Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Kia kills Sedona this year, plans new minivan for 2014

Kiax-wide-community
There will be no 2013 Kia Sedona -- but Kia says it plans to launch a redesigned minivan for model-year 2014.

Although the Sedona has never been a major player in the segment — June sales were down 12% compared with June 2011 — the automaker says it's committed to continuing to compete in minivans. The Sedona has been a lower-price alternative.

"The minivan segment has been and will continue to be important to Kia. Although there will not be a 2013 model year Sedona, our plans call for the current-generation vehicle to be available at dealerships through 2012, with production scheduled to resume in 2013," Kia representative Mike Ofiara told Cars.com.

The Sedona rolled out in the U.S. market as a 2002 model, and it will likely be replaced by a version of the KV7 concept above, which was displayed at the 2011 Detroit auto show.

"We did show the KV7 concept to kind of give our look at where we saw the minivan segment going. … If you look at our previous auto show concept vehicles, a lot of those have come to production. … We're constantly looking at all those various segments. We've got a strong owner base in Sedona," Michael Sprague, Kia's executive vice president of marketing, told Cars.com.

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