Kia Ramps Up Telluride Production for a Fifth Time Because It’s Just That Popular

The Kia Telluride has been an absolute slam-dunk for the Korean brand, with nearly 60,000 units sold in 2019 alone and doubling that annual volume over the past four years. The second-generation Telluride is arriving in dealerships now, and Kia reckons it will only reinforce the runaway success of the current model. Despite the current car’s success, it has been hamstrung from nearly the get-go, and this time around, Kia is better prepared to meet America’s seemingly insatiable demand for SUVs.

The Telluride launched with an annual sales target of about 60,000 units—which the company considered ambitious at the time—and hit it pretty much immediately out of the gate in a sales “year” that actually only consisted of ten months because the Telluride hit showrooms in March. It was so successful that Kia’s American staff began referring to it as the “Sell-u-ride;” and customers couldn’t get enough of it. The Georgia plant that builds the Telluride also builds several other models, meaning that an increase in volume for Telluride would have to come at the expense of something (or somethings) else.

Kia needed more volume, but there was a catch. The plant capacity is stated at 350,000 a year. So they had to balance out between the other models to facilitate increased volume there.

Even if an automaker can free up line capacity, it still needs parts—parts that frequently come from third-party suppliers. And those suppliers weren’t just hamstrung by Covid, they were also held back by the fact that Kia didn’t expect the Telluride to be such a huge hit. The more difficult part is, really, how do you manage the supply base?

They’re typically only tooled to make X amount, and then you need X plus Alpha. After achieving a 100% increase in output, Countess feels they’ve hit the ceiling (~120,000 units) for the current (the first-generation) Telluride. And dealer excitement for the new model is high, which means Telluride buyers could be in for a repeat performance.

If you ask him, that’s a nice problem to have—and one that Kia is more prepared to address this time around. The second-generation Telluride is designed at a higher capacity, and so they plan that into their production systems already. Kia increased capacity by about 60,000 units over the past six years, and Countess says they could accomplish that same feat again—provided demand is there, of course—meaning that Kia has 50% more headroom in the new model than the current one.