2026 Kia CEO Investor Day: Kia to Drive Exponential Growth and Manufacturing Innovation by Expanding Its Full Electrified Vehicle Lineup and Strengthening Future Business Capabilities

• Kia presents its 2030 mid- to long-term strategy, detailing its vehicle- and region-specific exponential growth plans
  
1. Targets global sales of 4.13 million units per year by 2030, with a global market share goal of 4.5%; targets sales of 3.35 million units in 2026
2. Expands EV lineup to 14 models, aiming for 1 million annual EV sales by 2030
3. Targets annual HEV sales of 1.1 million units through expanded lineup of 13 HEV models by 2030
4. Sets a PBV sales target of 232,000 units by 2030, leveraging its full lineup of PV5, PV7, and PV9 models to strengthen its presence in the LCV market
5. Accelerate exponential growth in key regions, with sales targets of 1.02 million units in the U.S., 746,000 units in Europe, and 1.48 million units in emerging markets
• Kia reveals execution roadmap for SDVs, autonomous driving (AV), and robotics, accelerating its future business strategy
• Plans to invest a total of KRW 49 trillion over the next five years (2026-2030), including KRW 21 trillion allocated to future businesses
• Sets 2030 financial targets of KRW 170 trillion in revenue, a 10% operating profit margin, and KRW 17 trillion in operating profit
• Kia President and CEO Ho Sung Song said, "EVs, HEVs, autonomous driving, and robotics will serve as key drivers for Kia's fastest growth to date"

SEOUL, South Korea, April 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Kia Corporation (Kia) today shared its mid-to-long-term business strategies and financial targets at its 2026 CEO Investor Day held in Seoul, Korea.

This year's event focused on reviewing the five-year progress of Kia's 'Total Transformation' initiative, following the company's brand relaunch in 2021. Kia also outlined its mid- to long-term growth roadmap across all business sectors.

"Building on the achievements of innovation across all areas over the past five years —including brand, EVs, PBVs, and ESG — EVs, HEVs, autonomous driving, and robotics will serve as key drivers for Kia's fastest growth to date. Even amid the evolving global environment, Kia will proactively respond to changing market conditions through differentiated strategies." – Ho Sung Song, President and CEO of Kia Corporation. 

2030 Mid- to Long-Term Business Strategy

Kia aims to pursue a strategy to accelerate exponential growth, targeting global sales of 4.13 million units by 2030 with a 4.5 percent market share. This compares with a sales goal of 3.35 million units with a 3.8 percent market share in 2026.

Kia places customers at the centre of its business strategy and, over the mid- to long-term, the company intends to expand its mobility ecosystem with a strategic focus on PBVs, autonomous driving, and robotics, connecting people and infrastructure to drive enhanced value creation for both customers and wider society.

Overview of Key Announcements at Kia 2026 CEO Investor Day

Category			Content
2030 Mid- to Long- Term Business Strategy	Global Sales Targets		2026 annual sales target: 3.35 million units; 3.8% market share 2030 annual sales target: 4.13 million units; 4.5% market share
	ICE & HEV		Launch 9 ICE models by 2030 Expand HEV lineup to 13 models by 2030 HEV sales target: 2026, 690,000 units → 2030, 1.1 million units (2030, 1.15 million xHEV units, including HEV/EREV/PHEVs) Launch Body on Frame pickup truck with HEV, EREV variants by 2030
	EV	Sales Target	2030 annual sales target: 1 million units; 3.8% market share
		Enhancing EV Product Competitiveness	Establish lineup of 14 models 2 passenger vehicles 9 SUVs 3 PBV models Introduce next‑generation EV platform Expansion of mass‑market EV lineup starting with EV2 in 2026
		Improving EV Accessibility	Expand charging infrastructure with global charging partners Strengthen charging networks in Korea (including Hyundai Motor Group's E-pit network), the U.S., and Europe
		Strengthening EV Supply Chain	Operate EV production hubs (EVO Plants in Korea) Optimize regional production – Europe (EV2, EV4) and the U.S. (EV6, EV9)
	PBV		2030 annual sales target: 232,000 units (PV5, PV7, PV9) Sequential launches of PV5 (2025), PV7 (2027), PV9 (2029) Utilize Hwaseong EVO Plant as dedicated PBV production hub
	Regional Ex-growth	U.S.	2030 annual sales target: 1.02 million units; 6.2% market share HEV lineup expansion (4 → 8 models) & strengthen SUV volume models
		Europe	2030 annual sales target: 746,000 units; 4.8% market share Introduce Kia's first SDV B-segment hatchback (B-HB) EV Increase EV sales mix (2025 23% → 2030 66%)
		Emerging Markets	2030 annual sales target: 1.48 million units; 6.6% market share India targets 2030 annual sales of 410,000 units (market share 7.6%)
Future Strategy	Autonomous Driving		Establish data-driven cycle of continuous improvement through NVIDIA partnership and strengthening in-house technology Strategy ① Preemptive sensor and system‑level standardization through global partnerships to enable data scalability Strategy ② Advancement of in‑house end‑to‑end (E2E) autonomous driving model capabilities based on 'Data Flywheel' Complete development of Kia's first SDV model by the end of 2027, followed by introduction of Level 2++ autonomous driving technology in early 2029
	Robotics		Develop last‑mile delivery solutions integrating robots with Kia PBVs (PV7, PV9) Deploys Atlas at HMGMA starting in 2028 and Kia AutoLand Georgia in 2029
2026 Business Plan &  Mid- to Long-Term Financial Targets			2030 (KRW): Revenue 170 trn, OP 17 trn, OP Margin 10% 5 Year Investment (2026~2030): KRW 49 trn (Future business Investment KRW 21 trn) 2028 TSR target of over 35%, with continued enhancement of shareholder returns

