Aside from the mild aberration that is the hybrid Niro, which we reviewed recently, the majority of cars in the Kia model line-up are good.

Kia has updated the Picanto, its popular city car. James Baggott heads to Spain to try it out

AA Ireland has today announced a partnership with Kia Ireland to provide breakdown assistance to those who purchase the new Kia Niro Hybrid.

Kia has brought a new hybrid model to market, but the Niro is unexciting to drive, says Declan Colley.

Kia president of design, Peter Schreyer, says despite completely transforming the look of the brand in the last 10 years, his job is not done yet.

We take the new Kia Optima for test drive to find out if it’s worth the investment.

Kia has just announced details of its new hybrid contender, the Niro. Kia says the new vehicle offers the practicality and kerbside appeal of a spacious crossover, together with the high fuel efficiency of an advanced hybrid powertrain.

FOUR of the top contenders in the rapidly expanding, wildly popular crossover segment are essentially two pairs of cars which are very closely related to each other.

Some time ago I got a phone call from a reader who was torn between buying a Hyundai i40 and the Kia Optima and he was quite startled when I responded to his inquiry as to which he should purchase by immediately plumping for the Hyundai, writes Declan Colley

The names Peter Schreyer and Luc Donckerwolke might not mean much to the average Joe or Josie, but in the world of automotive design, they are hallowed legends.

What’s new?

The Kia Optima may not have clicked with Irish customers in the same way as its’ sister car the Hyundai i40, but it was a very worthy effort from the Korean manufacturer and probably deserved better in overall sales terms.

There can be little doubting about Kia’s ambitious nature right now. The Korean company — a sister brand to Hyundai, remember — has made massive strides since the days when it pedalled fairly grim family-oriented hatchbacks and saloons, as well as a couple of faux 4x4 jobbies.

The 1,000,000th Kia cee’d has been manufactured by Kia Motors in Europe, a major milestone since starting production in 2006.

Kia Motors unveiled its latest concept car — the Kia Novo — this week at the Seoul Motor Show.

IT MAY be that sister company Hyundai is now self-proclaimed as ‘Ireland’s fastest growing car brand,’ but Kia has been making steady progress here in recent years and the most recent registration figures to the end of May showed the Korean firm competing well inside the top ten selling marques with a very healthy 4.57% market share for the first five months of the year.

IN the not-so-distant past, if anyone came up to you and praised the looks of the Kia car you were driving, you’d have asked immediate and pertinent questions about the sanity of the person concerned.

KIA has made tremendous strides in Ireland, and in every developed market, in the last five years or so. It has transformed itself: it was a moderately interesting and cost-effective alternative to the established European and Japanese brands.

IT may be, as the old saying has it, that flattery is the best form of imitation, but I must say I was quite surprised during my recent test of the new Kia Cee’d by the numbers of people who complimented the car in the mistaken view that it was a new Ford Focus.

FOR two years, I have been banging on about how the "Koreans are coming" and I’m not referring to the military strength of Kim Jong-Un’s recently inherited Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, but to the industrial strength of their hated southern neighbours in the Republic of Korea.