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Kia decides on Mexico plant location for small car assembly

Mexico has long been a hot spot for auto manufacturing, but the country's fortunes have been boosted lately, with Honda, Mazda and Nissan recently adding factories there, and BMW is said to be poised to join them soon. Now, new reports indicate that Kia might start building south of the border to keep up with demand.
Insiders speaking to Reuters claim that the Korean automaker is very close to striking a deal to build a factory for two small models in Monterrey, Mexico, with a 300,000-vehicle annual capacity. Assembly could reportedly begin as soon as 21 months after ground is broken.
If true, Kia has done a fantastic job of keeping the deal under wraps. The only hint at anything like this brewing was a rumor last year that Hyundai may have investigation building a factory in Mexico. The company currently operates a factory in Georgia that builds the Optima and Sorento.

Kia gives K900 Matrix spoof for Super Bowl commercial

Kia made a splash when it announced that Laurence Fishburne would revisit Morpheus, his bespectacled, blade-wielding badass character from the Matrix trilogy for a Super Bowl commercial. When we originally broke that story, we offered up a brief synopsis of the spot, produced by David&Goliath.
Now, we have an extended, 90-second version of the 60-second Kia K900 commercial that's slated to air during this weekend's Super Bowl. While it does stick to the brief we reported on a few weeks back, there's a big, ridiculous twist in the last bit of the video, not to mention a few easter eggs for fans of the movies. We won't spoil it for you, so scroll down and have a look.
After you've watched the video, scroll just a bit further down and have a look at Kia's official press release on the commercial.

2015 Kia Soul EV production model glimpsed before Chicago

A few days before its on-stage reveal at the Chicago Auto Show, the production version of the 2015 Kia Soul EV has been spotted, tagged and bagged in this series of spy shots. On the EV captured by our photographer's lens, we can see unusual baby blue accents on top, on the mirrors and up front, as well as a closed-off "Tiger Nose" that is both taller and larger than the grille on the standard Soul. The special "Eco Electric" badge on the sides is useful for identifying the car in the picture, but we can't imagine it'll make the transition to showroom floor (at least, we hope). The Soul EV's rear side is different, too, with the bottom lights moved lower and the design of the main taillights tweaked a bit (compare our spy shots gallery to the standard model here). The wheels get a fresh five-spoke design as well. What lies under the new exterior? Some things we already know. The Soul is supposed to have a "class-leading" range of over 120 miles on a charge thanks to a 27-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion polymer battery pack. The electric motor offers 109 horsepower and 210 pound-feet of torque to create a 0-62 mile per hour time of under 12 seconds and a top speed of around 90 mph. What we can't see in these shots is a window sticker, but from what we've heard before, the Soul EV, "won't be priced to stimulate demand." Early predictions put the price at $35,000-$40,000 US – before government incentives – when the car launches in the US in the second half of this year. The gas-powered Soul starts at $14,400. We should learn more in Chicago later this week.