Category

Content

2030
Mid- to
Long-
Term Business Strategy

Global Sales Targets

• 2026 annual sales target: 3.35 million units; 3.8% market share
• 2030 annual sales target: 4.13 million units; 4.5% market share

 

ICE & HEV

• Launch 9 ICE models by 2030
• Expand HEV lineup to 13 models by 2030
• HEV sales target: 2026, 690,000 units → 2030, 1.1 million units (2030, 1.15 million xHEV units, including HEV/EREV/PHEVs)
• Launch Body on Frame pickup truck with HEV, EREV variants by 2030

 

EV

Sales Target

• 2030 annual sales target: 1 million units; 3.8% market share

 

Enhancing EV Product
Competitiveness

• Establish lineup of 14 models
  • 2 passenger vehicles
  • 9 SUVs
  • 3 PBV models

• Introduce next‑generation EV platform
• Expansion of mass‑market EV lineup starting with EV2 in 2026

 

Improving EV Accessibility

• Expand charging infrastructure with global charging partners
• Strengthen charging networks in Korea (including Hyundai Motor Group's E-pit network), the U.S., and Europe

 

Strengthening
EV Supply Chain

• Operate EV production hubs (EVO Plants in Korea)
• Optimize regional production – Europe (EV2, EV4) and the U.S. (EV6, EV9)

 

PBV

• 2030 annual sales target: 232,000 units (PV5, PV7, PV9)
• Sequential launches of PV5 (2025), PV7 (2027), PV9 (2029)
• Utilize Hwaseong EVO Plant as dedicated PBV production hub

 

Regional
Ex-growth

U.S.

• 2030 annual sales target: 1.02 million units; 6.2% market share
• HEV lineup expansion (4 → 8 models) & strengthen SUV volume models

 

Europe

• 2030 annual sales target: 746,000 units; 4.8% market share
• Introduce Kia's first SDV B-segment hatchback (B-HB) EV
• Increase EV sales mix (2025 23% → 2030 66%)

 

Emerging
Markets

• 2030 annual sales target: 1.48 million units; 6.6% market share
• India targets 2030 annual sales of 410,000 units (market share 7.6%)

 

Future
Strategy

Autonomous Driving

• Establish data-driven cycle of continuous improvement through NVIDIA partnership and strengthening in-house technology
• Strategy ① Preemptive sensor and system‑level standardization through global partnerships to enable data scalability
• Strategy ② Advancement of in‑house end‑to‑end (E2E) autonomous driving model capabilities based on 'Data Flywheel'
• Complete development of Kia's first SDV model by the end of 2027, followed by introduction of Level 2++ autonomous driving technology in early 2029

 

Robotics

• Develop last‑mile delivery solutions integrating robots with Kia PBVs (PV7, PV9)
• Deploys Atlas at HMGMA starting in 2028 and Kia AutoLand Georgia in 2029

2026 Business Plan & 
Mid- to Long-Term Financial Targets

• 2030 (KRW): Revenue 170 trn, OP 17 trn, OP Margin 10%
• 5 Year Investment (2026~2030): KRW 49 trn
  (Future business Investment KRW 21 trn)
• 2028 TSR target of over 35%, with continued enhancement of shareholder returns

 

For more information, visit the Kia Global Newsroom.

