Kia’s history thus far can be divided into two parts, the time before Peter Schreyer, and the time since he joined the firm in 2006.

Along with the debut of a new B-Spec budget race car, Kia is looking to showcase its updated 2012 Soul at the 2011 SEMA Show.

You can sound polite and say “inexpensive” but if you’re strapped for cash, the most important question when shopping for a new car is: what’s the cheapest car on the market? AutoGuide has got the answer, along with the nine runners up.

Kia is hoping to reach the 500,000 unit milestone and add 40 new dealers by 2012, as the Korean automaker enjoys increasing success in the U.S. market.

It’s been years since George Bush was in office, but a trade bill from his presidency finally made it past the House and Senate.

Kia will be joining in on the B-Spec racing series fun by offering race-prepped versions of the new 2012 Rio 5-door, joining the likes of the Mazda 2 and Honda Fit. The B-Spec racing series is designed for low-budget racing enthusiasts featuring compact hatchbacks with little to no engine modifications. Kia will be working with Kinetic Motorsports to get Rio 5-Doors ready to race and is planning to announce more details at the upcoming 2011 SEMA Show.

Kia‘s heart-stoppingly cool GT concept was was powered by a 3.3L turbo V6 packing 400 horsepower – but the production version might not get such an exotic powertrain.

There once was a time when SUVs and crossovers ruled our land. Everyone was into the thinking that the biggest is best. Then the bubble popped and the economy took a nose dive.

The annual North American Car and Truck of the Year awards has just released its short list for 2012, selecting 17 cars and seven trucks that will compete for the prestigious prize.

In the running for the 2012 North American Car of the Year are three from Hyundai (the Accent, Elantra and Veloster), two from Audi (A6 and A7), two from Volkswagen (Passat and Beetle) and two from Toyota ( Camry and Prius v). Others on the list include two GM models, the Buick Verano and Chevrolet Sonic, while two Chrysler group nominees include the Chrysler 300 and Fiat 500. Rounding out the list is the Ford Focus, Kia Rio, Scion iQ and Subaru Impreza. Notably absent from the list is the all-new Honda Civic.

The 2012 North American Truck of the Year short list includes just one vehicle from seven different automakers: the BMW X3, Honda CR-V, Land Rover Range Rover Evoque, Mercedes M-Class, MINI Countryman, Nissan Quest and Saab 9-4X.

The three finalists in each category will be announced later this year with the winners being announced at the Detroit Auto Show in January. Last year the Chevrolet Volt took home 2011 Car of the Year, with the Ford Explorer as 2011 Truck of the Year.

See the full list of nominees after the jump:

Kia will unveil its first electric vehicle by the start of 2012, but did not say whether the vehicle would be sold in the United States.

Kia will hold off on expanding its production facilities and sales targets in favor of improving the quality of its vehicles, CEO Lee Sam-ung told Automotive News at a launch event for its new Rio hatchback.

They’ve only been racing two seasons, but Kia Motors America’s motorsports program has now achieved championship greatness, thanks to Nic Jönsson wining the driver’s title and solidifying Kia in the Team Championship in the Street Tuner class of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge.

Kia will launch their 2012 Rio Hatchback with a starting price of $13,600, plus a $750 destination charge (bringing the total to $14,350).

It’s that time of the year again as Car of the Year begins the laborious task of whittling down new Car of the Year contenders for 2012.

A total of 59 journalists, representing automotive authorities across 23 European countries, have been recruited for the task of choosing top car. The number of journalists to represent each country is based on the relative size of the said country’s car market. Countries like Spain, Germany, Italy, and Great Britain have a well established market, and each will be represented by six journalists.

As for cars, only completely redesigned new models that have launched within the twelve months before the contest are counted. Each car must be available in at least five European countries and must have an expected sales volume no less than 5,000.

Categories considered include design, safety, performance, and price. This year, says the judging committee, technical innovation and value will be especially influential. What also makes Car of the Year unique is the absence of separate genres for its candidates. Rather than selecting the best of the compacts or the best trucks, vehicles with all sorts of engine size and body types will be vying for the same allotment of points.

Comparison testing of the vehicles will be performed in Sweden.

The following 35 candidates selected for the 2012 Car of the Year award include:

Only until recently did Kia find its groove and really start to deliver a lineup of attractive cars. However, Hyundai‘s vision for Kia’s future has something different in store. Rumors have suggested that Hyundai-Kia Automotive group may be performing an unprecedented hedge to have Kia carry a solely electric vehicle green model range while Hyundai continues to develop plug-in hybrid and fuel cell cars.

