Kia News

Drive a 2017 Kia Niro (or a 2018) and find your back seat becoming a hot seat? It might be a good idea to stop driving it and call your dealership. In 2017 and some 2018 Kia Niro models, a main relay, within what’s called the power relay assembly, may not have adequate contact connections...

For an automaker that’s pitching itself toward the fun side of the Hyundai Motor Group, the tone for the automaker’s sizable electric push soon sounds altogether like pants. “It’s all about what fits,” said Michael Winkler, director of powertrains for Kia in Europe. By...

The Kia Sorento may not get a diesel version for the U.S. after all. On the eve of the Paris Motor Show and the introduction of the production-spec Kia Niro EV, company officials have confirmed that it’s shelved plans to bring any diesel model Stateside for now. The hold is officially...

The effective price of a Kia Soul EV has gone up dramatically for 2019, in what is likely to be the model's last year of production. The company dropped the bottom Soul EVe trim from the lineup. The EVe listed for $1,700 less than the version officially called "base," according to our partners at...

Kia has announced it will build an all-electric version of its Niro hatchback for 2019, but that apparently isn't stopping the company from planning an update for the Soul EV the following year. A spy photographer has captured images of an electric version of the redesigned 2020 Soul testing in...

Tick all the right boxes and the 2018 Kia Niro earns a Top Safety Pick+ award from the IIHS, the crash-testing agency said last week. To get to the highest-rated Niro, buyers need to opt for LED headlights and automatic emergency braking, features that can be paired together only on the Niro EX...

Kia will spend $1 billion on a new assembly plant in southern India to build an electric car for that market by late 2019. The move comes just over a decade before India intends to ban the sale of fossil-fuel vehicles. Just what form an Indian-market electric Kia will take remains unknown...

Based on the Niro hybrid and plug in hybrid already sold stateside, the Niro EV takes the concept one step further by dispensing with the gas engine altogether.

Most highly fuel-efficient dedicated hybrids are compact five-door hatchbacks, the most popular vehicle segment globally. When Korean maker Kia was drawing up plans for its first dedicated hybrid vehicle, it took a different path. The wagon it came up with—it calls the Kia Niro a crossover...

Updates to conventional cars come in a predictable pattern. Once a new model is launched, it gets only minor tweaks to features, prices, and paint colors for two or three years. Then in the third or fourth year, it gets what the industry calls a "mid-cycle refresh": some updated sheetmetal, perhaps...

We've long known that the Kia Niro wagon would get an all-electric version to accompany the 2017 Niro Hybrid and the just-launched 2018 Niro Plug-In Hybrid. The battery-electric Niro will fill out the suite of six cars sharing the same underpinnings, with the others being the same three versions of...

Some plug-in hybrid models are easily distinguishable from the rest of the cars their maker sells. Others, like the 2018 Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid, are all but invisible. It takes a sharp eye to see the charging port door on the left-front fender or the trim and badging differences that distinguish...

This time, Elon Musk is not alone. In mid-December, Daimler delivered its first 14 Fuso eCanter electric delivery trucks to customers in Germany, a reminder that while Tesla caught car companies flat-footed in 2012, incumbent truck makers are already preparing their countermeasures. In...

Both Hyundai and Kia planned to approach the electric and plug-in car market aggressively, but now the Korean siblings plan to boost production even over totals announced earlier this year. This past summer, both brands said they would increase their electrified car production to 50,000 units next...

Last month, the Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid went on sale in the United Kingdom, offering British buyers a mass-priced compact wagon with 25 to 30 miles of electric range. While it shares its underpinnings with the Hyundai Ioniq Plug-In model, the Niro has more of a wagon shape than Hyundai's five-door...

The Kia Niro Hybrid has been on sale in the United States since early 2017, but at its launch, the brand promised a plug-in hybrid version would arrive by the end of this year as well. Ahead of its U.S. launch, the Kia Niro Plug-In Hybrid has now arrived in the United Kingdom with a 36-mile rated...

It's long been said in the auto industry that Hyundai-Kia is the only competitor that truly scares industry colossus Toyota. Thirty years ago, the Korean company was a bit player, producing designs adapted from obsolete Mitsubishi technology. Today it's a major global player, reacting fast to...

Korean siblings Hyundai and Kia will aggressively increase production of electric cars next year, according to a report in the Korean press. The production increase comes amid the combined automaker's goal to become the second largest maker of green vehicles (hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric...

A chatbot would never lie to you, right? That’s what I wanted to find out when I tested a Facebook Messenger chatbot for the 2017 Kia Niro crossover, which recently won the Guinness Book of World Records for the lowest fuel consumption for a hybrid vehicle. (It was an interesting competition...

The 2017 Kia Optima Hybrid is one of a pair of hybrid mid-size sedans from the Korean maker Hyundai-Kia. It shares its underpinnings, though not a single body panel or styling flourish, with the higher-volume Hyundai Sonata Hybrid. We found it to be a comfortable, stylish sedan that gave us good...