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Kia unveils K4 sedan concept in China

Among the dozens of foreign automakers eager to showcase their wares to the Chinese market, Kia arrived at the Beijing Motor Show with the new K4. Though technically categorized as a "concept," the K4 previews a sedan which Kia intends to launch in China later this year.
The K4 is a midsize sedan measuring 186 inches long and riding on a 106-inch wheelbase that makes it bigger than the Forte (sold in the Far East as the K3) and just a few inches shorter than the Optima (aka K5). The form is draped in familiar Kia-style bodywork, with a high trunk and low nose to give it a wedge shape and a familiar if somewhat new take on the headlights and grille seen on other new models from the Korean automaker.
Power comes from a 1.6-liter turbo four (smaller than the engines available in the Optima/K5) mated to a seven-speed DCT. Kia has also fitted the K4 concept with push-button ignition, UVO infotainment system, rear-view camera, six airbags and stability management. In short, everything you'd expect from the latest product of a global automaker.

Hyundai and Kia invest $110 million in UK electric van startup Arrival

Korea's Hyundai Group is backing a UK electric vehicle startup that plans to begin selling battery-powered delivery vans in 2021, the companies said on Thursday. Hyundai and sister firm Kia are making the investment of $110 million (100 million euros or 84.34 million pounds) in Arrival. Founded in 2015 and based in London, Arrival has developed a boxy, futuristic-looking shuttle bus aimed at the commercial delivery market. The company said its van will have a range between charges of 300 miles. In a statement, Arrival said it will work with Hyundai and Kia to develop a variety of electric vehicles, initially for the commercial market. Those vehicles will be built on Arrival's modular vehicle platform or "skateboard" that bundles motor, batteries and chassis components, similar to the skateboard developed by U.S. startup Rivian. Rivian is backed by Ford and Amazon, and has a contract to build 100,000 electric delivery vans for the e-commerce giant, starting in 2021. Hyundai and Kia last year invested $89 million in Rimac Automobili, a nine-year-old Croatian company aspiring to build electric supercars that is also backed by Porsche. Arrival said its vehicles will be equipped with advanced driver assist features and can be upgraded with self-driving systems. The vehicles are designed to sell for the same price as similar models powered by internal combustion engines and to be built in small "microfactories." That strategy is the opposite of U.S. electric vehicle rival Tesla which uses massive "gigafactories." Last fall, Arrival, which until now has operated largely in stealth mode, hired General Motors veteran Michael Ableson to head its new North American operations. With a small factory in Banbury, England, Arrival said it now has 800 employees in five countries, including Germany, Russia and Israel. Arrival previously said it would use BlackBerry's QNX operating system to connect safety features in its electric vehicles. Arrival said its prototype delivery vans are being tested by the Royal Mail, DHL and UPS. Related Video: Green Hyundai Kia Commercial Vehicles Electric Future Vehicles electric delivery van

Insider trading ahead of Hyundai-Kia MPG debacle suspected

Reuters is reporting that large-scale insider trading may be at the heart of some particularly fishy stock-selling behavior, just prior to the original announcement about the Hyundai-Kia fuel economy ratings debacle.
On November 1st, Hyundai-Kia shares traded roughly 2.2 million times (the single highest-volume day of the year), and the stock price fell by about four percent. For reference, a standard daily trading volume for the stock in 2012 saw about 600k shares trading hands. On November 2nd, the company made public the bad news about the dropping fuel economy ratings for many of its models. In other words: No one outside of the company (and only a smallish group inside the company, we'd imagine) should have known anything about the impending bad news as of the first day of November. After the announcement, the stock price tanked, as you'd expect, and trading volume was way down as well.
Experts seem fully aware that the whole thing reeks of leaked information and subsequent insider trading. If chicanery on this sort of scale seems wacky to you, you'd be inline with the experts who report to Reuters that the level of trading is absolutely suspicious.