2003 Kia Sedona Ex Mini Passenger Van 5-door 3.5l on 2040-cars

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A verified hit, Kia Soul EV will come to new markets

Today at the Chicago Auto Show, Kia introduced a new off-road Trailster plug-in concept, but the real-world news was all about how the Soul EV will be traveling to places it hasn't gone before. When Kia introduced the Soul EV in Chicago last year, it said that the car would some day be available in five states: California, Oregon, New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Today, company executives said the car will be coming to more markets – they just declined to mention where, exactly. The Soul EV is currently sold in just 17 dealerships in California, Orth Hedrick, vice president of product planning at Kia Motors America, told AutoblogGreen. "For the next stage, we were originally planning on hitting the east coast, but we are changing that around a little bit. You'll see more availability," he said. Hedrick said that the change was prompted by the simple fact that the Soul is attracting new customers. "We went back to the factory and told them it's doing very well and it's now expanded beyond an EV, it's something bigger," he said. "It's helping us get a dialogue with completely new, different customer that we normally wouldn't see in a Kia store. So we would like the opportunity to take it further." We asked if customer interest in the compliance car caught the company off guard. Hedrick said that wasn't quite the right way to look at the history of the Soul EV. "When we looked at it originally, we were trying to go beyond the compliance part," he said. "We understood, of course, that we had to do it, but we wanted to showcase something that was really strong for us, which is the Soul, and we thought it would help build out the Soul family and bring more people to see us and that's exactly what's happening. It was a little more than compliance but I think we were kind of shocked how well it was received. It's been a huge hit." "Huge" in this case means bigger than Kia's original production capacity estimates, he said, without getting into specifics. It was "significantly more than what we originally planned for," he said. The Soul EV is built in Korea and the car is sold there, the US and will be coming to Europe as well. "I don't think they're in a position to ramp up quickly," Hedrick said, "They're in the process of ramping up more and we'll have an announcement, we hope, by New York, about where we're going to go to." The New York Auto Show media days start April 1, 2015.

Honda, Hyundai and Kia get best word-of-mouth recommendations in US

Forget advertising, incentives and, yes, even our excellently crafted vehicle reviews, sometimes the best way for automakers to sell cars is still good ol' fashioned word of mouth. In an attempt to measure this "word of mouth" power, The Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm, has created a new study called the Brand Advocacy Index (BAI). The index takes a look at how various industries perform from person to person. Those industries include automotive, smartphones, grocery, mobile telecommunications and banking.
The study polled more than 32,000 individuals across Europe and in the US to come up with the top 55 brands in these various industries. On the automotive side of things, the top brands in the US were Honda, Hyundai and Kia, all tied at 63 percent. On a global scale, Volkswagen and Toyota scored the highest with a 65-percent BAI rating (both in France). The average BAI for auto industry players tallied 50 percent.
As for companies in other industries, Apple's iPhone was the index's top-rated smartphone, Trader Joe's was the highest recommended grocery store, Virgin was sat atop the mobile telecom industry and USAA was the top retail bank. Scroll down for the full press release on the new study.

Best car infotainment systems: From UConnect to MBUX, these are our favorites

Declaring one infotainment system the best over any other is an inherently subjective matter. You can look at quantitative testing for things like input response time and various screen load times, but ask a room full of people that have tried all car infotainment systems what their favorite is, and you’re likely to get a lot of different responses. For the most part, the various infotainment systems available all share a similar purpose. They aim to help the driver get where they're going with navigation, play their favorite tunes via all sorts of media playback options and allow folks to stay connected with others via phone connectivity. Of course, most go way beyond the basics these days and offer features like streaming services, in-car performance data and much more. Unique features are aplenty when you start diving through menus, but how they go about their most important tasks vary widely. Some of our editors prefer systems that are exclusively touch-based and chock full of boundary-pushing features. Others may prefer a back-to-basics non-touch system that is navigable via a scroll wheel. You can compare it to the phone operating system wars. Just like some prefer Android phones over iPhones, we all have our own opinions for what makes up the best infotainment interface. All that said, our combined experience tells us that a number of infotainment systems are at least better than the rest. WeÂ’ve narrowed it down to five total systems in their own subcategories that stand out to us. Read on below to see our picks, and feel free to make your own arguments in the comments. Best infotainment overall: UConnect 5, various Stellantis products Ram 1500 Uconnect Infotainment System Review If thereÂ’s one infotainment system that all of us agree is excellent, itÂ’s UConnect. It has numerous qualities that make it great, but above all else, UConnect is simple and straightforward to use. Ease of operation is one of the most (if not the single most) vital parts of any infotainment system interface. If youÂ’re expected to be able to tap away on a touchscreen while driving and still pay attention to the road, a complex infotainment system is going to remove your attention from the number one task at hand: driving. UConnect uses a simple interface that puts all of your key functions in a clearly-represented row on the bottom of the screen. Tap any of them, and it instantly pulls up that menu.