Items tagged with Kia
Kia has been working hard to change perceptions about its cars. It was in the past the place you went for cheap, but not terribly exciting or attractive vehicles. That has changed with cars like the Kia Stinger GT competing against the likes of the Mustang GT and other performance vehicles. Kia this week unveiled the new 2020 Kia Soul EV to compete directly with the Tesla Model 3, the rumored VW EV, the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Bolt. The new Soul EV gains power and torque with a 201 hp electric motor producing 291 lb-ft of torque. That is loads more torque than the outgoing Soul EV made and will mean much better performance. The Soul EV won't offer Tesla Modle 3 dual-motor levels of go,...
Read more...
Most people who are shopping for a Ford Mustang, an RWD sports/muscle car, aren’t likely to be cross shopping that car with a Kia. However, with the new Kia Stinger GT on the market, the Korean sedan might be something that Mustang shoppers are considering in today's market. The guys from Throttle House took a Kia Stinger GT packing the twin-turbo V6 and all-wheel drive to the drag strip and pitted it against a Mustang GT automatic that does have aftermarket tires, different springs, and factory Magneride suspension. Anyone who's ever tried to launch an RWD Mustang on an unprepared surface with over 450hp on tap knows that it's not easy to do. The Stinger GT, on the other hand, has...
Read more...
It might not have the brawny, rumbling ferociousness of a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, but the new Kia Stinger is going after an equally fierce product segment. The vehicle will find itself doing battle with vehicles like the BMW 4-Series Gran Coupe and the Audi A5 Sportback, and it just might be a real winner. The Stinger is based on a new rear-wheel-drive (RWD) platform, which is critical in this segment. Base vehicles are powered by a 2.0-liter inline-4 engine that produces 255 horsepower and 260 foot-pounds of torque. That makes it very competitive with similar engines from BMW and Audi. However, the engine that everyone will likely want to sample is the 3.3-liter V6 (found in the Stinger...
Read more...
It looks as though Hyundai and its affiliates are taking direct aim at the Toyota Prius, and with good reason. Despite the fact that gas prices have reached lows in the United States that we haven’t seen in years, the Prius is still the by far the best-selling hybrid vehicle on the market. Many have tried to copy the success of the Prius, but all have come up short. Hyundai is going after the Prius with the similarly-shaped Ioniq, while Kia just today announced the new 2017 Niro, which uses the same platform as the Ioniq, but is wrapped in a crossover-esque body style. Compact crossovers are the hottest-selling vehicle category in the U.S. auto market, so its makes sense that Kia would try to...
Read more...
When you think of luxury cars, Kia probably isn't a brand that comes immediately to mind. You might even associate Kia with cheap automobiles, though the South Korean car maker has made strides in recent years to build a more solid reputation in the U.S. It has close ties with the NBA and in particular Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers, and come Super Bowl time this Sunday, Kia will introduce the world to its new luxury sedan, the K900. Super Bowl ads don't come cheap -- $4 million for a 30-second spot this year, plus production costs -- so run-of-mill commercials are a waste of time and money. Rather than fall into that trap, Kia enlisted the help of Morpheus from "The Matrix" to help...
Read more...
Microsoft has developed a rich media platform to compete with Adobe's Flash, called Silverlight. Nokia has decided to sign on to use Silverlight on some of its smartphones and Internet tablets. Microsoft no doubt sees that browsing the Internet and virtual devices will eventually eat into their desktop supremacy, and would like to get a foothold in that on-the-go mediafest now. John Case, a general manager with Microsoft, said Nokia represents the first of several similar announcements for Silverlight on mobile devices. He also said the next generation of Windows Mobile will support Silverlight, though he declined to give a time frame for the release of Windows Mobile 7. In...
Read more...
A phone you can turn into a slingshot? Well, you can't quite do that, but this concept phone is stretchable and flexible - and definitely cool.Nokia Research Center and researchers at the University of Cambridge have teamed up to create a joint nanotechnology concept dubbed "Morph". The two teams announced their partnership back in March of 2007 and the Morph is one of the first projects to emerge from the partnership. Launched today, the Morph is part of the "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Morph, as it is appropriately named, is comprised of flexible materials that can be reshaped on the fly to...
