Will Kia Mass-Produce the Stinger?

[Clearly Canadian]

I'm curious what other's thoughts are in regards to the implications of Kia deciding to mass-produce the Stinger, or to not mass-produce it.

I'm not an economist but I would think that most businesses would attempt to scale up if they have a desirable product. Is it too early to tell if this will be a niche vehicle or one for the masses?

 

[Taimaishoo]

Supposedly, they will have, if not already, another run of the Stingers. Then set up the assembly line for a different KIA, make those, then another KIA, make those, etc. Rinse and repeat. If the vehicle is popular enough, they may make it at their US plant.

 

[Gdank]

It will depend on demand .... if it sells well and they believe it's worth stepping up the production then they will do it. If it doesn't get any interest in the showroom, then I doubt they will increase production.

 

[Merkur720]

I hope it stays somewhat of a niche/rare car, personally. It will help resale value too. Think FJ Cruiser, Pontiac Solstice, WRX... Hoping the 15K/year production run is part of this plan.

 

[Kia Stinger]

I lean toward mass production because I like the IDEA of the Stinger - especially for the Kia brand. I fear that a limited production run will end up lasting only a single generation...

 

[Clearly Canadian]

I lean toward mass production because I like the IDEA of the Stinger - especially for the Kia brand. I fear that a limited production run will end up lasting only a single generation...

How could that happen?

 

[Kia Stinger]

How could that happen?

I don't know. I just have recent memories of the Chevy SS and Pontiac G8 GT. Both great cars and gone now. I feel like if the Kia doesn't sell enough Stingers in it's largest market, they'll consider it a failure.

 

[Merkur720]

I don't know. I just have recent memories of the Chevy SS and Pontiac G8 GT. Both great cars and gone now. I feel like if the Kia doesn't sell enough Stingers in it's largest market, they'll consider it a failure.

Those two cars were made by GM Holden in Australia. And that plant closed therefore the cars ended too. The car was boring to look at, too expensive for a Pontiac (before GM pulled the plug), and then became the SS purely out of default. It looked just like a Malibu, they didn’t market it at all, and it had horrible MPG involving a gas guzzler tax!!!!

The Stinger is doing well worldwide in even diesel applications. If anything, the Cadenza is more at risk.

 

[MarkyMark]

Those two cars were made by GM Holden in Australia. And that plant closed therefore the cars ended too. The car was boring to look at, too expensive for a Pontiac (before GM pulled the plug), and then became the SS purely out of default. It looked just like a Malibu, they didn’t market it at all, and it had horrible MPG involving a gas guzzler tax!!!!

The Stinger is doing well worldwide in even diesel applications. If anything, the Cadenza is more at risk.

A big problem for the G8 hit at a time when gas prices were soaring, and it's mileage was abysmal. Due to Holden, it lacked things the US market wanted standard, like a power drivers seat... The SS is an afterthought, and provides the market with another car lacking focus and just being there out of habit. Tired, worn out, not much to offer. Kia Stinger is in a class all it's own.

 

[MarkyMark]

I'm curious what other's thoughts are in regards to the implications of Kia deciding to mass-produce the Stinger, or to not mass-produce it.

I'm not an economist but I would think that most businesses would attempt to scale up if they have a desirable product. Is it too early to tell if this will be a niche vehicle or one for the masses?

The Stinger sits at a price point above any mass production car, such as a Toyota Camry or Chevy Malibu. For a mass production - thus mass market - car, the price simply has to play into a space that can span a wide range of buyers, while providing a wide ranges of features that grab as many customers as possible. It means a lot of compromises, and the Stinger is none of these things.

Starting at $32,900 and topping out around $52,000 USD simply pushes the Stinger into a "tweener" or entry-level luxury space. This is simply not a mass market space.

Can Kia sell more Stingers than they anticipated? Sure. But that won't make it a mass market or mass production car, it'll just mean they carved out a solid niche and are succeeding at taking share away from whatever else is out there - perhaps including their own Optima buyers. But as Steve Jobs said, "If your product is going to be cannibalized, it might as well be from your own offerings (paraphrased)." And getting Optima owners to move north is always going to be a win.

