Kia showed off its design ideas at the Milan Design Fair with a display of lights and screens but no real cars. Karim Habib, who is in charge of design for the whole company, sat down with us to talk about Kia’s design plan. Habib’s “Opposites United” idea was displayed during the event. It gives a vague idea of where the brand gets its views as it changes its image worldwide. In the US, Kia is in an exciting position right now. Early in the 1990s, the Korean car company joined the American market as a low-cost competitor to the cheap Japanese and American cars of the time. After 30 years of focusing on one part of the market, the image of a “cheap car” has burned into the hippocampus of almost every American. But in the last five years, the company has become increasingly valuable. What started as a small change is now making a huge difference. Kia wants the best for everyone. Different-Thinkers Get Together Kia wants to get people used to spending $40,000, $50,000, or more on its products by giving them the thoroughly modern EV6 and Telluride and letting them know that the EV9 is on the way. At the Milan Design Fair, Kia’s head of design, Karim Habib, talked to Car and Driver about the company’s new approach to design and its efforts to create a new business identity. Habib took the automaker’s “Opposites United” show to Milan to show how future cars like the EV6 and EV9 are based on the same idea. Kia and Habib decided only to show design ideas at the design fair. They didn’t bring any real cars or models. Habib used to work at BMW for almost 20 years, including as the head of design. He told us he knows how hard it is to make cars for a growing company. He said that different names give customers additional choices. “That bandwidth can or must be a little bit narrower,” the speaker said, if your brand is well known and has been around for a long time. Habib says that the large “bandwidth” of design languages makes it hard for him and his team to make the cars “more futuristic” and “more challenging.” He thinks it is his job to push design limits as far as he can. Because of the forward-thinking ethos of the organization, we absolutely adore working with Kia. Habib is certain that the business is heading in the right direction since “there aren’t many times when people say we’re going too far.” A riskier way of doing things Take the Soul has been on the market since 2008 and has always been known as an exciting and unique car. Boxy looks are familiar to the company. Kia wants to make its electric vehicles look more potent in the future. Because of how famous the Telluride was and how much it was different from how the company usually looks and feels, Habib and his team started working on the EV5 idea and the EV9 three-row SUV, both of which will be available in the United States next year. Habib discussed the type of vehicle many car fans fear when discussing what we might see in the future. “We’re moving from a cockpit to a living space that moves,” Habib said, adding that the team is working on possible new products. Is it possible to turn these movable structures into someplace where people can live for a while? Something like that has already been said. They are sometimes called RVs, though. The front ends of Kia’s new cars are bigger and more squared off, but the lighting strips are angled. Kia differentiates itself from the competition by implementing minute changes to the design of their vehicles, such as installing light bars in and around the headlights giving the brand a unique look. We are excited about it.
