New York Auto Show: Kia’s new Optima sedan to debut
Kia’s next generation Optima sedan is headed to New York.
The Korean automaker announced Wednesday that it will premiere the all-new midsize sedan at the New York Auto Show on April 1. The Optima is Kia’s most popular model, grabbing nearly 160,000 sales in 2014.
While those numbers are impressive for Kia, they’re less than half of what Nissan’s Altima, Honda’s Accord or Toyota’s Camry logged last year. The new Optima hopes to beat its more established rivals in the sales race with the help of style; Kia promised that the new model would be “passionately designed and obsessively crafted.”
Details of that design haven’t been revealed aside from a pair of concept sketches Kia released. But the automaker did tease the Optima with a concept station wagon called the Sportspace at the recent Geneva Motor Show.
No specifics were released on what the next Optima would have under the hood, though it is expected to carry over the current generation’s 192-horsepower four-cylinder engine and its optional 274-horsepower turbocharged four cylinder engine.
The new Optima is expected to go on sale later this year.
Its premiere at the New York show will be just one of many high-profile announcements during this year’s annual event.
Other reveals include Cadillac’s all-new CT6 flagship sedan, a new two-model lineup of cheaper McLaren sports cars, Jaguar’s new XF sedan, Chevy’s tiny Spark and midsize Malibu, Scion’s iM hatchback and iA compact sedan, and Mercedes-Benz’s refreshed ML SUV, which will change its name to the GLE.
The 2015 New York Auto Show is open to the media on April 1 and 2 and to the general public from April 3 to April 12.
