2015 Kia Sx on 2040-cars

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Watch the Kia Soul hamsters take on 'Dueling Banjos'

The Kia Soul hamsters are back, but rather than bopping to the party tunes of LMFAO, they're delivering their own take on "Dueling Banjos." Thankfully, this commercial is more pleasant to watch than the film that helped make the banjo tune famous. Aside from the return of Kia's fuzzy mascots, this commercial also marks the welcome return of plumper hamsters. When Kia launched the Soul EV, it gave its spokesrodents a trimmer figure that made the anthropomorphic dancing hamsters even creepier. As Autoblog chief Mike Austin said when assigning this story, "Sexy EV hamsters were scary." Alongside from the two-minute commercial, Kia has included a three-minute, behind-the-scenes video called Soul Sessions: Making the Music. You can check out the main spot up top, and then get the peek behind the curtain below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings.

Chevy Bolt wins 2017 Green Car of the Year

We knew that a plug-in vehicle was going to win the 2017 Green Car of the Year award this year, given that all five finalists have a way to charge up. And when Ron Cogan, the editor and publisher of Green Car Journal, announced the winner – the 2017 Chevy Bolt EV – he said that the car itself represents one of those times in the auto industry when everything is about to change. Similar to the invention of the starter motor, things are about to get different. For now, though, the fact that the Bolt EV won an award sounds like the same old thing all over again. Just this week, it was named Motor Trends Car of the Year and to the Car And Driver Top 10 list. The other four finalists for Green Car of the Year included the Toyota Prius Prime, the Chrysler Pacifica, the Kia Optima (including hybrid and plug-in hybrid models) and the BMW 330e iPerformance. Last year, the winner was the 2016 Chevy Volt. Did Green Car Journal make the right selection this year? See the award ceremony below.

2014 Kia Forte

Kia Tries Yet Again To Prove That Compact Sedans Are Its Forte
For those keeping track, the introduction of the 2014 Kia Forte sedan marks the second time in five years that Kia has completely redesigned its compact sedan offering. Put another way, car shoppers have now had three entirely different options in this category from Kia - the unloved Spectra along with two generations of the Forte - in the same period of time that Toyota has been building the current Corolla.
If nothing else, it's clear that Kia is committed to making as big of a dent in the compact class as possible. That said, none of Kia's entries have come close to challenging the dominance of the aforementioned Corolla, Honda Civic or Volkswagen Jetta, domestic offerings like the Ford Focus and Chevrolet Cruze, or even the Hyundai Elantra, its slightly older and more subdued Korean sibling, in the race for market share.