Kia has launched their first vehicle in the Indian market in the form of Seltos compact SUV. The SUV has been a smash hit right from the beginning and despite the ongoing period of severe sales slowdown in the auto industry the SUV had already amassed more than 30,000 bookings shortly after launch. Now the sales figures for the first month of the vehicle in the market are in and that too is a record number. South Korean maker Kia sold 6,200 units of the Seltos compact SUV in August 2019. This is a record new figure for the Indian car industry as no other company has reached this figure for the debut month of a vehicle till date. Given that the price of the entry level variant of the SUV has been set at Rs. 9.69 lakhs, ex-showroom Delhi and it has been launched in a total of 16 variants, the demand for the SUV is only expected to go up.
Kia has taken a very aggressive pricing strategy here and has launched the Seltos SUV at a price point that is lower than its sister company Hyundai's Creta SUV. Kia Seltos will lock horns with the likes of Hyundai Creta, Nissan Kicks, Tata Harrier, and MG Hector with the latter two being from a segment above. In order to plug the high demand, the South Korean maker Kia Motors is planning to bump up the production of Seltos SUV at its Anantapur factory in Andhra Pradesh.
The SUV will come in a total of 13 shades wherein 8 shades will be unicolor and the remaining 5 will be dual tone options. While the unicolor shades will be available with all the variants of the SUV, the dual tone options will only be offered with HTX, GTK and GTX variants. The alloy wheel options will also depend on the variant one chooses as the 17-inch crystal cut alloy wheels, 17-inch hyper metallic alloy wheels, 16-inch hyper metallic alloy wheels, and the 16-inch steel wheels are all available with different variants.
Talking of the features on offer on the Kia Seltos, the SUV comes with several segment firsts including a BOSE audio system with 8 speakers, 8 hue ambient lighting, 8-inch HUD, 10.25-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, UVO smart connect, and smart air purifier. Other features of the car include reclining rear seats, four-wheel disc brakes, blind-spot monitor, electric sunroof, power-adjustable driver seat with ventilation, leather interiors, and a 360-degree camera among others. Just like the BlueLink system seen on the Hyundai Venue, Kia's proprietary UVO smart connectivity comes with 37 smart features which include remote engine and AC start, checking tyre pressure, service period status, vehicle tracking, and geo-fencing among others.
Coming to the engine and transmission offerings of the SUV, the first petrol unit is a 1.5L naturally aspirated unit rated to deliver 113 Bhp and 138 Nm. The next option in the petrol line-up is a 1.4L turbo petrol unit rated to deliver 138 Bhp and 242 Nm. Moving on to the diesel option, the diesel unit is a 1.5L turbo unit rated to deliver 113 Bhp and 250 Nm.