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2026 Kia CEO Investor Day: Kia to Drive Exponential Growth and Manufacturing Innovation by Expanding Its Full Electrified Vehicle Lineup and Strengthening Future Business Capabilities

Release includes motion dataset, foundation model, and streaming architecture designed to align speech, gesture, and expression in live conversation

JINAN, China, April 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- SentiPulse, a leading AI company focused on emotional foundation models and user experience innovation, in collaboration with a PhD team from the Gaoling School of Artificial Intelligence (GSAI), Renmin University of China (RUC), announced the open-source release of SentiAvatar, a framework for building expressive interactive 3D digital humans.

SentiAvatar powers SUSU, a real-time 3D avatar capable of conversation, expressive motion, and emotional delivery. The release includes the full SentiAvatar framework, the SUSU character model, and the SuSuInterActs high-quality motion dataset, all now freely available on GitHub.

In the rapidly advancing field of 3D digital humans, one long-overlooked yet critical issue is becoming increasingly clear: unnatural expression. The avatar's mouth moves and its hands gesture, but the actions don't match the meaning, and the face looks stiff. The combination quickly triggers the uncanny valley effect.

The issue is simple: human communication has never relied on spoken language alone. A shrug conveys helplessness, a nod signals agreement, and a slight raise of the eyebrow hints at doubt. These nonverbal signals—gestures, posture, facial expressions—are the soul of real conversation.

Yet getting a 3D digital human to naturally "gesture and move as they speak" in real conversation has proven far harder than expected. This is not purely an engineering challenge—it involves three persistent challenges that have never been solved: the lack of high-quality data, the unmet need to understand composite semantic actions, and the difficulty of syncing motion with the rhythm of speech.

SentiAvatar: A Framework for 3D Digital Human Motion Generation

The SuSuInterActs Dataset 

SentiPulse built SuSuInterActs around a single character: SUSU (age 22, warm and lively, emotionally rich). The dataset contains 21,000 clips and 37 hours of multimodal conversational data, including synchronized speech, annotated behavioral text, full-body motion, and facial expressions—helping address the lack of high-quality Chinese-language datasets in the field.

Motion Foundation Model: Pre-trained on 200K+ Sequences

As conversational motion data is inherently limited by dialogue scenarios, the team pre-trained a proprietary Motion Foundation Model on more than 200,000 heterogeneous motion sequences (approximately 676 hours), learning general motion patterns that go far beyond dialogue-specific actions.

Core Architecture: Plan-Then-Infill 

SentiAvatar introduces a novel dual-channel parallel architecture - Plan-Then-Infill. It separates body motion from facial expression, first planning what action to perform and then infilling in how to execute it frame by frame.

State-of-the-Art Real-Time Performance 

SentiAvatar achieves new SOTA results on both the SuSuInterActs and BEATv2 datasets. Compared to mainstream models: MoMask lacks speech input and results in rhythm that feels static and disconnected; EMAGE syncs with audio but ignores semantic intent; AT2M-GPT can misinterpret the meaning of actions; and HunYuan-Motion can produce unstable outputs, often with distorted or unnatural movements. SentiAvatar delivers semantically accurate motion that is tightly aligned with audio.

The framework generates six-second motion sequences within 0.3 seconds and supports infinite-turn streaming interaction. This means digital humans can continuously generate coherent gestures and expressions during live conversation—without waiting for a full sentence to finish before processing, directly addressing one of the core causes of unnatural expression.

Open Source and Beyond: From Digital Humans to Digital Life

The SentiPulse team invites research organizations and individual developers worldwide to push the boundaries of 3D motion generation. Whether you want to build your own 3D companion from scratch or extend SUSU with richer expressive capabilities for games, film production, robotics, or beyond—the open-source framework is ready.

GitHub: https://sentiavatar.github.io/
Technical report: https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.02908

About SentiPulse
SentiPulse, founded in September 2025, is an AI company focused on emotional foundation models and user experience innovation. The company is dedicated to deepening the relationship between humans and AI through advanced technology—not simply as tools, but as a bridge to more natural and expressive interaction. The team consists of top researchers from leading Chinese universities and cross-disciplinary experts with deep expertise in multimodal models and 3D digital humans.

 

** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **

SentiAvatar, the First Interactive 3D Digital Human Framework from SentiPulse and GSAI, Now Open Source