[custom_adv] The Kia Pride Hybrid (and its twin, the Hyundai Verna Hybrid) was the first South Korean electric hybrid automobile. It was offered strictly for fleet sales and only in the South Korean domestic market. [custom_adv] This example belongs to Jongno Fire Department in downtown Seoul. In North America, this particular model was marketed as the second-generation Rio. However, for the Korean domestic market, even though it was a Rio replacement, it revived an old name, Pride, which had previously been used on Kia's small Mazda-designed hatchback built between 1987 and 2000. [custom_adv] The original Kia Pride was also known as the Mazda 121 or the Ford Festiva in various markets, and was a rare early Korean car that was highly regarded for its quality. [custom_adv] Hyundai-Kia's second hybrid effort was the Hyundai Avante/Elantra and the Kia Forte, which combined an LPG engine with an electric motor, and available to retail customers within South Korea but not available for export. The third effort, the Hyundai Sonata and the Kia K5/Optima, was the first Hyundai-Kia hybrid to be exported. [custom_adv] It’s astonishing how Korean automakers have become synonymous with quality over the years. In 2016, Kia reigned as king of initial quality according to J.D. Power, beating out every other manufacturer. That’s right: Kia had better initial quality than Porsche, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Honda, or any of the other big guns. It doesn’t look like things are going to change anytime soon either. [custom_adv] But it wasn’t always this way. In fact, it wasn’t like this even a few years ago. Kia, which started life as a bicycle builder in the early 1950s, got its first big break in the 1980s when it partnered with Ford to build the awful Aspire econobox. After overcoming the Asian financial crisis and unavoidable bankruptcy the following decade, it has found security in Hyundai serving as majority stakeholder.
