2003 Kia Spectra Reviews

The top-selling Kia Carnival people mover will gain two new more affordable hybrid variants as part of a 2026 model year (MY26) update.These new Carnival S Hybrid and Sport+ Hybrid variants will supplement the existing range-topping Carnival GT-Line Hybrid.According to pricing database RJ Pound, they’re priced from $56,100 before on-roads and $68,330 before on-roads, respectively.This is around $5500 more expensive than the corresponding V6 petrol variant and $3300 more than the corresponding turbo-diesel variant.This entry-level Carnival S Hybrid is more than $20,000 cheaper than the flagship Carnival GT-Line Hybrid.The rest of the petrol- and turbo-diesel-powered Carnival range has received a price rise of $270. A full pricing table is at the bottom of this story.Kia Australia has confirmed there are no specification changes to the Carnival range for the 2026 model year, besides the addition of the new hybrid variants. They're due to start arriving at local showrooms during May.The fourth-generation Kia Carnival launched in Australia during 2021 and it received a mid-life update in 2024.Still offered in both V6 petrol and four-cylinder turbo-diesel powertrains, the petrol-electric hybrid powertrain joined the lineup a few months after the mid-life update arrived.The Kia Carnival has dominated the people mover sales chart for years now. In the first four months of 2025, a total of 3213 examples have been sold, which is up 36.5 per cent year-on-year.For context, the next best-selling people mover is currently the Hyundai Staria with only 357 sales. That’s almost 10 Carnival sales to one Staria sale.With the addition of these new Carnival Hybrid variants, it remains to be seen whether Kia Australia will introduce more hybrid variants to other models in its lineup.It currently offers the Sportage SX and GT-Line Hybrid variants, the Sorento GT-Line Hybrid, as well as the Sorento GT-Line PHEV.

What is the best car to drive for a ride hailing service like Uber, Ola and Didi? Well, we thought we’d give you our two cents. Not only are we car experts and have driven thousands of new vehicles but we also spend a surprising amount of time sitting in the back of ride share cars talking to drivers. 

Geely is considering introducing a cheaper SUV to Australia, in the shape of the Cityray.

Kia Australia has some sway when it comes to the Tasman, with our know-how having a big effect on the ute globally.The brand's local Chief Ride and Handling Engineer, Graeme Gambold, explained how the brand was aware of the monumental task it faced in making something competitive for Australia.“One of the big challenges for us, for this vehicle, is because of this market’s dominance. When we were doing the initial discussions with Korea, we were saying, you know, you’re entering into the Olympic Games of utes coming to Australia, so it’s got to be very good and that means a very wide user demographic. We have fully laden operators and we’ve got people who are looking for unladen urban SUV-style ride dynamics.” he said.“So the whole dynamic package and ride and feeling package has been tuned around trying to optimise the balance point in those conflicting requirements. We think we’ve got it in a very good place.”The Tasman gets an Australian-specific tune, complete with standard frequency-selective shock absorbers and hydraulic rebound stoppers, as well as “optimised” bushings in the lower front control arms and rear leaf springs.In addition, the brand said Australian input was significant when it came to the shift mapping for the eight-speed traditional torque converter automatic transmission, and the software features for towing.In a rapidly changing dual-cab landscape though, with hybrids already having an impact via BYD’s Shark 6 and the long-awaited Ford Ranger PHEV, does Kia Australia think it’s put its best foot forward when it comes to powertrain, especially in an increasingly tight emissions environment thanks to Australia’s new vehicle efficiency standards (NVES)?The brand’s Australian General Manager of Product Planning, Roland Rivero thinks so: “I think for our first foray into the ute category we’ve chosen the right one” he said of the Tasman’s sole 2.2-litre turbo diesel engine, sourced from the brand’s passenger car range.“Other markets have got the 2.5-litre turbo petrol, not great for us when it comes to an NVES perspective. It’s got a little more power but down on torque so I think we’ve got the right one for our market and obviously we can monitor it and move forward with what needs to be done under NVES.”“We need to get the fundamentals right, and over 80 per cent of this category is four cylinder diesel,” he said.Rivero said “In this category the diverseness of usage is unparalleled. At the end of the day you know, others will experiment and obviously try new things out, which is great, it’s good to have that healthy competition, but you can’t deny that there are going to be customers which still have a very definitive need by way of towing capacity, payload, off-road capability and a locking rear diff, for example.”Kia also has bold sales predictions for the Tasman to help justify the cost of production for a ground-up ute in the years leading up to its launch. According to information revealed by the brand at a recent Investor Day, it intends to sell 80,000 Tasmans globally, with the local division aiming to do 20,000 units of the ute annually.As the Australian division’s Chief Operating Officer Dennis Piccoli said, the Tasman will need to make up a significant portion of Australian ute sales if it is to hit its targets. Something the team is confident it will be able to do despite challenges, like the ute market plateauing out in the first months of 2025 after some years of reasonable growth.“The market might be back a little at the moment and it’s moved forward a bit in the last couple of years — Ford with Ranger has been very active. The market at the end of the day is probably well into now. In terms of where we’re going to sell cars, the reality is that we think that our market share will probably equate to eight, nine, ten per cent and we’ll be pulling a couple of percentage points off the major players," said Piccoli.When pushed as to whether this means HiLuxes or GWM Cannons, Piccoli added: “The market is going to become very, very fragmented, that’s pretty obvious with the number of products coming through, so we’re happy to take a couple of cars off everybody.”While the brand added it had up to 2000 firm orders in the bag already, it didn’t have enough information yet to determine from where those orders were coming in terms of buyers trading in rival products.“Once the dealers start selling, we’ll get that information on what those trades are,” added Kia Australia CEO, Damien Meredith.Order books for the Tasman are open now, although first customer deliveries aren’t expected until late June or early July.

