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583 – Kia and fleet car business

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Kia Sportage: the car that marked the turning point for Kia, reckons Ian Mathews, providing fleet users with a strikingly designed car that also had low CO2 emissions and low company car tax

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19 May 2011

Kia Sportage was the first Kia model to really attract company car user choosers to the Kia brand
Kia Sportage: the car that marked the turning point for Kia, reckons Ian Mathews, providing fleet users with a strikingly designed car that also had low CO2 emissions and low company car tax

Editor’s Blog: RALPH MORTON

 

Conversation with Ian Mathews, head of product planning at Kia

ON Monday night I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Ian Mathews, who is Kia’s head of product planning & marketing programmes, to give him his full handle.

Ian was on hand to answer questions about the new Kia Picanto, which I had been test driving that day.

Ian has been with Kia for eight years now, so he has seen something of a transformation in the Kia product line up, from the frankly oddball to the utterly desirable. It’s been some journey in a fairly short space of time.

What, though, was the turning point I asked Ian? “I think the Kia Sportage was the car that turned lots of people towards the brand,” explains Ian.

“For the first time it attracted lots of fleet user-choosers to Kia away from German brands. They were new to the brand, attracted by the low CO2 emissions of the models for company car tax reasons, and – to be honest – much was down to the design of the car.”

Dashboard of the Kia Picanto 2 ISG Eco Dynamics
Unfussy and functional design of the Kia Picanto’s dashboard – shown here in Picanto 2 Eco Dynamics trim. Quality of plastics and trim is very high

The new Kia Picanto looks to extend that appeal, blending authoritatively confident styling with low CO2 emissions. One model, in particular, Ian believes will attract company car drivers from small businesses is the 1.25 Eco Dynamics model. This features stop-start fuel saving technology to keep CO2 emissions at 100g/km, although still offering 84bhp.

“EcoDynamics is the name we give to the green umbrella which covers a range of current and future fuel-saving, CO2-cutting technologies,” says Ian. “In time it will be expanded to include alternative-fuel vehicles – hybrid, electric and even hydrogen fuel-cell cars – but for now it embraces improvements to conventional petrol and diesel engines and other measures which can reduce the running costs of Kia vehicles and their environmental impact.

New Kia Picanto 1.0 with three-cylinder engine offers business car drivers a pleasing drive and low company car tax
The new Kia Picanto: this is the three-cylinder 1.0 litre model. It’s the Picanto version I enjoyed driving most. The official 0-60mph is 13.9 seconds – but that engine makes it sound much sportier and quicker. A further upside is 67.3mpg average fuel economy

“In the new Picanto, these include the Intelligent Stop & Go (ISG) engine cut-out system which automatically stops the engine when the car is stationary in traffic,” Ian adds.

It doesn’t feel like an eco-special to drive, either. The engine is peppy, and the stop-start system works well. However, my favourite in the range was the Kia Picanto 1.0.

I love three- and five-cylinder engines – they have a lovely off-beat sound to the engine. And the 1.0 litre has a delightful three-cylinder engine that happily revs away, sounding pleasingly urgent. It’s great fun.

It also has CO2 emissions of 99g/km – which means future company car tax bills are kept at 10% for the next three years. Combine that with 100% first year capital allowances, and exemption from London’s congestion charge, and the new Kia Picanto has plenty to attract the attention of SME business car managers who want to keep a lid on car costs – but don’t want to spoil the driving experience for the business car driver.

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Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton

Ralph Morton is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Business Car Manager (now renamed Business Motoring). Ralph writes extensively about the car and van leasing industry as well as wider fleet and company car issues. A former editor of What Car?, Ralph is a vastly experienced writer and editor and has been writing about the automotive sector for over 35 years.

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