10,631 Kia Sorento SUVs built between June 15th, 2006 and November 27th, 2007 will be recalled due to a faulty airbag issue where the passenger-side air bag may be turned off even when an adult is occupying the seat. Naturally, the Occupant Classification System is designed to be turned off when children or small adults are seated in the front passenger seat, but in the recalled models it can mistakenly classify an adult passenger as a child. If the air bag is deactivated, the light will illuminate on the center instrument panel.

There’s no denying that the 2012 BMW M5 probably deserves a higher spot on our Frankfurt Auto Show Top 10 list, but here it is anyway. Maybe it’s that we all knew several months ago that it would have a 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 and make 562-hp that made its “official” reveal less captivating than it otherwise could have been. Still, don’t let the 10th place spot make you believe we think any less of what is likely to be crowned as the world’s highest performance sedan. After all, the M5 delivers the sort of performance you only expect to see in a concept car. But this is one very real machine.

NHTSA has announced a safety recall for 10,600 model year 2007-2008 Kia Sorento SUVs. A sensor used to deactivate an airbag when a child or baby seat is installed at the front passenger side may incorrectly deactivate the airbag when an adult is in the passenger seat. Airbag deactivation will cause an increased risk of occupant injury in the event of a frontal collision.

It’s dramatic, it’s rear wheel drive and it is, quite simply, unlike anything Kia has ever done before. And it has proved to be one of the star attractions of this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show.

Kia has been changing what people think about Korean cars for well over a year now thanks to some impressive designs, and now the automaker is looking to add some performance to its lineup with the new GT Concept – the first ever rear-drive vehicle by Kia.

Not too long ago, a beauty contest in the sub-$20k segment would seem like a competition for the most attractive bar of soap. But now, Kia‘s current line-up will make you look twice.

Rumored to be called “Veredus”, leaked photos of Kia‘s new rear-wheel drive performance sedan have emerged revealing that it will instead wear the simple “GT” badge – in concept form anyway.

Targa Newfoundland, the ultimate North American tarmac rally, is organized every September for seven days and travels across 2,200 kilometers, or 1,200 miles, of amazing central Newfoundland road.

Two weeks ago, Kia officially confirmed that it would unveil a rear-wheel drive four-door sports sedan at this month’s Frankfurt auto show.

Kia Motors is participating in an 8,000 mile trip with the 2011 Optima Hybrid sedan in an effort to break the Guinness World Record for the lowest fuel consumption in a hybrid car.

Kia is continuing its award winning and incredibly original Hamster ad campaign with a third installment that sees the cute (or possibly creepy) critters rolling through an apocalyptic scene in an “Alien Green” Soul, all to the tune of LMFAO’s smash hit, “Party Rock Anthem.” With the Soul, the Hamsters bring peace and happiness by turning a battle between robots and humans into a dance party.

The spot was created by KMA’s advertising agency of record, David&Goliath, which has locked down Nielsen’s “Automotive Ad of the Year” award for two years running with previous Hamster spots for Kia. The ad will premiere on the MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) on August 28th.

Kia is looking for similar success to the last spots in order to drum up interest in the refreshed 2012 Soul. Updates for the 2012 model year include some mild design changes, new paint colors and the addition of the UVO Sync-style system. A new 1.6-liter direct-injection engine makes 135-hp (up 11%) and 121 lb-ft of torque and thanks to new six-speed manual transmission fuel economy is up to 28/34 mpg. A larger 2.0-liter engine makes 160-hp (up 13%) and 143 lb-ft of torque with a  fuel economy rating of 27/33-mpg. The 2012 Kia Soul starts from just $13,900 ( full pricing details here).

We’ll be sure to update this story with the actual ad once it debuts. Until then, get a look at the all-new 2012 Soul from the car’s debut at the New York Auto Show after the jump:

The 2013 Kia Forte will be an all-new model, following closely after the changes introduced in the 2011 Hyundai Elantra.

Kia has formally announced pricing on their 2012 Soul, setting the Scion xB and Nissan Cube competitor’s MSRP just slightly under $14,000. The Soul A/T will start at $15,700 while the highest trim model, the Soul! will start at under $20,000.

