2014 Kia Soul + on 2040-cars

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Hyundai sticks to EV rollout plans, sees solid growth this year

SEOUL — Hyundai Motor said on Thursday it would not delay plans to roll out new electric vehicles and was upbeat about prospects for continued growth this year — a contrast to recent steps by rivals to cut back on EV output. Electric vehicle sales are growing strongly but not as much as carmakers had forecast, with demand hit by high interest rates. "We do not plan to dramatically reduce EV production or our line-up due to likely near-term hurdles as we believe EV sales will grow longer term," Seo Gang Hyun, an executive vice president at the South Korean automaker, told an earnings briefing for analysts. The Hyundai Motor Group, which encompasses the Hyundai, Kia and Genesis brands, said in April it plans to launch 31 EVs by 2030. This includes the launch of the Ioniq 7 SUV next year. Seo said Hyundai's EV sales next year could be slightly lower than previously expected, but the automaker had the production flexibility to boost output of gasoline engine cars if demand shifted that way and he did not expect a significant impact on overall sales. When asked about the impact on Hyundai Motor of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union reaching a tentative labour deal with Ford, Seo said the company expects the deal will have an impact on wage increases at its U.S. factories, but such costs could be covered as the automaker has been putting effort into reducing costs, such as in logistics. Hyundai Motor, which is not a member of the UAW, operates an assembly plant in Alabama and is building a factory to produce EVs in Georgia. For the third quarter, Hyundai booked a net profit of 3.2 trillion won ($2.4 billion), more than double its year-earlier result and beating an LSEG SmartEstimate of 2.9 trillion won, with the automaker helped by a favourable exchange rate. Sales also increased, climbing 8.7% to 41 trillion won on solid demand for high-margin gasoline SUVs. Sales of EVs and hybrids also grew, up by a third to 169,000 units. This month has seen a flurry of downbeat EV announcements. Citing flattening demand for EVs, GM said it would delay production by a year of Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra electric pickup trucks at a plant in Michigan. Ford is temporarily cutting one of three shifts at the plant that builds its electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck. Tesla is also slowing plans for a Mexico factory, while GM and Honda announced on Wednesday that they were ending a $5 billion plan to develop lower-cost EVs together.

Kia's promised "four-door coupe" Cub concept... isn't

Kia appears to have pulled a quick one on the world with its Cub Concept. As it turns out, the machine isn't the four-door coupe they promised at all. Instead, the little showcar is a five-door hatch with suicide rear doors. That's certainly fine by our reckoning, but it isn't quite what we were expecting to see on display at the Seoul Motor Show. The concept was penned at the company's design studio in Seoul with direction from Peter Schreyer, and it gets its thrust from a 204-horsepower, 1.6-liter direct-injection four-cylinder engine. With 195 pound-feet of torque on hand, we suspect the Cub would have little trouble hustling down the road.
Indoors, the Cub serves up black leather seats with yellow accents as well as a new Driving Information System that uses a gesture camera to control various operations. Right now, there are apparently no plans to put the Cub into production anywhere in the world, but we wouldn't be surprised to see some of the hatchback's elements make their way to the show room floor.

2021 Kia Seltos First Drive | The Soul-ful CUV

To understand the 2021 Kia Seltos, you first have to consider its soul, the Kia Soul. Between the fun-and-funky styling and the compact, practical body style with tons of cargo room, the car that has defied traditional segment labels for a decade (and won an Autoblog comparison test) is a great all-around daily driver for folks who don’t want something that's obviously a crossover. ThereÂ’s just one problem: A lot of people really, really want crossovers. With this in mind, Kia decided to see if the Soul could be made more like one of them. Now, the simplest way to do that could've just been to introduce an all-wheel-drive Soul derivative, but somewhere along the line, the Korean automakerÂ’s product planners decided that would've been a half measure. They considered the fast-growing small crossover segment too hyper-competitive to simply trot out some half-assed Soul "Cross Country" model. Well, besides the X-Line. Instead, the 2021 Kia Seltos was born, a completely different vehicle in its own right, yet one that wears its soul on its sleeve by packing subtle hints to that trademark styling and some of its interior options. If offering all-wheel drive as standard helps cement its identity as a crossover, then the fact its all-wheel drive system comes with a locking center coupling truly seals the deal. In fact, despite our best efforts, we could find only one glaring omission in its CUV bona fides — towing capability. It has none. Sure, Kia offers a “Lifestyle Hitch” accessory for the Seltos, but that's only good for plugging in something like a hitch-mounted bike rack. Those with jet skis, you're out of luck. Trying to further pigeonhole the Seltos quickly becomes difficult, as the baby crossover space is so crowded with new entries in search of a niche that itÂ’s almost impossible to strictly define how it is segmented. You could easily count 20 vehicles of varying size and capability as competitors for the Seltos, from the front-wheel-drive-only Nissan Kicks and Toyota C-HR to the off-road-ready Jeep Renegade. Sister company HyundaiÂ’s Kona and smaller Venue could be considered, too, and then there's the Soul for those who don't need all-wheel drive and obvious crossover image.   Among them all, Seltos falls on the larger end of this evolving spectrum of subcompact “utility” vehicles.