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- Joined
- Dec 7, 2005
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Kia Motors Corp. is one of the two car brands of Hyundai of South Korea. It has always been a marginal brand. Its stable mate, Hyundai USA, has a reputation for high quality cars like the Sonata and Genesis. Kia sells "low rent" cars and SUV nameplates like the Sorento and Rio. As GM and Ford (NYSE: F - News) have already discovered, it is expensive to maintain multiple brands and storied car names, including Pontiac, Saturn and Mercury, are disappearing. Most Kia cars sell for $14,000 to $25,000. Hyundai has several cars in the same price range. Hyundai's Sonata has quickly become one of the best-selling cars in America, and its Genesis flagship model competes with mid-sized BMWs and Mercedes. The parent company will take a page from several other global car companies and dump its weakest brand.
On the other hand, Hyundai is also announcing a fairly large amount of new product for Kia and is trying to position them as some sort of cool Hyundai. The entire reason this guy has for Kia being cut seems to be that well, Pontiac, Saturn and Mercury were, so Hyundai is totally going to do it too, because it's what all the cool kids are doing.
Sauce.