- The Kia K4 will be a new compact sedan, and the company today teased its reveal on March 21, ahead of the New York auto show.
- Despite the shrouded images that Kia shared, the K4’s bodywork appears to resemble the Kia Concept EV4 sedan.
- It’s unclear if the K4 is electric or gas-powered, but we think it could be a replacement for the defunct Kia Rio as well as the Kia Forte.
Kia will soon introduce a new compact sedan that will make it to U.S. showrooms. The company today revealed a few teaser images that preview the Kia K4 that will be fully revealed on March 21, about a week before the New York auto show.
A New Kia Sedan
The three images that Kia shared of the K4 give us a glimpse of the sedan’s upper half. There appears to be a large sunroof panel on the front of the roof, similar to the setup that was available on the Kia Stinger that has been discontinued. The K4’s roofline slopes into a short rear decklid, giving the four-door a coupe-like profile.
The rearmost pillars have a wide base that mimics other Kia sedans, from the Stinger to the Korean-spec K3 to the electric EV4 concept. The latter also looks like it was the inspiration for some of the K4’s styling, as the design of the headlights and taillights look to resemble the concept’s. The K4’s side body panels also have similar convex shapes.
While there are few details about the upcoming K4 model, Kia does describe it as a compact sedan. That would mean it fills the same role as the current Kia Forte. However, we think it’s possible that Kia uses the U.S.-spec K4 to replace both the Forte and the subcompact Kia Rio that was discontinued after the 2023 model year.
There’s no word on what type of powertrain the Kia K4 features, however, it’s more likely that it’s not electric since the company is known to use the “EV” nomenclature in the model name. We expect to find out that and more next Thursday when the new sedan is revealed.
Eric Stafford’s automobile addiction began before he could walk, and it has fueled his passion to write news, reviews, and more for Car and Driver since 2016. His aspiration growing up was to become a millionaire with a Jay Leno–like car collection. Apparently, getting rich is harder than social-media influencers make it seem, so he avoided financial success entirely to become an automotive journalist and drive new cars for a living. After earning a journalism degree at Central Michigan University and working at a daily newspaper, the years of basically burning money on failed project cars and lemon-flavored jalopies finally paid off when Car and Driver hired him. His garage currently includes a 2010 Acura RDX, a manual ’97 Chevy Camaro Z/28, and a ’90 Honda CRX Si.