Orth Hedrick, vice president of product planning for Kia Motors America, sat down with Green Car Reports this past week at the New York Auto Show to talk about Niro—and why the automaker made a conscious effort to look beyond maximum aerodynamics, and toward utility and driving enjoyment instead.
“Arodynamics is of course important, but we wanted to offer a choice for which there’s utility involved, for which there’s a different look, a different stance, bigger tires...and with a DCT and a strong motor that has a great off-the-line experience, with a more premium power steering system that feels and tracks right, and with a suspension tune that gives up a little bit of tow in and tow out [for lowest rolling resistance] but gives you more road feel.”
“If you look at the choices right now, you have to give up a lot of emotional enjoyment. We heard from folks who are driving the current offerings that, gee, I wish I had something I could be a little more passionate about, or I wish that I would have more of a driving experience in maneuvering and handling the car.”
“We’d like to show the market that you can have this great-looking vehicle with great utility that drives great, and it’s easy to live with day in and day out, and it’s a great experience overall—oh, and by the way it’s a hybrid and it gets great mileage.”
“For Niro, we’re concentrating just on the dedicated general hybrid market, which is a front-wheel-drive layout.”
Although Kia says that a plug-in hybrid version of the Niro will follow a year or so after the release of the standard hybrid (likely with the same 8.9-kwh battery as the Ioniq plug-in), the automaker hasn’t yet firmed up plans for a pure EV.
“We already have an EV,” said Hedrick. “It’s called the Soul EV, and I don’t know if it makes sense at this point to have two vehicles that would be roughly the same size and shape and market.”
Kia Niro: are electric, AWD versions in the works?
-
- You may also be interested in...
- Replies
- Views
- Last post
-
- 0 Replies
- 30372 Views
-
Last post by yellowmeggie
-
- 3 Replies
- 28189 Views
-
Last post by AlanW55
-
- 0 Replies
- 29400 Views
-
Last post by gtfreight
-
- 1 Replies
- 28476 Views
-
Last post by AlanW55
-
- 5 Replies
- 37806 Views
-
Last post by jerrytaff