2017 Niro.Kia
Kia is adding the Niro hybrid sport utility vehicle, billed by the South Korean auto maker as an inexpensive and fun-to-drive alternative to Toyota's Prius hybrid.
Kia said it hopes the U.S. government will certify the Niro at 5.6 litres/100 km in combined city and highway driving. That's almost as good as the redesigned Prius sedan that Toyota introduced in the United States last month. Auto makers are developing new models in response to pressure from governments to boost fuel efficiency.
"The Niro is an effort to meet difficult fuel economy and emissions standards at a price point that's still reachable for consumers," said Stephanie Brinley, an analyst at IHS Automotive.
Kia's new SUV, a 2017 model debuting simultaneously Thursday at the Canadian International Auto Show in Toronto and the Chicago Auto Show, shares its engine and other major components with the Ioniq compact sedan that the company's corporate affiliate, Hyundai, introduced in South Korea last month. The cars will help the two auto makers carry out their plan for tripling their lineup of vehicles with electrified engines to at least 26 by 2020.
Kia hasn't yet announced pricing for the Niro. The model is Kia's first SUV designed from the ground up as a gasoline-electric hybrid, said Orth Hedrick, the Seoul-based company's vice-president for product planning in the United States. Many hybrids are developed from existing gasoline vehicles.
The hybrid-only design gave Kia flexibility to, for example, maximize cargo space by stowing batteries for the Niro's electric motor underneath the rear seat, Hedrick said. Some hybrids give more than half their trunk space to batteries.
The Niro avoids the mushy acceleration that plagues some hybrids by, among other things, providing an electric motor that by itself can propel the car as fast as 112 km/h, Hedrick said.
He said Kia eventually plans a plug-in version of the Niro.
"What Kia and Hyundai are talking about is what everybody is having to do," said Eric Noble, president of CarLab, a consulting firm in Orange, Calif. "They developed a single platform that gives them both a utility vehicle and a car, and that can handle a family of alternate-fuel vehicles ranging from hybrids to battery-electrics to fuel cells."