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CLE ELUM, WA – What this country may not need right now is a new 4,749-lb. (2,154-kg) body-on-frame SUV, not with consumers leaving the vehicle segment as fast as speakeasy patrons fleeing a raid.
Yet Kia Motors America Inc., mindful its timing might be questioned, debuts its biggest and most upscale vehicle yet, the ’09 Borrego. It joins the smaller Sorento and smaller-still Sportage in the South Korean auto maker’s SUV stable.
“How are we going to sell a midsize SUV with gas prices past $4 a gallon, plus the SUV segment dropping?” says Tom Loveless, Kia America’s vice president-sales. “It’s not an equation that necessarily adds up.”
The middle SUV segment has been declining for years, from a high of 1.8 million units in 2000 to less than 932,000 in 2007, according to Ward’s data.
Through June of this year, segment sales were off 38.6% compared with year-ago.
Since last year, five models have left the segment. Now a new one bravely, or brazenly, enters it.
“I’m sure you might have a question or two about our timing for this vehicle,” Alex Fedorak, Kia public relations director, tells journalists attending a Borrego preview here in a mountainous region where legendary highjacker D.B. Cooper bailed from an airliner with ransom money in 1971, never to be found.
