Interesting News from Kia, euro design center Options

[elantragt]

Found this article from carkeys.com very interesting:

Kia's New Design Centre

(05 Jul 05)

Just at a time when any self-respecting UK news team should be tucked up in bed rather than publishing scoop stories, Kia has announced that its new European headquarters, currently under construction in Frankfurt, will contain a new state-of-the-art design centre.



This is a big step forward for Kia, since all its design operations throughout the world (including one in Russelsheim) are at present operated jointly with parent company Hyundai. Kia says that by using a separate facility for Europe it "will be able to further strengthen its goal of designing high quality vehicles with European-oriented style and performance that are especially in tune with the needs and desires of the booming number of Kia customers throughout Europe".

Booming is the right word. A recent report by the Association des Constructeurs Européens d’Automobiles (European car makers, basically) showed that Kia was the fastest-growing manufacturer in the region in May, and indeed for the first five months of this year. Those figures are backed up by similar research by other bodies, much of which we have already reported.

Kia Motor Corporation's Senior Executive Vice President and COO Yong-Hwan Kim, who rarely loses the opportunity to include the unfortunate word "glocalization" in his comments to the media, says on this subject that "as part of our global expansion plan, building a separate design centre in Europe is an important and timely step in order to further differentiate Kia’s product range from Hyundai and our competitors.

"We are committed to pursuing our strategy of glocalization by focusing on Europe, as we strive to design and produce cars that satisfy sophisticated European tastes, as well as clearly demonstrating Kia's 'exciting and enabling' brand identity."

The commitment to Europe has already been established through the construction of a new assembly plant - Kia's first in Europe - at Zilina in Slovakia, where production is scheduled to start early in 2006. The Frankfurt operation will be the main trading partner for all Kia vehicles built there and in Korea, and will also be the European base for marketing and after-sales business, a sales academy, a technical service centre and Kia's pan-European IT hub.

Construction of the Frankfurt building is due to finish in February 2007, with the 350-strong staff starting work there the following month.

[trololololo]

hmm. so they'll be yugo's now?

lol.. .jk.

well.. i guess that's good news... seperation from the Kia name... a little bit.

[elantraelite]

It's good that Hyundai and Kia are trying to stay apart. I really didnt want to buy another Hyundai down the track and find out Kia has the same model with a different badge.

Sorry Kia, but you will never get a sale out of me. Their isn't really anything I like that Kia has designed.

It's a move in the right direction for Kia though.

[2k4ElantraGT]

lol i agree....i bought my elantra because it was unique, and noone had one.. now i dont want kia making a clone just so it becomes more trendy on the streets..noooooooooo