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Updates from March, 2012

  • Geneva • Kia has been on a tear, boasting enormous sales gains for the past 38 months. Such rapid growth boils down to not only the company’s new-found style but to the mechanicals beneath the sheetmetal. The stylistic charge is being led by Peter Schreyer, Kia’s chief design officer, while Dr. Joachim Hahn, manager of powertrain engineering design and testing in Europe, is spearheading the powertrain revolution.

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    Design is all about proportion and the ability to evolve a company’s look to keep it fresh, says Schreyer. “You cannot sit on your butt and say it is good enough. Design is an ongoing process that involves learning and thinking.”

    This aspect of Schreyer’s philosophy can be found in Kia’s signature grille. Once dubbed the “tiger nose,” it has evolved with each new vehicle. The latest iteration debuted on the oddly named but stylistically imbued cee’d shown at this month’s Geneva Motor Show.

    Schreyer is tough on those who talk about design language. “Talking about some crease lines that are on the body side, going up and down, is not design language, it is a cosmetic excuse for not getting the proper proportions in the first place and developing a clear architecture for a car. The basics were not right in the first place.”

    Regardless of what you call it, Schreyer has succeeded in leading a once stylistically moribund company out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land, where the accolades flow. Under his guidance, Kia has picked up a cabinet’s worth of hardware — specifically a number of prestigious red dot design awards.

    The award dates back to 1955 and is one of the world’s largest and most distinguished design competitions. In 2012, 1,800 large companies and independent designers from 58 countries sent more than 4,500 submissions to the product design category (there are a total of 19 categories). This year, Kia’s subcompact Picanto and recently released Rio were awarded red dots, bringing the company’s total to seven. The Soul won in 2009, the European Venga mini-minivan in 2010, while the Sportage and Optima claimed top spots in 2011. The Optima also went on to be named the best of the best in 2011 — red dot’s highest accolade for design.

    Asked where Kia goes from here, Schreyer says he would like to see the GT concept come to fruition. He also hinted strongly that the Track’ster concept speaks to the next-generation Soul. Asked if that new Soul would be offered as a droptop along the lines of the Soul’ster concept — or droptop Range Rover Evoque concept — Schreyer smiled and said, “I don’t know if we will build one, but I would like one!”

    Kia’s move up the technology ladder has been equally spirited. The company has already introduced a range of direct-injected engines — a technology that was, until very recently, reserved for more expensive cars. The advantages to direct injection are manifold — better power, improved fuel economy and lower emissions.

    From this base, Kia is developing its turbocharger technology. Hahn says there will be a blown version of the 1.6-litre Gamma engine that powers the Soul and Rio. Adding a turbocharger to this engine would bump the power from 138 ponies found in the Rio5 to somewhere around 180 hp! Asked if this engine will find its way into a hot hatch (think a slammed Rio5), Hahn is emphatic — yes! Go figure, a real road rocket that will likely retail for something less than $25,000. More importantly, turbocharging allows the use of smaller-displacement engines that deliver the same output as a larger unit simply by putting the otherwise waste energy contained in the exhaust stream to good use.

    While this is the sort of technology one has grown used to seeing from the likes of Ford and Volkswagen, it is finally being used in affordable, entry-level cars. The turbocharged push will see the phase-out of the company’s V6 engines, as was the case with the Optima. That stated, Kia is still developing its V8 engine — expect it to see duty in the GT concept when it sees the light of production.

    Hahn also says Kia has developed a small three-cylinder motor (likely a 1.0L) to be used in its smaller cars. While there were no hard numbers given during the roundtable discussion, it will likely produce somewhere around 125 hp.

    Kia is also set to roll out its new twin-clutch transmission, a unit developed in-house. It will see its first use teamed with the 1.6L Gamma engine and will debut in the cee’d. Expect this combination to find its way into the Forte when the next-generation version arrives in Canada next year. This powertrain should be capable of delivering a highway economy of around four litres per 100 kilometres.

    The company will also release hybrid and plug-in hybrid cars in coming years. This program is currently exploring the use of natural gas to power the engine side of the hybrid powertrain.

    So, there you have it, the evolution of a company from purveyor of cheap cars — and I mean that in the truest sense of the word — to the maker of a range of stylish and technologically advanced vehicles. Reading between the lines, it’s not difficult to envision a convertible Soul featuring a turbocharged 1.6L engine and twin-clutch transmission.

    The future does indeed look promising.


    1:00 pm on March 23, 2012
     

  • Scottsdale, Ariz. • It’s the curse of the successful sibling: No matter how bright, beautiful or beguiling you might be, you’ll always be in the shadows. Can you imagine being Brad Pitt’s brother? You could be a dolphin-saving volunteer pediatric heart surgeon with a scratch handicap and you’re still not going to get big props at Thanksgiving dinner. And thank God Charlize Theron is an only child; no matter how lucky you were in the DNA sweepstakes, you’d have to guess that you’d always be the ugly sister.

