Here’s Why the 2027 Kia Telluride Hybrid Is the Company’s King

For Kia, the Telluride three-row SUV is the gift that keeps on giving. With the addition of a hybrid for the second-generation 2027 Telluride, the automaker expects the model’s popularity will only increase.

The first 2027 Kia Telluride hybrid rolled off the line at the plant in West Point, Georgia, this week. It was celebrated as a milestone for a number of reasons. It is the first U.S.-built Kia hybrid and the first hybrid assembled in Georgia; a hybrid was the five millionth vehicle to roll off the West Point plant’s line since the first Kia Sorento in November 2009.

Kia’s West Point plant in Georgia is known as the Telluride factory.

Stuart Countess, president and CEO of Kia Georgia, quips that West Point is becoming the Telluride factory. The plant, about 80 miles from Atlanta, makes five models: the Kia Sorento, Sportage, and Telluride SUVs with internal combustion engines, and the EV6 electric sedan and EV9 electric three-row SUV.

The first Telluride three-row SUV was built in 2019, carrying hopes it would sell 60,000 examples per year, but no one imagined the impact it would ultimately have. Annual sales doubled to 120,000, and most years it outsold its counterpart, the Hyundai Palisade. Unlike many vehicles that start out hot followed by demand leveling off, Telluride orders increased steadily, Countess said. “I’ve never seen a car be so popular for so long,” the 30-year industry veteran pointed out.

The new sales target for the 2027 Kia Telluride is 180,000 a year, said Sean Yoon, president and CEO of Kia North America and head of the North American region. It has become a halo vehicle for the entire lineup, attracting new customers and redefining the brand.

2027 Kia Telluride now has a hybrid.

Now Two Telluride Choices

The plant began building the all-new 2027 model in January 2026, with a 274-horsepower, 311-lb-ft 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-four engine (replacing the V-6) and eight-speed automatic transmission. The hybrid pairs the 2.5-liter with two electric motors and a six-speed automatic transmission, producing 329 hp and 339 lb-ft of torque.

About 55 percent of the vehicles coming out of the plant today are Tellurides; in the first generation they accounted for just less than half of the total production, but Countess thinks it will be more with this new model and the addition of the hybrid. Right now, 55–58 percent of Tellurides coming off the line are hybrids as the plant ramps up.

Georgia is the only place where Kia makes the Telluride, with the U.S. as the main market. The first-generation SUV was also sold in Canada. The second generation will make it to Canada, but its launch is delayed by a year. That is because the plant can barely meet U.S. demand, but the other factor is the tariff war led by the Trump administration that prompted Canada to retaliate with tariffs of its own on U.S. goods. Some Tellurides are also sold in the Middle East.

Kia’s West Point plant in Georgia is the only place that assembles Tellurides.

Talk About Flexibility

West Point is a clean, quiet, and flexible plant, building five different vehicles—with combustion engines, hybrids, and fully electric models all made on the same line, with 3,200 employees spread across three shifts. The plant runs five days a week, 24 hours per day, with overtime on weekends as needed. It is running at full capacity, punching out 68 vehicles per hour and 350,000 vehicles per year. Each one takes almost 22 hours to build. The plant sits on 2,200 acres; there is land to expand in the future, if necessary, but there are no plans to do so.

Kia planned for the 2027 Telluride to have a hybrid option from the start, so the plant was prepared accordingly as part of changes made three and a half years ago to accommodate EVs. It meant no sub-lines were necessary, just some workstations on the main line that cater to the hybrid’s specs.

The Hyundai Motor Group’s Metaplant near Savannah plans to use Atlas humanoid robots in the future. There are no plans to add them to the West Point facility, but there will be some robot dogs from Boston Dynamics, which is part of the Hyundai Group. The dogs are due to be delivered soon, Countess said. They are best suited to areas like logistics for parts sequencing—places where repetitive work is performed in a confined space. There are no fears of robots displacing people at the West Point plant, Countess said.