Kia sold nearly 84,000 vehicles in August, the best month in the company’s history, with six models posting their best-ever August. Hybrids drove much of it, climbing nearly 100% year over year, while EV volume held close to flat.
On today’s edition of CBT Live, Eric Watson, Vice President of Sales Operations at Kia America, broke down what powered the month and how the brand is working to turn record volume into dealer profit.
A new Telluride arrived earlier in the year, and a redesigned Seltos launched a few months ago and is selling at nearly double the rate of the previous generation, Watson said. Four or five models are now driving growth at once. Hybrids are an easy technology for shoppers to adopt, and Kia keeps adding them across more SUVs as fuel prices push buyers to trim their operating costs.
EV sales slipped by about 2,000 units year over year, which Watson called essentially flat, and the all-new EV3 is arriving at stores now as an affordable entry point. North American plants are set up to build ICE, hybrid and electric models on the same lines, giving the automaker room to shift its pace as demand moves. According to Watson, “Our big focus in helping our dealers is to drive more sales per dealer, increase our throughput. We think that’s key to profitability.”
Growing units in operation is the other half of that plan, since a larger parc feeds the service drive. Day supply is balanced across the network, and Kia is not oversupplied even with the volume growth, Watson said. Incentive pressure is building across the industry, and dealers report far more cross-shopping than they saw a year ago. Their message to the automaker is to stay competitive on incentives and lease programs daily.
