By Justin Berkowitz
July 16, 2008 -
Korea's Kia has released photos of its Soul. To herald the U.S. arrival of its new citycar– which looks to have the Chevy's Aveo Beat– Kia's announced the Soul's engine lineup. Globally, the Soul will offer three powerplants. Yanks are denied the 1.6-liter turbodiesel with 128 horsepower. We get to choose from either a 1.6-liter, 124-horse four (the new NA class leader) or a 2.0-liter with an unspecified amount of power. The fuel economy– which RF would call "mission critical"– has not yet been rated by the EPA. Although the new car's based on the Rio platform, Kia promises that the Soul "won't drive like a mailbox." Return to sender? Let's just hope Kia's Soul has more eponymousness than its other efforts, which tend to put inhabitants in econobox Hell.
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POWERED
July 16th, 2008 at 9:18 am
What great timing for Kia.
GM on the other hand:
- The Chevrolet Beat is one of three small car concepts introduced in April 2007 at NY Auto Show.
- http://www.vote4chevrolet.com is launched encouraging car enthusiasts to vote on which of three concepts is their favorite. This website is still live today.
- The Beat receives the majority of votes on the website for the car GM should build. “Excitement” builds.
- July 2008, gas prices are hovering around $4.00 per gallon.
- July 15th, Bob Lutz announces that the US market will not get the Beat due to crash standards. They didn’t even intend it to be offered to the domestic market. Then why was the car shown in NY? Why not Geneva?
I’m beginning to think that they deserve to fail.
July 16th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I had no idea that the vote4chevrolet site was still around. I remember voting in 2007. There have been a total of 1.9 million votes. Don’t you think that would make GM get off their ass and get at least one of them ready for sale ASAP? Nevermind, we all know the answer to that…
The Soul looks like an interesting car, but it’s too bad about the lack of a diesel. Maybe the 1.6 will have decent economy numbers though.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:00 am
Definitely has the Fit in its sights; but the upgraded Fit (this fall) might trump the Soul.
Still, bring ‘em on (sorry GB), maybe this will poke GM in the ass hard enough to put some engineering (rather than marketing) into the Beat.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
It looks like what the next xB should have been before Toyota made it big, fat, and thirsty.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Looks interesting. That 2.0 they’re talking about could be the 140hp 2.0 from the Elantra/Spectra platform. In either case, it should be somewhat of a scorcher for such a little car.
July 16th, 2008 at 11:47 am
lewissalem, when the book about GMs demise is written your post can be one small, but critical chapter. It really encapsulates everything they do wrong…bungled marketing and atrocious product planning. That announcement about the Beat was the end of the line for me…that whole saga was more about deception than it was marketing. We were all just Beating off.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
“has not yet been rated by the EPA”
The EPA does not do fuel economy testing. The EPA publishes the procedure, but companies and/or their hired testing labs do the actual measurement.
July 16th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
There’s still the one-two punch of horrible buying experience (the local kia dealer is just despicable), and brutal depreciation.
Buy one secondhand.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
i wonder if they intended the pun with the name….
July 16th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I still say it would go over better as a “Kia Seoul”
July 17th, 2008 at 1:41 am
Hmmm, now i’m no kia fan (who is?) but i like the looks of that one. Scion rip off of course and who knows what the MPG may be of the better engine, probably iffy considering it’s well…Kia.
I do like that exterior though.