Kia has officially confirmed that it will be debuting a rear-wheel drive four-door sports sedan at next month’s Frankfurt Auto Show. The concept  has sleek and muscular proportions, and will likely slide in between the Hyundai Genesis and Equus in terms of size.

Kia, spurred by the success of sibling Hyundai’s Genesis (and possibly Equus), wants a piece of the rear-drive pie. The company is planning a flagship luxury sedan and possibly a coupe, both in the vein of the Genesis duo.

It has been just over a decade since Honda and Toyota first introduced the hybrid drivetrain in a production vehicle. Then Ford, GM and to some extend Chrysler followed suit, offering hybrid vehicles in their respective lineups. And now you can even buy hybrid models from Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

Ladies, the next time you go in for a mani, forget the rhinestone flowers or French tips. Instead, opt for Kia nail art.

Ok, so this design probably isn’t available at your favorite spa. But the creative peeps at Kia have some interesting ideas on how to promote the 2012 Picanto small car. With a lot of patience, a month of their time, a ridiculous amount of nail polish (1,200 bottles) and a slew of press-on nails (900 of them), the advertising team got to work on painting the Picanto on all those nails – no Photoshop included!

We may not be rushing out to make this fashion statement on our hands, but it certainly is an inventive way to get you products message across. Watch the video after the jump to witness the process.

[Source: Autoblog]

As it turns out, Kia‘s inappropriately sexy ads that spread like wildfire through the blogosphere just a few weeks ago, weren’t Kia ads at all.

Kia Motors is one of the big winners at the first ever Automotive Brand Contest which was organized by the German Design Council. The judge panel declared Kia Motors the worthy winner in four categories. Three kia models were picked as winners for the exterior category, including the compact Sportage SUV, the forthcoming Rio (on sale from September 2011) and the all new Kia Optima (above). Kia was also ranked ‘Best of Best’ in the brand design category, where strategy and focus of the brand’s overall design is rated.

Kelley Blue Book announced today that Hyundai has taken the number 1 spot in brand loyalty, beating out Honda and Toyota, on kbb.com for Q2 2011. Automakers have struggled recently to retain loyal customers due to the economic downturn and consumers becoming more aware of issues such as fuel prices and safety recalls.

Yesterday, Hyundai Motor Group said it is expecting to raise its U.S auto sales by 18.2 percent this year to 1.06 million vehicles, an improvement from a previous target of 1.01 million.

If Kia can draw enough people from the Mustang and BMW camps, the production version will enter production in 2015.

“We went to Road America knowing the course’s long straights and elevation changes provided a significant challenge, especially against some of our turbocharged competitors, but the Kinetic Motorsports team did an amazing job preparing both Forte Koups,” said Michael Sprague, Kia’s vice president of marketing. “The team’s strategy allowed Nic and Michael to use the braking and cornering portions of the track to their advantage.”

From the Adventures in Advertising files come a series of ads for Kia that are evidently too racy for their cars (that themselves aren’t).

The ads hail from Brazil, where you think they would have an eye for this sort of thing. But Kia, a family-friendly carmaker with a full line of family-friendly toddler schleppers, is distancing itself from these cartoons that depict two things: a safe, innocent fairy tale on the left, and a hotter version on the right that leads into the back page of Oui. The ads are supposed to tout Kia’s dual-zone climate controls, which may require a stretch of the imagination that advertising bloggers possess in spades.

Kia Motors America has made it painstakingly clear (through a press release) that they don’t want or have anything to do with all of this sexy sex business, and that their cars do not represent the sort of sexy sexiness that these highly sexual, sex-laden ads are sexily promoting.

“Kia Motors America (KMA) has become aware of an offensive piece of advertising material that was created by an ad agency in Brazil that KMA has no business relationship with and has never worked with,” reads the release. “This ad was not created in the U.S. by Kia Motors America or any of its marketing partners and does not reflect the opinions or values of KMA or Kia Motors Corporation. The ad is undoubtedly inappropriate, and on behalf of Kia Motors we apologize to those who have been offended by it. We can guarantee this advertisement has never and will never be used in any form in the United States, and our global headquarters in Seoul, South Korea is addressing the issue with the independent Brazilian distributor.”

For Kia, it’s back to hamsters—possibly the least sexy of animals—and the fact that these cartoons would break down into cognitive dissonance against the wholesomeness of Yo Gabba Gabba, a children’s show that does not feature sultry schoolgirls with exposed belly buttons. Yet.

