Hyundai Announces Plans for a Body-on-Frame Mid-Size Pickup Truck
This model will be larger than the Santa Cruz, aims for the Toyota Tacoma and Chevy Colorado, and could also spawn an SUV variant.
2025 hyundai santa cruz
Hyundai
Hyundai has confirmed it will launch a mid-size pickup truck in the U.S. “before 2030.”
This pickup will use a body-on-frame platform, and Hyundai CEO José Muñoz also said that an SUV variant is possible.
These new models could use the same hybrid system as the Palisade Hybrid, with a turbocharged 2.5-liter inline-four.
Hyundai is planning to take the fight to the Toyota Tacoma and Chevy Colorado with a new mid-size pickup truck that will launch in the U.S. market before 2030. At the company’s CEO Investor Day event, CEO José Muñoz confirmed that this model would use a body-on-frame platform and that it could also spawn an SUV variant. Muñoz also suggested that this pickup could use the 329-hp hybrid powertrain from the Palisade Hybrid mid-size SUV.
The company has indicated that this vehicle for the U.S. will be an in-house-developed product, not a rebadged GM pickup as we previously reported. Hyundai’s partnership with GM will instead produce a pickup for the South American market, along with commercial vans for the States.
We don’t know any details about this new body-on-frame platform, but we suspect it could share components with the Kia Tasman pickup that’s sold in global markets. The pickup would likely be a four-door crew cab offering, as many mid-size trucks have adopted this configuration as the default body style. The potential SUV derivative, meanwhile, could be a competitor to off-road-oriented, body-on-frame SUVs including the Toyota 4Runner, Ford Bronco, and Jeep Wrangler.
Hyundai’s only foray into the U.S. truck market so far is the compact Santa Cruz, which uses a unibody construction shared with the Tucson crossover. This model hasn’t racked up significant sales in the U.S., as it sells in smaller volumes than its closest competitor, the Ford Maverick. Hyundai surely has higher hopes for this new pickup model, as there’s more opportunity in the mid-size truck segment. Stay tuned for more information still to come on this new body-on-frame platform over the next few years.
More on Hyundai Pickups and SUVs
2025 Hyundai Santa Cruz Pickup Puts on Fresh Face
2026 Hyundai Palisade Revealed in New York
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Joey Capparella
Deputy Editor, Rankings Content
Despite being raised on a steady diet of base-model Hondas and Toyotas—or perhaps because of it—Joey Capparella nonetheless cultivated an obsession for the automotive industry throughout his childhood in Nashville, Tennessee. He found a way to write about cars for the school newspaper during his college years at Rice University, which eventually led him to move to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for his first professional auto-writing gig at Automobile Magazine. He has been part of the Car and Driver team since 2016 and now lives in New York City.
