Kia Trail’ster Concept unveiled
What is it? The Kia Trail’ster Concept is, according to Kia, a vehicle that blends the attributes of an urban vehicle with those of a crossover designed for the great outdoors. Based on the Soul, the Trail’ster is a funky looking piece that arrives with a roll-top canvas roof. The retractable top not only lets the outdoors inside, but it also lowers the centre of gravity, which improves handling. Sitting atop that is an integrated roof rack with aluminum cross rails. The setup is designed to carry mountain bikes or snowboards. To give the Trail’ster some off-road cred it has been lifted 40 millimetres compared to the Soul, it rides on KSport coil-over shocks and wears P245/45R19 snow tires.
Why does it matter? One of the knocks with the Soul is the lack of an all-wheel-drive version. The Trail’ster addresses this by adopting a hybrid powertrain that uses an electric motor to power the rear wheels. Up front, the 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder punches out 185 horsepower and 185 pound-feet of torque. It drives the front wheels through a six-speed automatic transmission. The rear electric motor, which gets its juice from a 1.2-kilowatt/hour lithium-ion battery, chips in with another 35 hp and 100 lb.-ft. of torque. It also delivers an electric-only driving range of up to five kilometres and it’s used to harvest otherwise waste energy when the driver lifts off the accelerator (regenerative braking).
The beauty of the design, all-wheel capability aside, is the two power sources combine to deliver 220 hp and 285 lb.-ft. of torque. Now that promises some serious pop off the line. Kia also says that the combination has the potential to reduce city fuel consumption by between 25 and 30% while shaving up to 10% of the highway consumption when compared to the 2015 Soul and its 2.0L naturally-aspirated four.
When is it coming? Y es, the Trail’ster is a concept car, but as with Kia’s other show cars some have made it into production. Hinting that this might be the case, Kia answered that very question before it was asked. “Don’t bet against it!” was the answer. It certainly would add to the appeal of the company’s diverse portfolio.
Should you buy it? If, or when, the Trail’ster does make it to market it will have appeal for two very different reasons. First, it adds a degree of offroad ability to the Soul’s flexibility and utility. Second, and more importantly, it ushers in a needed hybrid powertrain, which puts a green spin on funky.