What may make the Stinger so well accepted - and sold - oddly enough, is the mainstream sedan market. Toyota and Honda have been struggling to reach a younger buyer, as the Camry started selling to would-be Buick owners for years. Lots of gray haired folks driving Camry's. Thus, for serval years now Toyota has been re-skinning their Camry's with sport advertising in an attempt to say the Camry is a true sports sedan, when in reality it is a 4-door mid-size family hauler with better suspension tuning and more (ugly - IMO) botched plastic nose work...

I own a 2014 Mazda6. It's great. It was the only mainstream sedan that didn't come off as a pretender, but a car that actually handled extremely well, was nimble, athletic and provided great gas mileage. It wasn't trying to be something it wasn't, and it represented a great value. Not the cheapest mid-size sedan, but the best value.

Now that I'm nearing 100k miles (yah, I drive nearly 25k miles a year), I began looking at new cars, and the Stinger instantly grabbed me. I'd consider an all-new Mazda6, but alas, Mazda's a small company and it'll be another 2-years before they bring out an all-new Mazda6...

I recently ran into a guy with a new GT1. He previously owned Honda Accords, but he drove the Stinger and just loved it.

This is just my hunch, but as there are so many pretender wanna-be sporty mid-size sedans out there, along comes Kia with the Stinger, and people like me instantly understand it IS NOT a pretender. It's the real deal. Finally a focused car that didn't compromise all over the place to become nothing more than a... Buick Regal, which is a souped up Malibu, hiding cheapness as best it can...

People like me are just tired of this game. Period.

I'm looking at a base model Stinger, perhaps with the tech package for the blind spot monitoring (man, I hope 2019's comes standard with some key safety features...). Many people in this Forum are in my boat – Former or current mid-size sedan owners that have or will be making the jump into a Stinger.

Kia may be poised to sell a much heavier dose of 2.0L vehicles than they had anticipated. The 2.0L is over 2 seconds faster 0-60 than my Mazda6, so for me, the test drive felt like a rocket ship! That's plenty of power for me, and the handling and multiple drive modes was fantastic.

Me. Likely you. We are the niche target market Kia built the Stinger for. No more "Pontiac! We build excitement!" nonsense, which was nothing more than a bunch of Chevy's with more plastic all over them... Stinger is a true Grand Turismo, and I - and many more - can't wait to get one.

 

[Clearly Canadian]

The Stinger sits at a price point above any mass production car, such as a Toyota Camry or Chevy Malibu. For a mass production - thus mass market - car, the price simply has to play into a space that can span a wide range of buyers, while providing a wide ranges of features that grab as many customers as possible. It means a lot of compromises, and the Stinger is none of these things.

Starting at $32,900 and topping out around $52,000 USD simply pushes the Stinger into a "tweener" or entry-level luxury space. This is simply not a mass market space.

Can Kia sell more Stingers than they anticipated? Sure. But that won't make it a mass market or mass production car, it'll just mean they carved out a solid niche and are succeeding at taking share away from whatever else is out there - perhaps including their own Optima buyers. But as Steve Jobs said, "If your product is going to be cannibalized, it might as well be from your own offerings (paraphrased)." And getting Optima owners to move north is always going to be a win.

What may make the Stinger so well accepted - and sold - oddly enough, is the mainstream sedan market. Toyota and Honda have been struggling to reach a younger buyer, as the Camry started selling to would-be Buick owners for years. Lots of gray haired folks driving Camry's. Thus, for serval years now Toyota has been re-skinning their Camry's with sport advertising in an attempt to say the Camry is a true sports sedan, when in reality it is a 4-door mid-size family hauler with better suspension tuning and more (ugly - IMO) botched plastic nose work...

I own a 2014 Mazda6. It's great. It was the only mainstream sedan that didn't come off as a pretender, but a car that actually handled extremely well, was nimble, athletic and provided great gas mileage. It wasn't trying to be something it wasn't, and it represented a great value. Not the cheapest mid-size sedan, but the best value.

Now that I'm nearing 100k miles (yah, I drive nearly 25k miles a year), I began looking at new cars, and the Stinger instantly grabbed me. I'd consider an all-new Mazda6, but alas, Mazda's a small company and it'll be another 2-years before they bring out an all-new Mazda6...

