No Kia small SUV until 2019

Kia Australia likely won’t have a proper Mazda CX-3 rival in the hot small crossover segment until 2019, the company says.

A small SUV to sit below the Sportage is a massive hole in the Korean brand’s line-up, which nevertheless is up 30 per cent (and ahead of Subaru) year-to-date.

The news that we won’t see Kia’s answer for the CX-3, Honda HR-V and Nissan Qashqai for two years or more, took us by surprise.

We’ve been seeing a camouflaged small Kia crossover testing for some time, reputedly called the Stonic.

Confusingly, though, it seems this is a European offering that’ll have a small 1.0-litre turbo engine that the company feels is unsuitable for our market. What we get will be another offering, likely larger than the Stonic.

“There is another vehicle being developed that is a proper CX-3 competitor, which is the 2019 car,” Kia Australia communications chief Kevin Hepworth told us this week.

“Is it a hole in our line-up?” asked Kia Australia COO Damien Meredith. “Yes, definitely. We just have to overcome that in other areas to make up volume.”

Small SUV sales are slightly down this year, but still have a total market share of 9.5 per cent. In other words, one-in-ten vehicles purchased is a small SUV.

The obvious follow-up question was whether Kia could reposition the slow-selling Soul to appeal to crossover buyers.

Meredith said an update with greater infotainment options would help, but opined that the chunky body style just doesn’t resonate with Australians, and suspected it’d remain a niche offering.

This is not the first time Kia has produced a small SUV that hasn’t come to Australia. The Niro hybrid has also been regularly ruled out.

	TOP 25 BRANDS JAN-MARCH
BRAND	SALES	GROWTH
Toyota	48,514	Up 4.3 per cent
Mazda	30,462	Even
Hyundai	22,406	Down 8.2 per cent
Holden	20,119	Down 10.7 per cent
Ford	18,433	Down 1.1 per cent
Mitsubishi	18,416	Up 1.1 per cent
Nissan	15,057	Down 13.3 per cent
Volkswagen	13,735	Down 5.8 per cent
Kia	12,873	Up 34.8 per cent
Subaru	12,761	Up 8.4 per cent
Mercedes-Benz	10,400	Up 3.3 per cent
Honda	9772	Up 1.8 per cent
BMW	6330	Down 15.4 per cent
Audi	5244	Down 14.9 per cent
Suzuki	4878	Down 5.1 per cent
Isuzu Ute	4495	Down 19.9 per cent
Land Rover	3948	Down 3.5 per cent
Renault	2619	Up 9.8 per cent
Lexus	2255	Up 3.2 per cent
Jeep	1925	Down 49.2 per cent
Porsche	1442	Up 1.8 per cent
Volvo Car	1175	Down 20.8 per cent
Skoda	1097	Up 3.2 per cent
Mini	893	Down 1.7 per cent
Jaguar	820	Up 20.6 per cent

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