Click the jump to get a peek at the titillating ads. But no touching.

The toys are back in town! From their 2010 debut during the Super Bowl, the toys for Kia’s ad are back and pumping up the 2012 Sorento.

The Super Bowl Dream ad, which starred these wacky and wonderfully unique life-sized characters, is back. They take to the road in search of adventure, which includes skydiving, surfing and other great stunts.

It’s great to see the automaker taking a different approach to the same old, same old car commercials that populate the airwaves these days. This ad uses another catchy tune (Those Darlins singing “Red Light Love”) and it’ll have you wondering what’s next for these loveable toys.

Watch the commercial after the jump and let us know what you think about it. Is it one of the better auto ads playing right now or is it just another boring sequel?

[Source: The Car Connection]

Kia is planning to boost U.S production capacity by one fifth next year, because of high demand for new models. The Optima sedan is one of the Kia models meeting high demand, and the south Korean automaker is excited to take advantage of the world’s second-biggest auto market.

Hyundai– Kia will outsell Toyota and Honda in May sales, according to TrueCar. TrueCar expects Hyundai-Kia to sell 115,434 units in May. This number represents an increase of 43.4 percent over May 2010 making the Korean group a 10.9 percent market share putting it number three behind Ford and GM.

The 2012 Kia Sorento will get an optional 2.4-liter GDI direct-injection four-cylinder engine and the company’s hands-free UVO infotainment system. The company is hoping these two features will appeal to Ford consumers.

One of the rising stars of the automotive industry has got to be Kia. The Korean automaker’s beautiful designs combined with good powertrains and affordable pricing has got the attention of many customers and hence their sales numbers are continually climbing.

That’s not all, because that price-tag does not include the $750 extra you’ll have to pay for the destination and handling. That means, this fuel-sipping sedan is not cheap, and crucially, it is $705 dearer than the similar Hyundai Sonata Hybrid.

Likely you’ve seen Kia‘s Hamster ad which this year won Nielsen’s top auto ad award. Based on the success of that spot Kia will launch a Hamstar Edition Soul, the latest in a long line of barely-special special editions.

Hyundai is recalling 6,169 Santa Fe’s because the transmission has been found to be defective. According to the National Highway Safety Administration, the transmission may cause “loss of motive power, increasing the risk of a crash,”. The right- side output gear and intermediate shaft on affected 2010 Santa Fe’s will be replaced by Hyundai dealers.

April’s U.S. sales figures are in, and to the surprise of exactly no one, $4-gallon gas and continuing unrest in basically everywhere has led to a surge in small car sales.

The next Kia may be V8-powered, rear-driven, German-designed, and bigger than its half-sibling Genesis—and if that boggles the mind from the company that gave us the Rio, then you’ll just have to wait until Frankfurt this September to have all of your questions answered.

Those owning a 2004-2007 Kia Spectra should look out for a recall notice in the near future if they originally purchased it or currently registered in Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and District of Columbia.

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The Chinese auto industry is reaching new peaks. That was probably the reason South Korean auto manufacturer Kia choose to name their new Rio sedan K2 for the Chinese market.

There are a lot of important points to make about the all-new 2012 Kia Rio Sedan, but the most surprising is that it will be the first in the sub-compact segment to feature start-stop technology. Called Idle Stop and Go (ISG for short), the Rio will completely shut off its gasoline engine when at a stop and immediately restart it just before the gas pedal is pressed.

The car the launched Kia‘s transformation from an auto industry back-marker to a legitimate brand, the Soul has received a list of mid-cycle upgrades for 2012.

It competed in (and completed) the gruelling Targa Newfoundland last September. Now the same Kia Forte Koup, that was driven by Adam Hill and Mark Kostick of Team ‘Wishful Thinking,’ is now going to be auctioned off for charity.

Hyundai and Kia remain unscathed by the parts crunch that is affecting Japanese auto makers, with both companies running their United States-based plants at full capacity and overtime shifts to help meet demand at certain plants.

The 2012 Kia Rio and a facelifted Soul will be unveiled at the New York Auto Show next week.

As the first proof that such a car actually exists, several pictures of what is believed to be a camouflaged version of the upcoming Ki K9 luxury sedan have made in onto the net thanks to an amateur spy photographer.

The Subaru Impreza and Kia Sorrento are currently under the scrutiny of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, as the government agency is investigating the cars for serious defects.