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    I sense that the sedan version of Kia’s new Rio may face a similar uphill battle for the hearts and eyes of subcompact shoppers who wander into the company’s dealerships. It’s not that the sedan is ugly. Indeed, the Rio sedan is quite lovely in its own right; it’s just that in comparison with the five-door hatchback, which is the most attractive small car not wearing a Mini badge, the sedan is not quite as attention-grabbing.

    It’s still very fetching, penned by former Audi chief designer Peter Schreyer, who has transformed Kia into one of the more fashionable auto manufacturers. Like the Rio5 — which looks like a baby Audi — one can see a Germanic influence in the sedan’s silhouette. Cover the new Rio in a form-fitting blanket and it could be easily mistaken for the silhouette of a Volkswagen Jetta. Even some of the details, such as the real tail lamp treatment, are vaguely European. That said, the sedan’s headlights seem more bulbous than the hatch’s and, no matter how slinky the rear roofline, it can’t match the hatch’s cute-as-a-bug charm.

    In almost all other ways, the sedan emulates the Rio5’s technology, equipment and performance. That’s no small compliment since the basic Rio’s list of superlatives in the subcompact segment is long. From the exterior — where the Kia incorporates the LED headlights pioneered by Audi (quelle surprise) — to the powertrain — where the piston is coated with a high-tech, Formula One-pioneered Diamond Like Coating (DLC) for reduced friction — Kia has ladled on the high-tech like the Rio is a five-star luxury sedan and not a cheap and cheerful subcompact that starts at $13,795.

    Indeed, though any car can be more — and, too often, less — than the sum its parts, it’s impossible to ignore how much car one does get for that seemingly paltry sum. Included in the $13,795 manufacturer’s suggested list price (dealers may say for less, as the advertisements always stipulate) is an incredible laundry list of big-car features such as  power windows, doors and locks (almost unique in base trim of subcompacts), intermittent wipers, anti-lock brakes and a high-tech electronic stability control system. At the high end, you can outfit a Rio with heated seats, an audio infotainment system and even a power sunroof. Yes, a full-boat EX Luxury edition costs $21,695, but it features a voice-recognition navigation system, a rear-view camera for parking and even an electrically heated steering wheel, for gosh sakes. Wasn’t it just last week that Kias were cheap and cheerful?

    Of course, as with the hatchback, Kia is trumpeting the technology that drives the Rio as much as the gadgets that coddle. First and foremost of these is the 1.6-litre direct-injected in-line four that Kia Canada says is the most powerful in its class. And, indeed, the Rio’s 138 horsepower is the most of any in this segment, save for the Hyundai Accent, which shares the same powertrain. Certainly, compared with the Toyota Yarises of the world, the Rio is a veritable powerhouse.

    It’s also a sophisticated little beast with variable valve timing, a variable inlet tract and a drive-by-wire electronic throttle control system, all systems we’re told designed to deliver mucho high-rpm horsepower and prodigious low-speed torque. It certainly accomplishes the first, but the second is open to interpretation. Yes, the Rio’s 123 pound-feet is superior to all but Chevy’s new Sonic, but it occurs at a rather heady 4,850 rpm. Certainly, the turbocharged Sonic feels more muscular down low. On the other hand, it’s not as if the Rio feels less torquey than the rest of its subcompact competition, only that it so overwhelms them at high rpm that one expects a similar superiority right off the line.

    For that reason, I actually found the engine better suited to its six-speed automatic transmission, mainly because the slushbox automatically keeps the engine singing in the meat of its powerband. The manual, by comparison, requires that the driver row the box himself and, considering that passing is sometimes best accomplished by downshifting two gears, letting a computer do the hard work is more relaxing.

    It helps that the engine spins up there relatively sweetly. The Rio’s Gamma four-banger will never be mistaken for a Lexus V8 or even an Audi four-banger, but it gets the job done with a minimum of fuss, more than can be said of all engines capable of ekeing out 100 kilometres of highway travel with just 4.9 litres of fuel. That fuel, by the way, can be watery old 87 octane despite the Kia’s 11:1 compression ratio thanks to that GDI system that pumps fuel directly into the cylinder at precisely the right time rather than just dumping it into the intake manifold willy-nilly.

    Kia also claims that it is the sportier of the two South Korean automakers, the Hyundai Accent, in this case, sharing a chassis and suspension components but not damper and spring settings. The claim, therefore, is that the Rio is sportier than the Accent; I can’t attest to it, though I can say that, except for a steering system a little shy on feedback (thanks to the fuel-consumption-reducing electric power steering system), the little sedan handles with as much aplomb as anything in this class. Ditto braking, where Kia insists we mention that even the base Rio comes standard with four-wheel discs.

    Indeed, the Rio’s message is fairly simple: You can have more, you can have it for the same low, low price and we can wrap it up in a surprisingly stylish package at no extra cost. I suspect that, whether it’s the pugnacious little Rio5 or this, its four-door sibling, that’s a message that will gain some traction.


    2:00 pm on January 26, 2012