I recently ran into a guy with a new GT1. He previously owned Honda Accords, but he drove the Stinger and just loved it.

This is just my hunch, but as there are so many pretender wanna-be sporty mid-size sedans out there, along comes Kia with the Stinger, and people like me instantly understand it IS NOT a pretender. It's the real deal. Finally a focused car that didn't compromise all over the place to become nothing more than a... Buick Regal, which is a souped up Malibu, hiding cheapness as best it can...

People like me are just tired of this game. Period.

I'm looking at a base model Stinger, perhaps with the tech package for the blind spot monitoring (man, I hope 2019's comes standard with some key safety features...). Many people in this Forum are in my boat – Former or current mid-size sedan owners that have or will be making the jump into a Stinger.

Kia may be poised to sell a much heavier dose of 2.0L vehicles than they had anticipated. The 2.0L is over 2 seconds faster 0-60 than my Mazda6, so for me, the test drive felt like a rocket ship! That's plenty of power for me, and the handling and multiple drive modes was fantastic.

Me. Likely you. We are the niche target market Kia built the Stinger for. No more "Pontiac! We build excitement!" nonsense, which was nothing more than a bunch of Chevy's with more plastic all over them... Stinger is a true Grand Turismo, and I - and many more - can't wait to get one.

Thanks MarkyMark, that was the type of insight I was seeking with my question. Your comments make me wonder what brands people are switching from (if not from a previous Kia). Myself, I've been a committed Acura fan for over a decade. It's time to replace my vehicle but Acura doesn't seem to make what I want right now. I am a brand-agnostic value-conscious buyer who wants power, tech, reliability and fun all wrapped up in an attractive package. I swore my next vehicle would be a lightly-used car so as to avoid the day-one depreciation cliff, but here I am waiting for delivery of a new Stinger. Go figure.

 

[AV8R]

Personally I don’t think Kia will because they can’t keep up with orders now and they did not think they counted on 90% of the orders to be for the GT 3.3L. So now dealers in Australia have surplus 2 litre models sitting in their yards that won’t sell. They may have designed a great car but they sure stuffed the market research up.
Safety ratings in Australia differ between models as the 3 litre gets 5 stars and the 2 litre gets 3 stars, what a shambles. The other thing is the quota system sucks , only countries that Kia feel will sell more Kias get more vehicles. Now we are faced with long waits for a Korean car which is ridiculous and the customers are not amused.
Kia should be reading these forums and taking note as we are the consumers. If it wasn’t for the fact I really want they car I think I would have canecelled my order when I was told I would have to wait another 4 months when I was told it would be here by end of January.

 

[Clearly Canadian]

Personally I don’t think Kia will because they can’t keep up with orders now and they did not think they counted on 90% of the orders to be for the GT 3.3L. So now dealers in Australia have surplus 2 litre models sitting in their yards that won’t sell. They may have designed a great car but they sure stuffed the market research up.
Safety ratings in Australia differ between models as the 3 litre gets 5 stars and the 2 litre gets 3 stars, what a shambles. The other thing is the quota system sucks , only countries that Kia feel will sell more Kias get more vehicles. Now we are faced with long waits for a Korean car which is ridiculous and the customers are not amused.
Kia should be reading these forums and taking note as we are the consumers. If it wasn’t for the fact I really want they car I think I would have canecelled my order when I was told I would have to wait another 4 months when I was told it would be here by end of January.

Where does Canada fall in the quota system?

 

[AV8R]

Not sure but we got them before you did.

 

[AV8R]

Believe it or not there has been no tv advertising for the car yet and it’s been available since early October last year!

 

[AV8R]

It will depend on demand .... if it sells well and they believe it's worth stepping up the production then they will do it. If it doesn't get any interest in the showroom, then I doubt they will increase production.

Plenty of interest in Australia just no cars to deliver!

 

[Gdank]

Plenty of interest in Australia just no cars to deliver!

