Kia is doing pretty well at the moment. Its economical cars are selling well in a depressed market, with sales for 2008 up by 6%. It’s just revealed its ‘Soul’ster Concept’ at Detroit (which is a bit odd, but innovative and more than a little funky) and it has today announced that there are to be six Kia Cee’d models fitted with ISG (Idle, Stop Go) and available in the Spring, although UK Car buyers will have to wait until later in the year for RHD production.
As with most of these Stop/Go systems, a good fuel saving can be made, particularly in town driving and, importantly for companies striving to meet emissions targets, a reduction in running time means an overall reduction in emissions. In town driving the savings on the Cee’d are around 15%, but drop to 6% overall. Still, it all helps.
Kia Cee'd gets ISG - but the UK has to wait
The ISG in the Cee’d is controlled by a new smart alternator, which links with the car’s ECU to monitor the car’s systems and see if it is appropriate to switch the car off when it is stationary in traffic. As a fail-safe, the system aborts the ISG if at any time the battery power falls below 75%, which is reassuring.
The Cee’d restarts instantly when the clutch is depressed, which means there is no delay in progressing the journey. Good thing too. Traffic in town is bad enough without waiting for the guy in his Cee’d to be able to move off at the lights! The ISG system obviously gives the Cee’d a weight penalty, but this is being off-set by a new, lighter gearbox which is claimed to offer quicker shifts and more ‘feel’.
Still, shame Kia can’t get their act together to supply RHD cars at the same time as LHD. With the pace things are moving at at the moment in this part of the car market, they could well find a chunk of their potential customers going in a different direction, instead of patiently waiting for Kia to bring the ISG Cee’d to the UK market.
Poor show, really. Perhaps the 30,000+ car sales in the UK last year just isn’t enough to make the UK car market equally as important as Europe to Kia?
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