Last month we took a look at some of Kia’s most creative concept vehicles and asked you to vote for your favourite car that didn’t quite make the cut. You cast your ballots, we tallied the votes, and two concept vehicles emerged as the frontrunners . . . the Kia HabaNiro and the Kia Imagine.
Both concepts made their international debut in 2019, and both vehicles just happen to be fully electric. These innovative designs bring Kia one step closer to achieving their electrification goals of having electric vehicles, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids comprise 40% of total sales by 2030. While this dynamic duo paves the way toward a greener future, each vehicle has its own distinctly different vision for the upcoming era of EVs.
2019 Kia HabaNiro Concept
Making its world premier at the 2019 New York International Auto Show, this fully-electric, AWD, four-seater takes bold to the next level. Featuring a grille that resembles a shark snout, butterfly-wing doors, and a bright Lava Red interior, you can’t deny the stunning styling of this compact crossover.
But the tech under the hood is what separates this concept from the rest. The HabaNiro uses Kia’s new Real-time Emotional Adaptive Driving (R.E.A.D.) system which both optimizes and personalizes a vehicle’s cabin space by monitoring the driver’s emotional state, even going so far as to potentially alter interior conditions to create a more pleasurable and safer driving experience.
With an electric range over 482 kilometers, level-five vehicular autonomy, and more advanced tech than what helped man reach the moon, the HabaNiro envisions a future of mobility where automobiles will seamlessly integrate design, capability, usefulness, and creativity.
2019 Kia Imagine Concept
Unveiled at the 2019 Geneva International Motor Show, the Kia Imagine concept is “a visual embodiment of Kia’s desire to move forward in the exciting world of electrification.” Kia’s first pure electric four-door passenger car transforms the iconic ‘tiger-nose’ grille into a ‘tiger mask,’ giving it a striking and distinctly recognizable exterior motif.
However, the cabin of the Imagine concept is like nothing you’ve seen before. Featuring 21 individual ultra high-resolution screens working in concert across the dashboard to create a unified display, this highly functional “screen wall” is a fresh approach on how to move away from the traditional fixed screen.
The Imagine even takes a creative approach to overcoming the perceived obstacles of owning and driving an EV. Designers have implemented a low-mounted, induction-charged battery pack used to power the Imagine’s compact drivetrain. Induction charging is a relatively new form of EV charging that Kia hopes will eliminate concerns around recharging network availability and efficiency. As Vice President of Design, Gregory Guillaume, says, “it’s time to free your imagination, to stop wondering and to start driving!”
