CarBuzz is at SEMA 2024, where a host of automakers have unveiled wild and fanciful concepts, some hinting at production possibilities and others not. Even Kia has returned to SEMA, choosing to showcase two adventure vehicles in the form of a modified Kia EV9 and another modified EV that hasn’t been officially launched in the US: the PV5. The PV5 is one of five commercially-aimed EVs revealed earlier this year, but Kia believes it has the potential to be sold as a mass-market vehicle, specifically one that can cater to fans of camper van conversion.

Editor-at-Large Nicole Wakelin caught up with Andre Franco Luis, manager of the Future Design Team in the US at the Kia Design Center, at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas to ask about the inspiration for the custom PV5 and its potential for the future.

The Swiss Army Knife Of Electric Vans

The PV5 occupies a compact footprint, relying on its height to increase spaciousness while its electric skateboard chassis creates a platform on which you can build the most practical EV possible. But with the WKNDR concept shown at SEMA, the already practical van is now capable of adapting to suit the needs of adventurers, with a configurable interior and pop-up roof tent among some of its core features.

“We believe that camping is all about being clever, right?” says Luis. “So travel smart. So what you will see is a vehicle that, in its overall proportions when it’s closed, is relatively efficiently compact, but it has the ability to expand into what I like to call a transformer, a multi-tool on wheels, to really give you the space that you would actually normally have at a bigger vehicle.”

American Market Prompted Kia To Think Outside The Box

The Kia PV5 hasn’t been confirmed for the US market, but it was revealed in the US at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2024 in January, first as a ride-hailing car and then as a high-roof delivery van. But already at that stage, Kia was thinking about the potential beyond these two derivatives. According to Luis, “One [of the PV5s at CES] was a hailing car, for Uber and Lyft rides. The other one was actually a high-roof delivery van, and we thought within that family, there’s way more potential. So back then, we were already thinking, for the US, but also as an inspiration to the rest of the world, about having something that is relatively compact, but expandable would be an amazing feat.”

Luis’s mention of the US as inspiration prompted us to ask whether the PV5 would be sold stateside, but he was quick to say, “That’s something I cannot disclose at this.”

Doing Something Mercedes Sprinter Camper Conversions Can’t

While its future is still open-ended, US infrastructure played a huge part in developing the PV5 concept. In the US, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter vans are routinely used as the basis for camper conversions, with a variety of ready-made kits available just about anywhere in the country. But the Sprinter is a full-size van with a huge footprint, and if you start off with a high-roof van as a base, you’re often limited in terms of parking opportunities when you’re not out in the wilderness.

This was a problem Kia wanted to address with the WKNDR concept, citing the PV5’s compact footprint and height as the reasons it was the natural choice for such a build. “That was one of the main thoughts here,” Luis explains, telling us that it would only work with a vehicle with a height of sub-eight feet. The PV5’s compact height, plus its roomy and versatile interior, fit that bill perfectly.

Turning The Interior Into A Lounge-Like Experience

Any camper conversion is all about versatility, and the WKNDR has that attribute in spades. The “Gear Head” provides exterior storage that doubles as a mobile pantry for cooking in the wilderness and the solar panels and hydro turbine wheels help recharge the batteries even when you’re off-grid. But Luis’s favorite feature of the concept isn’t one of those technical innovations, it’s the trail lounger interior configuration, which he hints could become a production-ready feature in future adventure vehicles.

“The one thing that I really think that that we’re pushing – and it’s a possibility that we could execute it that way – is the trail lounger on the passenger side,” said Luis. “The trail lounger is effectively the finished product of a manual reconfiguration of the cabin in which you can rotate the front passenger seat to face rearwards, use framework from within the cabin to create a table-like frame, and then pull removable cushions off the walls of the van and lay them on this frame to create a lounge that looks right out of the passenger-side sliding door across whatever stunning vista you’ve chosen for a weekend getaway.”

A Concept To Inspire Future Adventure Vehicles

The WKNDR Van is a concept, but what purpose does a concept have if not to inspire something we might actually see? With the growing popularity of camper vans, something like the PV5 would be perfect to, as Luis puts it, “change your perspective and actually get some downtime […] you want to escape from the busyness.” And Luis hopes that this concept may, at the very least inspire decisions taken in other adventure models from the brand, perhaps in SUVs like the Telluride and EV9, and maybe even the Kia Tasman.

“I personally hope that we, as a team and as an organization, inspire,” concluded Luis, adding, “We’re here at SEMA because we want everybody to engage in the process. We want the feedback. We want to become better. And the way I see it, we can almost be like an open source. So if people actually have ideas, they can comment on them to us, and we can include them in our designs for the future.”