Starting in the second half of 2029, Kia will deploy the Humanoid Robot "Atlas" at its production plant in Georgia. In the same year, it will also unveil self-driving cars that span highways and urban areas, strengthening future businesses. To that end, it decided to invest 49 trillion won over five years.
On Apr. 9, Kia held the "2026 CEO Investor Day" at The Shilla Seoul in Jung-gu and unveiled its mid- to long-term business strategy to investors and analysts. It plans to invest a total of 49 trillion won from this year through 2030 to secure future competitiveness. This is an increase of 7 trillion won from the previous five-year (2025–2029) plan. Of this, investments to secure future competitiveness, including electrification, Autonomous Driving, and Robotics, will total 21 trillion won, up 11% from before.
First, it will work to establish leadership in Robotics. Kia plans to sequentially launch the purpose-built vehicles (PBVs) PV7 and PV9 in 2027 and 2029, and will take on the challenge of pioneering a new "last-mile delivery" market with solutions that combine these vehicles with robots such as Stretch and Spot. This market is estimated at $288.0 billion (about 426.8 trillion won) annually.
The Humanoid Robot Atlas under development by Hyundai Motor Group will also be deployed in 2029 at the Georgia plant (KaGA) in the United States. Hyundai Motor earlier said it would apply Atlas in 2028 at the Meta Plant America (HMGMA) in Georgia, and Kia is keeping pace with that. A Kia official said, "We will then push for a phased expansion to global plants, and by selecting 16 core manufacturing processes on the production floor, we will work to improve safety, productivity, and quality."
It will also accelerate the development of Autonomous Driving and software-defined vehicles (SDVs). Kia aims to complete development of its first software-defined vehicle (SDV) model equipped with Level 2+ technology for highways by the end of 2027.
In early 2029, it plans to apply Level 2++ technology that enables Autonomous Driving on highways and in urban environments. Level 2 is a partial automation level that requires constant driver supervision. At Level 2+, the driver can take hands off the steering wheel, but use is limited to highways. Level 2++ can also be used in urban areas.
A Kia official said, "We will build a data federation through a partnership with Nvidia," and added, "At the same time, we will accumulate real-world driving data through global sales of several million units a year to implement a virtuous data cycle in which data accumulation, learning, performance improvement, and product application are repeated."