The Kia Tasman is finally here - are we impressed in this brief off-road preview drive?

Kia details unique features of its top-spec X-Pro Tasman, as it takes aim at high-spec private ute buyers.

Does size matter? It’s an age-old question but when it comes to cars, it’s complicated.Most car reviews - rightly - will cover whether the model represents good value for money. That will usually include a focus on what is and isn’t included in the standard features list, the safety offering, quality of materials and more.Often this will include whether you get enough metal for your money. Is the car big enough for the price?My question is, should size factor into the value of a car? And how do you fairly determine value when each buyer has a different budget?I understand that everyone has different requirements when looking for a new car. A family of five will require more space than a family of two, or a single person, for example.But I would argue that size should not determine whether a car represents good or bad value for money.Again, I appreciate that many people will want as much car as they can get for their money, based on how they will use it. But surely things like overall vehicle quality, the drive experience and how the car makes you feel are just as important.Here’s an example. A Honda Civic e:HEV L costs $49,900 (drive-away). When compared with old foes like the Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla, it is seen as being quite a lot of money for a small hatchback.For roughly the same price as the Civic, you could buy an entry grade large seven-seat SUV like a Kia Sorento, Hyundai Santa Fe, Isuzu MU-X, or a Toyota Kluger.But just because you can get a bigger car for the same price, should you?If you don’t need the space, then I say you shouldn’t. And not just for reasons like the environmental impact of large vehicles, or the sheer space it takes up on the road. Although those reasons are also valid.If a smaller car ticks other boxes including being fun to drive, that should be enough.Back to my example - the Honda Civic hybrid is an excellent car. I would argue it’s the best small passenger car (as in, not an SUV) on sale in Australia. It has excellent build quality, a solid standard features list, a handsome design, nicely executed interior and an exceptional and efficient powertrain.Something like that is a perfect car for me. And I don’t feel like I would be ripped off buying this instead of a larger car.Similarly, if someone has the means to buy a premium car instead of something from a mainstream brand, that’s fine. As Donna Meagle famously said in Parks and Recreation, “Treat yo’self!”Sure, a circa-$60,000 BMW 120 hatch may not have the same level of standard features as a higher grade Toyota Corolla or Mazda3 - which cost $20,000 less - but who cares?If you have your heart set on a premium car like a BMW and you’ve got the money for it, then it doesn’t matter if it’s missing a few features.Whether it’s the materials in the cabin, the way it drives or the feeling you get when driving a premium European car, a model like that often just feels more special.A couple of years back I lived with a Peugeot 308 Premium GT hatchback for four months. That specific grade at the time was priced at $48,990 before on-road costs. Again, there was a lot of commentary about that being a lot of money “for a small hatchback”.I am not suggesting it’s cheap - it clearly isn’t. But that is an excellent little car that made me smile every time I got behind the wheel. I would be happy - proud even - to own one.To reiterate, there is nothing wrong with trying to get as much car as possible for your budget. If you want as many standard features as you can possibly get for $40k, and you are less fussed about how the car drives or its perceived quality, terrific. And there’s no shortage of options, especially with the growing number of Chinese brands offering affordable models.But equally, no one should be shamed for spending big bucks on a car that isn’t the size of a boat, or if it doesn’t tick every single box on the standard features list.

The 2025 Kia EV5 stands out from the fully electric mid-size SUV crowd because of its exterior design, which is unconventional for an EV, with its boxy shape rewarding buyers with plenty of practicality.

There are some states where the very existence of unmarked police cars seems almost as illogical as it is cruel, while in others, like Victoria, it’s a surprise that every second vehicle isn’t a cop car in disguise.

The Kia EV3 has only just launched in Australia with its first sales registered in March 2025, but Kia has another, smaller member of its EV family up its sleeve.The Kia EV2 is a Europe-focused, all-electric light SUV set to share a family resemblance with the EV3, EV5, EV6 and EV9.Given the popularity of small, affordable electric cars in Australia - and the fact Kia expects to sell the EV3 in its thousands per year - it would make sense that Kia Australia would be interested in a smaller, more affordable city-friendly electric car.After all, sibling brand Hyundai offers the Inster light electric SUV in Australia.At the launch of the Kia EV3 earlier this year, CarsGuide asked Kia Australia General Manager of Product Planning Roland Rivero about the local plan for the EV2.“We'd love to bring it in. The only issue we have with EV2 - and EV4 hatchback too for that matter as well - is it's produced out of Slovakia,” Rivero said. “Most of that production capacity is slated for Western Europe, for the European market.”Kia Australia has brought cars in from Slovakia before, most notably the Sportage SUV in 2013 when it aimed to get a more consistent supply than South Korea was able to provide.According to Rivero, the brand learned getting cars from Slovakia brought with it some hurdles. Kia Australia now sources the Sportage from the Gwangju facility in South Korea.“So one, it would be probably difficult to get some supply, because it's targeting Europe. And two, logistically it'll be difficult as well.“There's no port in Slovakia, so you've got to actually put them on a train to a port in Germany, and then it's transshipped to the west side via Singapore, for example.“So it's not the most ideal… and we've been through that with Pro_Cee'd GT in the past and SL Sportage.“It’s not easy to bring cars in from Slovakia. It’s just not practical at the moment.”The EV2 hasn’t been properly launched yet, while the Kia EV4 mentioned by Rivero is confirmed for Australia in sedan form only - not as a hatchback.The EV4 is similar in size to the brand’s K4, the replacement to the Kia Cerato, which is currently available in Australia in sedan guise.