But probably not bound for Oz.
Korean carmaker Kia appears to be hard at work expanding its petrol-electric hybrid portfolio, which will soon include the Ceed estate, the Sportage, the Sorento, and even the Optima in the near future. The company has serious targets to hit in terms of fleet-wide reduced emissions levels.
“We are going to need more electrification on other products in the future. We must get to a mix of around 25-30% electrified models to hit the CO2 targets.” — Artur Martins, Head of Marketing, Kia Europe
Kia will likely save electrification for the new-generation Optima, though the Sportage and Sorento still have quite a lot of life left in the current models, meaning that it may need to field those hybrid powertrains sooner. This would all come as part and parcel of Kia’s plans to reduce the average emissions of each of its models.
These electrified models will be built at Kia’s plant in Slovakia initially, meaning that the first batches of these electrified models are unlikely to arrive here (Kia Australia has previously referred to Slovakian-built models as “unlikely” for local offering). However as these technologies become more accessible and require less tooling to fit in current platforms, it’ll be equally unlikely that the plug-in hybrid powertrains won’t be applied more liberally, with assembly branching out to encompass more than a solitary plant.
The Ceed plug-in hybrid will likely carry the same PHEV powertrain as the Niro PHEV, as to ensure that it’ll come to market in H2 2019, according to Autocar. In that setup, a 1.6-litre petrol engine with 103kW is mated to a 59kW electric motor (running off an 8.4kWh battery pack). In the Niro PHEV, that gives it the ability to spit out just 29g/km of CO2, while it can also do only a little over 1L/100km on the outgoing NEDC fuel consumption testing cycle.
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