"Kia Motors' Ambitious Green Plans Include Plug-In Hybird and Fuel Cell Vehicles " Green Car Advisor

Kia Motors' Ambitious Green Plans Include Plug-In Hybird and Fuel Cell Vehicles

By James Riswick, Edmunds.com

Kia Motors is making gradual progress towards a greener future, although commercialization of its technologies remains a few years off.

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Kia Sportage FCEV is carmaker's third-generation fuel-cell electric vehicle.
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At the heart of the company's environmentally friendly initiative is an R&D facility, located near Seoul, created to develop green technologies for Kia and its parent company, Hyundai Motor.

I journeyed late last month to South Korea to sample Kia's latest green prototypes at another Hyundai-Kia R&D facility, located in Namyang and home to a full proving ground.

Kia presently has two generations of its hybrid technology in prototype vehicles: the original, a Kia Rio Hybrid, and the second a Kia C'eed Hybrid based on the popular Kia five-door hatchback solid in Europe.

Both vehicles showcase a Honda-style "mild" hybrid powertrain featuring auto engine stop, regenerative braking and electric boost when accelerating. They cannot accelerate solely under electric power, as can vehicles with "full" hybrid systems such as Toyota's.

The first Kia hybrid will show up in 2009 in the next-generation Spectra for the Korean market.

It will use a battery-electric system as described above, coupled to an internal combustion engine fuelled by liquid propane, which is readily available throughout the domestic market.

The first Kia hybrid for the U.S. will arrive in 2010 as a part of the completely redesigned 2011 Kia Optima lineup. It is uncertain how much the company's hybrid technology will evolve by then, but whatever technological advancements emerge will be shared with the Hyundai Sonata.

Kia officials say the company will not be producing a dedicated hybrid model, as they view hybrid technology as only a temporary step in the evolution of alternative powerplants for the personal auto.

Hyundai-Kia instead will focus on the development of a dedicated plug-in hybrid model for the 2013 model year, with a demo program for the plug-in system running from 2010 until 2013 using the Optima as a base car.

The final piece of the South Korean automakers' green puzzle comes from hydrogen-electric fuel cells.

I got to drive the third-generation fuel cell powerplant, used in a fleet of 32 Kia Sportage and Hyundai Tucson prototype fuel-cell electric SUVs,

The system, which produces electricity from hydrogen and oxygen in an on-board electro-chemical process, features a 100 kilowatt output and a range of 400 kilometers, or about 250 miles. That's up from 80 kilowatts of power and 384 kilometers of range (240 miles) from the previous prototype.

The Kia Sportage FCEV that I drove was noticeably slower than GM's Equinox fuel-cell electric prototype, and getting up to 60 miles an hour took an eternity.

The almost complete lack of thrust going up to 20 mph was stunning. However, it does make those neat hydrogen fuel-cell noises that sound as if taken from the Millennium Falcon.

The fourth generation of the Kia FCEV program will feature the company's Borrego crossover outfitted with a 115-kilowatt system capable of a 510 km range (315 miles).

The plan is to put this into a small-scale production test program, as Honda has done with its FCX Clarity fuel-cell sedan. The program, which will be limited to the Korean market, is scheduled to begin in 2010 and to continue indefinitely.

Kia's $105 million fuel cell program gets half of its funding from the company, half from the Korean government.

The issue of importing diesel-powered Kias to the U.S wasn't addressed during my visit and Kia executives were far from forthcoming regarding any possible clean diesel technology showing up stateside.

Kia may not have much in the way of alternative fuel vehicles in the market today, but it certainly seems to have big goals. More importantly, there seems to be a corporate-wide dedication to green technologies, along with the resources and development facilities needed to reach those goals.

Riswick is automotive editor for Edmunds.com