Big news from the house of Kia India. As per sources, Ki has plans to discontinue the diesel manual variants of Kia Seltos, Sonet and Carens. We are not sure why Kia opted to do this. But we believe, this move from manual to iMT is what the customers are favouring lately.
iMT is the perfect setup for the ones looking to get the best of both the worlds of a manual and an automatic. It strikes the balance between a conventional manual gearbox and an AMT. iMT allows the driver to retain complete control over the shifting part. At the same time, it also takes care of clutching and de-clutching automatically.
The two-pedal setup is a boon, especially in traffic conditions. Interestingly enough one can also extract the same fuel efficiency figures as a manual for the iMT. This is not mostly the case with other automatic. Given the above advantages, there has been an increased popularity of iMT among customers. Thus by offering the iMT as standard across its diesel range, Kia is aiming at strengthening the appeal of its portfolio.
Moreover, we also expect to see a reduction in the number of variant lineups across the model range for Kia India. With the chip shortage still crumbling around, we don’t expect Kia to run into supply chain issues for this gearbox. Another factor is that the recent emission norms across the world, including India, are now getting more and more stringent every year. Only Kia, but a host of other carmakers too are swaying away from diesel powertrains. We have already seen several carmakers in India across different OEMs ditching diesel engines when the country switched to BS-VI norms. And now with the upcoming BS6 2.0 emissions norms, this trend will only get stronger in the near future.
Also Read: Kia EV9 electric SUV concept revealed at Auto Expo 2023.