Well "interest" and "willing to buy" is different , however I'm sure Kia-Australia will pass this info onto Kia. In the UK only a selection of dealerships can even sell the Stinger, and then they are limited to 12 each in a year! Not only that this year it's on the top 3.3L GT-S RWD that you can buy ... if you want a 2.0, 2.2d, AWD, or a Blue Car, you need to wait until Setp 2018 at the earliest.

I'd be happy if it's kept limited too ... will keep re-sell values up and be rare to see one on the road.

 

[AV8R]

Well "interest" and "willing to buy" is different , however I'm sure Kia-Australia will pass this info onto Kia. In the UK only a selection of dealerships can even sell the Stinger, and then they are limited to 12 each in a year! Not only that this year it's on the top 3.3L GT-S RWD that you can buy ... if you want a 2.0, 2.2d, AWD, or a Blue Car, you need to wait until Setp 2018 at the earliest.

I'd be happy if it's kept limited too ... will keep re-sell values up and be rare to see one on the road.

When I said interest I did mean buy. Stinger is available to all Kia dealers Australia wide and they currently have a quota of 500 total I think. They are expecting to sell 2000 a year. The issues clearly is Kia underestimated the interest and sales. I’m still standing by the fact they did not do their research. We had orders for cars even before they were released.

 

[Kia Stinger]

Maybe Kia feels it's worth losing some customers in the beginning to have others starving and thirsty to have one. Maybe it's a marketing ploy...

Otherwise, it sounds like most here feel the Stinger won't be a mass produced car. I guess that's fine. As long as it sticks around, I'm happy...

 

[MarkyMark]

Thanks MarkyMark, that was the type of insight I was seeking with my question. Your comments make me wonder what brands people are switching from (if not from a previous Kia). Myself, I've been a committed Acura fan for over a decade. It's time to replace my vehicle but Acura doesn't seem to make what I want right now. I am a brand-agnostic value-conscious buyer who wants power, tech, reliability and fun all wrapped up in an attractive package. I swore my next vehicle would be a lightly-used car so as to avoid the day-one depreciation cliff, but here I am waiting for delivery of a new Stinger. Go figure.

I am just as interested to discover where Stinger buyers are coming from. Based on the "What did you pay for your Stinger" threads, the GT's seem to be drawing in previous Luxury owners. Some are tired of buying a BMW over and over, or being tired of BMW's countless - in the shop again - issues. Would-be Acura buyers also seem to be interested, and that makes me wonder about Audi and Kia's true intentions for the Stinger.

Audio's A5 is a supposed target, but that vehicle is about the costliest of the bunch Kia's put in their sights, and the type of person that buys an Audi is doing so because it is an Audi and they want that brand. I believe the A5 is targeted to reveal the massive value the Stinger brings to the table. BMW buyers are more geared towards driving performance than just the luxury brand label alone (like Audi buyers are more prone to lean too). Thus, a BMW owner could see the value of the Stinger, it's performance characteristics and more easily make the leap to the Stinger vs Audi folks.

Acura has struggled of late with their sedans. The RL is basically another version of the TL, and is way over-priced and doesn't sell well. The TL lost it's way years ago, became big and bulky, AKA the mid-2000's Nissan Maxima which also fell away from it's sport roots.

With today's Acura's, the TLX must be the drive most compared to when looking at a Stinger? But 206hp starting at $33,000?... One really needs to jump into the V6 to get close to 300HP and even then it's woefully behind the GT, and still is not up to snuff. 5.7 seconds 0-60. Granted that's just a straight-line figure, but gives an impression of where it's at.

As for beauty, it is certainly in the eye of the beholder, but people seem to be beholding the Stinger en mass. Acura? It's never pushed my buttons. Ever since the hot late 90's TL lost it's way to big, coupled with a plastic silver nose shield, the designs just lost me. Acura designs are certainly more muted in flow than a Honda, but they just kinda put me to sleep. Again, this is just my preference, as I know Honda/Acura make solid reliable cars, they just don't capture me.

The Stinger is going to pull at lot of buyers north out of mainstream wanna-be sport sedans, into the real deal - Stinger.

Acura and Infiniti may feel a bit of a hit, and lastly, if Kia/Hyundai can pull their Optima and Sonata owners north into this G70 platform, then the Stinger and Genisis variant will see all kinds of success.