New Kia SUV teased and Drive Wise sub-brand announced at CES

A new full-size Kia SUV is teased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and Kia launch a new sub-brand – Drive Wise – to encompass its future autonomous technology.

With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) now underway, and the Detroit Motor Show looming, Kia has revealed a tease for anew full-sized SUV, and revealed its plans for a new sub-brand – Drive Wise – which will encompass Kia’s future autonomous technology.

The new full-sized SUV has been designed by Kia’s design studio in California, and previews a new big SUV from the Korean firm – but it won’t be coming to the UK and Europe.

The new SUV – dubbed the KCD12 – looks to be a big lump of an SUV with a long bonnet and plenty of attitude, and is expected to feature advanced technology including a degree of semi-autonomous driving capability and, for some reason, state-of-the-art health and wellness technology. Whatever that is.

Kia Drive Wise sub-brand

Also new from Kia is the announcement of the Drive Wise sub-brand which will encompass Kia’s autonomous driving technology, with plans for semi-autonomous cars by 2020 and fully autonomous by 2020.

The Drive Wise vehicles will have a whole raft of new technologies including a new i-cockpit which recognizes the driver and sets the car up for their preferences, gesture control, fingerprint recognition, emergency stop, Jam Assist, Highway Autonomous Driving and autonomous parking.

Tae-Won Lim, Senior VP, said:

Kia is undergoing a very promising and gradual process of introducing partially and fully autonomous technologies to its vehicles. Although the first marketable fully-autonomous car from Kia will not be available in the immediate future, the work our R&D teams are currently doing to develop our range of DRIVE WISE technologies is already improving on-road safety and driver assistance. The innovations presented at this year’s show demonstrate the future direction we are taking.

To get things moving, Kia has been granted a licence by the U.S. State of Nevada to test the new autonomous technologies on road using the Kia Soul EV as a platform.