New Optima turbo press introduction

Hello everyone! Today we’d like to share some images and Q&A from the New Optima turbo press introduction held in Miami and LA in December. The U.S. media test drive was prepared for journalists to give them a chance to experience Optima’s powerful new turbo powertrain on an actual motor speedway, freeways, the Pacific Coast Highway and tight and twisting canyon roads. The Optima turbo is the first high-performance sedan launched by Kia and we are sure that many of our fans in blogosphere want to know more about this exciting new vehicle from Kia Motors. So here are some of the questions we received from journalists along with answer from Kia.

Yes, there is an education process with consumers for a turbo engine. Turbos now can mean more power and better fuel economy, and getting that across to consumers means educating buyers on a dealer level, on Kia.com, etc. Other OEMs also assist by getting the same message across with their turbo offerings.

On top of offering better fuel economy with just as much power as other V6s, we get around the “mental block” of a four-cylinder by getting people behind the wheel and testing the car themselves. We conducted blind powertrain studies that showed that almost every consumer chose the four-cylinder over the competitive V6s. Also, we offer ride-and-drive opportunities at all major auto shows and other experiential events around the country to get consumers in the car to test it before they get to the dealers.

We don’t expect any affect. The intercooler system on the Turbo is extremely efficient. This is something we were concerned about and addressed from the beginning.

Optima Turbo will go on sale first and the Sportage Turbo will be available during the first quarter of 2011. The Sportage Turbo also will be calibrated differently and likely offer slightly lower horsepower than the Optima Turbo.

The dampers are weighted to give more damping, and the steering was turned to be a little more responsive than the base model.

The powertrain is shared, however we have different equipment than Sonata, including larger front disk brakes, available panoramic sunroof, HID headlights and LED tail lamps. The biggest difference between the two is the tuning, including NVH, suspension, steering feel, etc. Optima Turbo is tuned to be sportier and more responsive, appealing to Kia’s core demographic.

Most competitive V6’s also are A/T only, and looking at the market and consumer demands, there just isn’t as much desire for a M/T anymore.

Optima is built in Korea. It is a global product first launching in Korea, followed by the U.S. Demand has exceeded supply and we are trying to get as many here as we can.