Kia Motors entered the Indian market in 2019 and the Indian car buyers accepted it wholeheartedly. Kia Motors' debut product in India, Kia Seltos, shattered all previous records and is striving to become one of the most successful cars ever in the Indian Automotive History. Kia wants to continue its legacy and is thus primarily focusing on utility vehicles for India. However, Kia Motors has very recently launched the 2020 Kia Morning, also known as Kia Picanto, in South Korea. So, is this the small car that Kia will bring to India? That's what we are gonna answer today in this article.
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First of all, talking about the name game. The 2020 Kia Picanto Facelift has been launched in Kia's home country South Korea. And this very same small hatchback is also sold in some other global markets like Hong Kong where it is commonly known as the Kia Morning. Moreover, if you remember, the pre-facelifted Kia Picanto was also showcased in India at the 2018 Auto Expo and its India launch speculations have been in news since then.
Now, talking about the new 2020 Kia Morning, popularly known as Kia Picanto in South Korea, it has got a refreshed design, new feature add-ons and also an updated engine. The facelifted Kia Picanto features Kia's signature tiger-nose grille with projector headlamps, LED DRLs and also ice-cube-shaped foglamps. This small city car now also gets a re-designed front and rear bumpers, new 16-inch machined-cut alloy wheels and more. At the rear, it gets new taillamps and a shark-fin antenna. Kia has also subtly used chrome all-over the car and to be honest it does look very good.
The facelifted Kia Picanto also gets a very neat-looking interior. It gets an all-black cabin with subtle inserts of car's body colour inside the cabin. The dashboard of the car looks very well crafted and it now gets a bigger 8.0-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Android Auto, Apple CarPlay and also a plethora of connected car-tech. What's further interesting is that this car also features Car to Home tech that can control home Internet of Things (IoT) devices such as lights, gas circuit breakers, A/C, boilers, etc.
Talking about the powertrain options, the 2020 Kia Picanto Facelift has been introduced in South Korea with a refreshed 1.0-litre MPI petrol motor that now churns out 76 PS of power and 95 Nm of peak torque, mated to a 5-speed manual and a 4-speed automatic transmission. Internationally, the 2020 Kia Morning is available with a lot of other engine options too. The car gets a total of 11 different funky colour schemes and is globally available in various trims and lines which include: Zest, X-line, GT-line, Titanium etc.
Lastly, talking about its launch timeline and price, the 2020 Kia Picanto Facelift has been launched in South Korea with prices starting at South-Korean WoN (KRW) 1,17,50,000, which roughly translates to around Rs. 7.25 lakhs, Ex-showroom. The India launch plan of the Kia Morning/Kia Picanto is very uncertain because as of now, the carmaker only wants to focus on UVs. But, if launched in India at this price, the Kia Morning will be a hot-seller as it offers so many features, looks good and can turn out to be a splendid VFM proposition for first-time car buyers in India.
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So, what do you guys think, should Kia launch the Kia Morning/Picanto in India? Do share your thoughts with us in the comments below.