Read more...
Nokia announced they were shipping the new N810 Internet Tablet yesterday. It's not really a phone unless you've got some sort of VoIP arrangement, but it's a nice little UMPC. Or it's a PDA on steroids. Well, at any rate, you can slide out the keyboard and type, surf the internet on its touchscreen if you can find a WiFi hotspot or can finagle a Bluetooth phone, or maybe just use it for music playback for a week at a stretch.With up to 45 hours of music playback, storage for up to 7,500 songs* and built-in GPS, the Nokia N810 is perfect for the person on the go. The Nokia N810 comes with free maps preloaded for users to browse detailed locations, search for street addresses, find various...
Read more...
Nokia, the Finnish handset giant, announced third quarter financial results yesterday. They've posted an astonishing 85% gain in profits, $2.2 billion, surprising experts and sending their stock into the chilly Scandinavian troposphere. And they did it by playing Wal*Mart to Apple's Neiman-Marcus, if you will -- selling inexpensive things to a lot of people, instead of pricey things to a few people. How many is "a lot," you ask? The company shipped 112 million units for the quarter, a record for the industry. Nokia now predicts that 1.1 billion mobile devices will be sold this year, up from 978 million in 2006. The company's results follow strong profit reports from mobile-phone rivals LG,...
Read more...
Finnish phone giant Nokia is shipping their eagerly anticipated N95 handheld computer. It got a 2.8" display, and a nifty two way slide to expose a keypad for entering text if you slide it out one way, or controls for the media functions if you slide it out the other direction. Nifty. Boasting up to eight gigabytes of built-in memory, the Nokia N95 8GB has all the key features of its predecessor, including a 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, built-in A-GPS, WLAN, HSDPA and an innovative 2-way slide. The sleek black N95 8GB also boasts a luminous 2.8" (240 x 320) QVGA display, so watching videos, browsing the Internet or viewing maps is a real pleasure. With its expanded memory, the N95...
Read more...
Norwegian phone giant Nokia announced its intention to purchase Chicago-based navigation software maker Navteq for around 8 billion dollars. Nokia, already the world's largest maker of mobile phones, seeks to expand the mobile services it offers to go along with the hardware.Nokia's President and Chief Executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said "location-based services are one of the cornerstones of Nokia's Internet services strategy. The acquisition of Navteq is another step toward Nokia becoming a leading player in this space." Helsinki-based Nokia has made several acquisitions to expand Internet services. The company announced last month that it would buy Enpocket, a U.S.-based mobile advertising...
Read more...
Last month Nokia issued a massive battery recall. Unfortunately for this pregnant Indian woman, it didn't include her battery, which was of a different series, though still manufactured by Matsushita. The battery exploded 10 minutes after she plugged it into the charger. A pregnant woman was injured at her south Kolkata residence on Wednesday when her Nokia handset battery exploded 10 minutes after she had put it on charge. The battery was a BL-D3, not part of the BL-5C series that Nokia recalled earlier this month. However, both series were manufactured by Matsushita Battery Industrial Co, Japan. The handset that blew up was purchased in 2004. Legal action against Nokia is being considered...
Read more...
Showing it is indeed possible for us to all "just get along," Microsoft and Nokia have made nice. Nokia phones will be getting mobile versions of Windows Live services on its handhelds, starting today. Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, it's Europe and the Middle East only for now. Nokia and Microsoft said Thursday they have joined together to provide customers with a new suite of Windows Live services specifically designed for Nokia devices. Starting Thursday Nokia customers in eleven countries with compatible S60 devices can download the new suite enabling access to Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Contacts and Windows Live Spaces. The 11...
Read more...
For once it's not a Sony battery being recalled, but it is a huge number. 46 million BL-5C batteries made by Matsushita are being recalled by Nokia because of possible overheating. Replacements will, of course, be free. The batteries were manufactured between December 2005 and November 2006. Nokia has identified that in very rare cases the affected batteries could potentially experience over heating initiated by a short circuit while charging, causing the battery to dislodge. Nokia is working closely with relevant local authorities to investigate this situation. Consumers with a BL-5C battery subject to this advisory should note that all of the approximately 100 incidents have occurred...
Read more...
