Russell Wager, Vice President of Marketing, Kia America
Kia pulled the sheet off the all-new 2027 Telluride, Telluride Hybrid and Telluride X-Pro three-row SUVs at the 2025 Los Angeles Auto Show. This gave Clean Fleet Report the opportunity to sit down with Russell Wager, vice president of marketing at Kia America, to discuss the Telluride and the future for Kia.
Clean Fleet Report: Do you consider the all-new Telluride to be the flagship of the company?
Russell Wager, Kia: Absolutely. Not only is it the flagship of our ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles, which it had been, but now it is taking over as the flagship of HEVs (hybrid electric vehicles) both SUVs and sedans.
CFR: A bit about the Telluride history and philosophy.
Kia: This is the second generation Telluride that first came out in 2018. There has been an eight-year sales increase for the Telluride, which we consider a premium SUV. (Ed: Kia America reported its best-ever November sales on December 1.) We do not think we are a luxury brand, but know people are willing to pay a little bit more. They want the base model to have synthetic leather and not cloth seats, and more advanced technology and safety features. So our definition of premium is giving more base features and more choices. It is not about quality as quality is top-to-bottom, but about extra base elements that make it a little bit more premium.
CFR: Does the United States being the #1 market for Kia drive the design of future models?
Kia: The United States is the #1 market for Kia, but vehicle designs are done here (Irvine, California), Korea and Europe, so we have teams in each studio working on multiple products, and not just for the markets they are in. The Telluride was designed here and there are others designed in the other studios that go in those markets. We see it as a friendly competition.
CFR: Kia offers everything other than a pickup truck. What are your line-up plans?
Kia: I like to start with Kia is not what you know. For 25 years we were talking about Kia being America’s best value. It isn’t that we still are not a value, but now it is to say we offer more. We have great designs, capability, engine choices of ICE, HEV, PHEV (plug-in hybrid electric) to EVs that give the customer choice. We don’t dictate what they have to buy, but are ready for whatever they need as an option.
We don’t have a truck, but I would love one. We do have the Tasman in Australia and India but right now that is not destined for America.
CFR: Not getting political, but let’s touch on tariffs and how they affect your plans for 2026.
Kia: We have come to peace with the fact the $7,500 (EV) tax credit went away and we are still working through tariffs. We are very optimistic with the announcement earlier this month with South Korea going from 25% to 15%. We are still working on Canada and Mexico that haven’t been finalized. So there still is some uncertainty in the system, but we do have our product plans for the year and are executing our marketing plan against that.
CFR: Something that directly affects tariffs is building Kias in America.
Kia: We make the EV9, EV6, Sorrento, Sportage and Telluride in West Point, Georgia. We can shift production between five models (based on consumer demand and sales.)
CFR: So what big is coming up for Kia in 2026?
Kia: The launch for the Telluride will be in Q1 with its kick-off at the Olympics (February 6 – 22, 2026, in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy.) We will again be doing the ball drop (New York City, December 31/January 1) to tell people the Telluride has changed. We will be letting people know the Telluride has a new exterior design and the hybrid powertrain option. We would sometimes hear from someone looking at a Telluride the mpg (miles per gallon) was not as good as others. So now we have it.
We will also focus on the NBA All-Star Game being held at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles as this is one of our partner team’s (Los Angeles Clippers) arena. We also have the FIFA World Cup that is activating across the country in June and July with Telluride being the focus.
At the Kia Forum in Los Angeles we have set-up the Kia Connected Home, in partnership with Wall Box, that demonstrates bi-directional charging. (Ed: This is called vehicle-to-home (V2H) energy capabilities, where properly equipped homes enable energy transfer from vehicle to home, keeping electric power on during outages.)
CFR: I am curious about how you measure the effectiveness of the New Year’s Eve ball drop.
Kia: The measurement is purely an awareness play, and what we see is traffic for the week after the ball drop go up significantly on whatever product we featured. Something that helped awareness last year was we helped someone propose on Times Square Towers and this year we are doing something to highlight our West Point, Georgia, employees, who are doing great job building our cars.
CFR: In closing, what is the importance of the all-new 2027 Telluride to the company?
Kia: It is our halo vehicle and shows people what is possible if they step into the Kia brand. Now, not everyone can afford to step into a mid-30s-to-50s price point, so they consider the three-row Sorrento or maybe they don’t need three rows and go to the two-row Sportage. So, the Telluride creates a halo for our complete SUV line-up, showing our Kia vehicles are not just looking good on the street, but has the ability to go to the far reaches for camping out in the wilderness.
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Story by John Faulkner. Photos by John Faulkner and Kia.
