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Old 09-07-2011, 01:11 PM   #1
XDCX
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Default Why doesn't Hyundai or KIA have a pickup in their Product Pipeline?

With speculation that Honda's going to kill-off their Ridgeline pickup in the next year or two I was wondering why Hyundai and KIA never developed a vehicle to compete in that segment?

I checked the Automotive News chart listing future product for Hyundai and KIA and there's nothing in the pipeline to suggest that dealers will see a pickup between now and 2014.

Are the Hyundai and KIA dealers demanding a new pickup? To me it seems like it would be a logical way to fuel the growth in market share these two brands have enjoyed over the past several years.
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Old 09-08-2011, 09:53 AM   #2
rd3311
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Hyundai made it clear in 1992 that going forward their business plan was to mimic the Honda's product line car by car. When a minivan was needed a Kia Sedona was re-badged to be the Entourage to fill that particular segment. When Kia was aquired by Hyundai in the late 1990s, decisions were made to develop and share future products.

HMA dealer council have asked for a "small pickup" previously during the course of this decade. The Kia Mojave if it is ever imported would be the re-badged product to be offered. KMA (Kia) recently dropped both the Borrego and Rondo from the U.S. product offerings due to the Borrego being both a slow mover (it was launched when gas prices were $4.00/gal) and the cost of retail incentives.

The Rondo crossover should have been retained, but was not due to the total sales numbers not ending up as expected as well as it is a low margin offering for KMA.

Many Rondos and Borregos went into field car service for KMA employees, with many also being sold to Enterprise RAC at steep discount for their at risk fleet. For CPO both products move fast on the retail used car side, and pretty much are hard to keep on the lot.

Both KMA and HMA have an abundance of new product coming, they should also look at importing the diesel Sportage/Tucson that is sold in Europe and South America as well as other diesel SUVs and minivans from their product portfolio.

Last edited by rd3311; 09-08-2011 at 09:57 AM.
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Old 09-08-2011, 10:53 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rd3311 View Post
Hyundai made it clear in 1992 that going forward their business plan was to mimic the Honda's product line car by car. When a minivan was needed a Kia Sedona was re-badged to be the Entourage to fill that particular segment. When Kia was aquired by Hyundai in the late 1990s, decisions were made to develop and share future products.
That's interesting. I can't fault Hyundai for benchmarking Honda but I still think they're leaving market share on the table by not producing a small pickup.

In fact, I remember at the time thinking the only reason Hyundai wasn't interested in buying Chrysler when Cerberus was looking for buyers was because Hyundai already had full and small size pickups in development. Obviously, that wasn't the case.
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Old 09-08-2011, 11:00 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by rd3311 View Post
Many Rondos and Borregos went into field car service for KMA employees, with many also being sold to Enterprise RAC at steep discount for their at risk fleet. For CPO both products move fast on the retail used car side, and pretty much are hard to keep on the lot.
I always liked that business model - when Chrysler was at their peak they managed their product life cycle the same way.

When a new model was coming out all of the production would be aimed at retail and the model that was being phased out would be sold to the rental fleets to become future program cars dealers could buy at auction. It worked great with the old Shadow/Sundance, Spirit/Acclaim, Dynasty, etc. I know a lot of dealers who made good money selling program cars and it brought a lot of customers to the dealership who would have never shopped for a new Chrysler, Jeep or Dodge.
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Old 09-08-2011, 01:30 PM   #5
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Default KIA was thinking about doing a pickup way back in 2004

I did a quick Google search and found a story in USA Today which showed a picture of a concept pickup KIA was displaying back in 2004. Here's a link to the report - click here Sadly the vehicle never made it to market.

Hyundai almost did a deal with Chrysler last year to get a version of the Dodge Ram but that deal fell apart.

It's hard for me to believe Hyundai/KIA doesn't have something in the works - time will tell......
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