Kia’s rugged EV concepts are standouts at 2024’s SEMA conference

The Specialty Tools Market Affiliation, or SEMA, held its annual convention in Las Vegas this week. Billed as one of many largest automotive reveals on the earth, the occasion sometimes brings collectively greater than 135,000 attendees within the automotive aftermarket trade to see the most recent developments in car repairs and modifications.

And whereas there weren’t as many electrical car ideas and one-offs as years previous — in spite of everything, we’re within the midst of a historic transition within the auto trade that’s equal components momentous and slower going than we anticipated — there have been nonetheless a handful of attention-grabbing plug-in fashions price highlighting.

The Stellantis-owned components and equipment division introduced various compelling ideas to this 12 months’s SEMA present. However none of them have been as effortlessly cool as this 1967 Plymouth GTX “electromod.” This one-of-a-kind restomod relies on the — you guessed it — 1967 Plymouth GTX muscle automotive. And this new conversion is a style of what’s to return from the world of electrical conversions of basic vehicles.

Mopar wished to point out what was doable — a “potential future,” the corporate put it in its press launch — utilizing Mopar’s e-Crate propulsion techniques. Traditional automotive fans may decide up one in all these conversion kits to rework a classic muscle automotive or truck right into a battery-electric car.

Mopar tweaked the Plymouth’s exterior to incorporate a carbon-fiber entrance splitter and customized low-profile rear spoiler. The corporate additionally paid homage to the flip-top gas caps of the Sixties and ’70s by updating its operate as a charge-port door.

Kia’s spacious three-row EV9 obtained a rugged facelift for SEMA, remodeling into a brand new adventure-themed idea aptly named ADVNTR. Showing alongside it’s the WKNDR idea, based mostly on Kia’s Platform Past Car (PBV) modular idea that was first revealed at CES earlier this 12 months.

Collectively, each ideas are designed for off-the-beaten-path excursions, with customized exterior designs aimed toward mountain climbing or river fording. The EV9-based ADVNTR is raised three inches greater than the usual EV9, together with rugged wheel and tire combos. In the meantime, the WKNDR can be perched on off-road-capable tires and contains a customizable inside for an countless number of out of doors adventures.

Kia highlights a number of modular options: an onboard compressor to deal with inflation, from adjusting tire stress to inflating air mattresses for tenting; a cell pantry for out of doors cooking; and built-in photo voltaic panels and hydro-turbine wheels that may recharge the batteries.