Teasing glimpse of new Kia Sportage

Design language is becoming an increasingly important buzzword for automakers re-imagining new iterations of existing models and Kia has revealed ‘teaser’ images of the fifth generation Sportage created in its new design language ‘Opposites United’. 

Due to be revealed in July in Korea, the new Sportage has been crafted to establish new benchmarks in its segment – for its advanced exterior and interior design, connectivity tech and responsive, yet highly efficient, powertrains.  

According to Kia, the new Sportage has a muscular stance and a strong yet refined silhouette. Notable new details include the crisp, taught character lines that ripple across the surfaces. The front creates an instant and thought-provoking statement, with a detail-orientated black grille graphic spanning the width of the face. At the rear, muscular shoulder lines drop gently to meet slim daytime-running lamps, which flank the new Kia logo and Sportage emblem. 

The interior design sketch reveals a driver-orientated space that plays with boldness in character, softness in qualities and innovation in technology. At the core is a beautifully sculpted integrated curved display. 

“Taking inspiration from an ethos we created where nature meets modernity, the new Sportage challenges design norms with an adventurous yet contemporary exterior and a beautifully detailed and pioneering interior,” says Karim Habib, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Design Center. “With new Sportage, we didn’t simply want to take one step forward, but rather move to a completely different level within the SUV class.”

Volvo's Torslanda plant becomes 

climate-neutral 

With no net increase in the emission of greenhouse gases as a result of the electricity and heating used by the plant, Volvo’s Torslanda facility has become climate-neutral and the first of its car manufacturing operations to reach that status. 

This makes Torslanda the second plant in its overall manufacturing network to reach this status, after the Skövde engine plant in Sweden became climate neutral in 2018. 

The Torslanda plant, the company’s oldest, has been powered by climate-neutral electricity since 2008. It now also has climate-neutral heating. Half of the plant’s heating comes from biogas, while the other half is predominantly sourced from district heating through industrial waste heat. 

“Establishing Torslanda as our first climate-neutral car plant is a significant milestone,” says Javier Varela, Head of Industrial Operations and Quality at Volvo Cars. “We are committed to having a climate-neutral manufacturing network by 2025, and this achievement is a sign of our determination as we consistently work to reduce our impact on the environment.” 

Apart from becoming climate neutral, Torslanda also constantly reduces the amount of energy it uses. Targeted improvements in its operations during 2020 resulted in annualised energy savings of almost 7 000 megawatt-hour (MWh), equal to the annual energy usage of more than 450 Swedish family homes. 

In the coming years, Volvo Cars plans to make further efficiency upgrades to the plant’s lighting and heating systems, among other things, which should result in additional annual energy savings of around 20 000 MWh by 2023. These energy savings are part of a wider ambition for Volvo Cars to reduce energy usage per car produced in its manufacturing network by 30% in 2025. 

In addition, Volvo Cars will develop its own renewable electricity generation capacity on-site. 

Volvo Cars’ climate-neutral manufacturing target is part of the company’s climate plan, one of the most ambitious in the automotive industry. The centrepiece of the plan is Volvo Cars’ ambition to electrify its entire line-up.

Yet the plan goes beyond addressing tailpipe emissions through all-out electrification and also seeks to tackle carbon emissions in the company’s wider operations, its supply chain and through recycling and reuse of materials by embracing the circular economy.