The company is planning to launch the SP Concept based production model next year and it will be the first launch of Kia in India
Kia officially revealed the SP Concept at the 2018 Auto Expo. The Korean manufacturer confirmed during the expo that the company will introduce a production version of the SP Concept. Recently the company had asked its followers to vote for the name of production version of SP Concept. The names short-listed for production model are Tusker, Trazor, SP-Z and Trailster.
Among these names, Tusker got the most votes and other names are far behind in votes. We could expect an official announcement from the company soon. An earlier report indicated that the company is fast tracking the launch of SP concept as they don’t want to wait too much as the compact SUV market is booming right now.
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Kookhyum Shin, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kia Motors India revealed that the first launch from Kia will be the production version of SP Concept. He also said that the company will launch the production version in the second half of 2019. We can expect the launch to take place around the festival season as it is the time when most launches happen.
Kia’s first manufacturing plant is coming in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh and the frame work installation happened in February 2018. The construction of new plant is expected to complete by the first quarter of 2019 and the work is going two months ahead of the schedule. The annual production capacity of upcoming plant is 3 lakh vehicles per annum.
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Shin also confirmed that the company is also focusing on increasing the level of localisation in the SP Concept production version as they want to price the model competitively. The production version of SP Concept compete head on with the sister brand Hyundai Creta. This platform of SP Concept will be used to develop other models.
Kia SP Concept Production version will be feature loaded and it will be powered by the same engines from Creta like the 1.6 L diesel and petrol engines. These engines will be mated to automatic and manual transmission. Kia is also planning to launch Stonic compact SUV and Grand Carnival MPV in India soon.