Kia Soul EV to Cost $35,000 and Offer a Driving Range of 124 Miles / 200km

When it comes to the electric vehicle segment, Kia and its parent company Hyundai are lagging behind the competition, which is why the Korean companies are planning to launch their first mass produced EV as early as 2014.

According to a report from Kia World, an electrified version of the Kia Soul MPV is expected to launch in the first half of 2014 as a follow-up to the Kia Ray EV, which is a limited run vehicle destined exclusively for the South Korean government fleets.

Read more »

It’s Got Track'ster Soul: Kia Unveils Second Generation of its Compact “Urban Utility Vehicle”

Like the late Frank Sinatra said “if you can make it there, you’ll make it everywhere” – which is why Kia chose the Big Apple, a city it rightly names as the world’s most iconic metropolis, to launch the second generation, 2014 Soul.

Mind you, despite retaining the distinctive profile the new Soul is not a revamp of the current model that was launched in 2009 but an all-new car that rides on a new platform that’s 28.7 stiffer than before. The second-generation Soul was designed by Kia’s California studio, which drew inspiration from the Track’ster concept that was unveiled at the 2012 Chicago Auto Show, and engineered both in the US and Korea.

Read more »

Scoop: Kia Does Some Soul Searching for New 2014 Model

When a vehicle is as successful as Kia's current Soul and it's time to present a replacement, an automaker's challenge is especially demanding. If you drastically alter the design, you risk alienating your customer base. Make too few changes, and you're at risk releasing a car that may be perceived as being stale and boring.

Kia's solution to this tricky problem for the next generation Soul is to do a little bit of both. To explain, you'll be able to tell from the get-go that the 2014 model is a Soul. This is evident even from the camouflaged prototypes our spies nabbed testing in Europe.

Read more »

Kia Shows Off Justice League of Mainstream Cars Dressed as Superheroes on Film

We know that both Halloween and the SEMA Show are long gone, but Kia has just released a video of its five superhero-styled concept cars inspired by the members of the Justice League from their unveiling at the Las Vegas Convention Center earlier this month. Read more »

Kia Soul Hamsters Bring Down the Opera House in Brand-New Commercial

The hip-hop Hamsters are back with a new TV spot for the 2013 model year edition of the Kia Soul small crossover.

The campaign is named "Bringing Down the House" and it will make its debut on some 18,000 movie screens on Friday, August 3 with television airings to begin with MTV's Video Music Awards on September 6.

For the impatient ones, Kia has just unleashed the full-length (1 minute and 31 seconds) version on the web, which you can watch for yourself right past the break.

Read more »

Scoop: Kia Finishing Work on New 2014 Soul, Could be Joined by Two More Body Styles

The Soul has proved to be a major sales success for Kia, especially in the U.S. where it's the South Korean automaker's second bestselling model with 73,698 deliveries in the first seven months of the year (up 13.2 % from the same period in 2011), trailing only the Optima, which sold 86,475 cars.

One of the Soul's main selling points is its boxy looks, and that's a recipe Kia is not willing to change as proved by these fresh spy shots of the next generation of the compact model.

These images suggest that while the new Soul likely rides on a slightly longer wheelbase and has grown in length, the basic shape and styling characteristics of the urban crossover remain unchanged.

Some things that stand out on this prototype is the re-sculptured profile and the updated front and rear ends that appear to borrow certain design cues from the Track'ster Concept shown at the Chicago Auto Show earlier this year.

Read more »

Kia Soul Loses its Top for the Sake of Korean Art

Ever since Kia dropped the top on the Soul'ster Convertible Concept at the 2009 NAIAS in Detroit, the Koreans have been reassuring us that they are contemplating the launch of a production model.

As recently as this past February, Kia said that the Soul cabriolet is "currently under final assessment for production". We shall see.

Read more »