SsangYong to look very different in 2025: Korea's number three brand to launch Torres electric car and potentially adopt new KGM name in Australia before the end of the year

Off the back of the reveal of the new Actyon coupe SUV, Ssangyong’s local division has reaffirmed its plans to begin renewing its model line-up before the end of the year, and commented on the possibility of a name change to sync up with its new parent company.

Talking to CarsGuide, the brand’s communications representative John Taylor said the Torres EVX electric SUV is due Down Under in Q4 of 2024 and the local division had the slick-looking new Actyon under consideration for our market, but couldn’t yet confirm timing.

The combustion version of the Torres was due mid-year though no release plans have been confirmed yet.

Interestingly, commenting on recent media reports that the brand would swap names to KG Mobility locally to sync up with the brand’s current international name, Taylor said signage dubbed ‘KGM SsangYong’ was a ‘good indication of the probable future’

Internationally, the SsangYong name (translating to ‘Double Dragon’) was dumped by new owners, KG Group, after it acquired a financially-troubled SsangYong from Mahindra in 2022.

KG Group promised an aggressive turn-around for the brand, including a slew of new-generation products to replace its ageing line-up and a rebrand to KG Mobility to do away with what it says were ‘painful images’ associated with the SsangYong name.

While SsangYong has managed to survive in the face of multiple bankruptcies, unlike its once-rival Daewoo, its history has been marred by long bouts of underperformance and labour unrest at its manufacturing facilities.

Locally, the brand has resisted the global push to change to KG Mobility, or KGM for short, citing a hard-won reputation as a genuine alternative brand, but it seems time for the SsangYong name may have finally run out. It is unclear whether the brand will go with the full ‘KG Mobility’ name as it appears in Korea, or whether it will be shortened to ‘KGM’ in a similar move to Great Wall Motors, which rebranded itself to GWM. Badges on the rear of cars sold in Korea are shortened to ‘KGM’.

It is understood that the name change may coincide with the launch of the Torres EVX before the end of 2024.

The Torres mid-size SUV is SsangYong’s first new-generation product in five years, since the launch of the fourth-generation Korando in 2019.

The SUV sits above the Korando and is roughly Toyota RAV4-sized. Combustion versions are powered by a 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine (125kW/280Nm) in either front-wheel drive or all-wheel drive layouts via a six-speed automatic transmission. The Torres EVX swaps the engine for a front-mounted electric motor, producing 152kW/340Nm. It scores a 433km driving range courtesy of a 74.4kWh battery pack.

The Torres is part of a new-generation model push which will also include the Actyon as a more upmarket-looking coupe-SUV spin-off. Expect a production version of the 0100 ute concept as a sub-Musso ute while the KR10 looks to be a more retro-styled new-generation replacement for the current Korando.

A final concept KG Mobility showed at the Seoul Mobility show – dubbed the F100 – hints at what could be a next-generation Rexton replacement. The current second-generation Rexton is SsangYong’s oldest product, launched in 2017, although it has received significant model year updates in 2020 and 2023.

SsangYong’s most successful product in Australia, the affordable and competitively-specified Musso ute, launched in 2018 and has also since been updated.

It is the sole product in the brand’s line-up posting year-on-year gains (up 12.1 per cent), while the rest of the range has worked backward (down 20.3 per cent), likely in the face of an increasing array of low-cost rivals from China.

New models and branding or not, SsangYong has its work cut out for it locally as it faces eight or more new Chinese marques to compete with in the next year, many of which will play to the same keenly-priced alternative playbook.