Kia Motors

James Bell from The Kia Motors Company joins us on Good Day Kentucky to talk about how the company is doing and how they've been effected by Covid-19

Had an effect on every business, good or bad, and here to talk to us about the auto industry and how it's been affected among many, many other things is james bell with kia motors, which was recently named the number one brand in initial quality by jd power.

James.

Thanks for being here.

We appreciate it.

Speaker 2: oh, it's my pleasure.

Thanks for having me on, speaker 1: so let's talk first of all, about the recent honor that you all received and, and talk about what it is that goes into that standard of making the vehicles developed by kia motors, to where they could win six in a row.

That's amazing.

Speaker 2: yeah.

Well, i think it's a combination of things, you know, the kia brand, it already had a great reputation for quality, for bang, for the buck, durability, reliability and so forth.

But what we've worked hard on in the last couple of years is to really make the vehicles extra desirable, not only looking good, we've hired some of the best designers in the entire global auto industry now working for us.

So we're making the car look, look, it's pretty as can be, but also really delivering on the, the ownership experience is, is there a fantastic technology on board that we all want?

Yes, there is.

And it's easy to use.

Is it comfortable?

Are the features all there?

Is it just, you know, you're going to be putting money down onto this vehicle and spending it for many years, c1 3 especially in the case of a purchase.

So you want to make sure that you're you're as happy as it can be right from the start.

Just take that first step in a positive direction.

And i think that's what this, the kia brand is doing.

Such a fantastic job of making people proud of the purchase.

Speaker 1: it's funny you bring that up because i remember growing up, you know, when you were looking at your first car, kia was like, oh, it's reliable.

It'll, it'll work for you.

The, all of that.

Now my wife and i were literally just driving down the road this weekend.

Yeah.

And you look and you go, oh my gosh, that car is beautiful.

What is that?

And you get in front of it and go, oh, it's a kia.

And you kind of almost say it like that, but you guys have been working for a long time to get to that point.

So how have you guys changed that reputation and worked to make that happen and really just a few short years?

Speaker 2: well, i think it's, again, this kind of warm combination of this reputation of, of value and, and budgetary considerations, especially during a pandemic, you know, everybody's cautious and want to make sure that they're not wasting their money in any way, but then lump that in with this new level of desirability.

I think that's one of the reasons while, while obviously others in the car industry are struggling right now, the kia brand is actually doing quite well because we have that, that fantastic combination of, of desirability and reliability and just a sense of value.

And so we're just going to look to continue to, to do that.

In fact, just this week or, sorry, last week we introduced an all new midsize sedan called the k five, which is a perfect embodiment of that.

When you see a k five on the road, the first time it's going to be one of those, you know, wait a minute that can't be a, oh yeah, that's a kia.

And every new vehicle we come out with is going to continue to change that reputation.

So we feel pretty confident and, and bullish in our future.

Speaker 1: i want to talk about covid-19 real quick and the way it's affected the auto industry, as we kind of start to open things back up, how has it really affected you all?

Speaker 2: well, i think it's a, it's kind of pushed the auto industry to be more responsible in some ways and, and, and pay more attention to what, how consumers want to interact with it rather than kind of forcing themselves on a consumers.

And what i mean by that is just the retail experience.

You can now go online, select your vehicle, do your financing online and have it delivered to you by your local kia dealership.

That is something that, you know, we talked about for many years, but that, that, that promise is now arrived.

When it comes to servicing, you can have the vehicle picked up or drop it off yourself, have the work done to it, and then delivered back to you after being fully disinfected.

So, you know, these are more responsible ways of going about the business.

It's also kind of catching up with how we, how we do a lot of our things.

Now we buy our groceries online rebar mattresses, online for goodness sakes.

So the car business should be growing and evolving with that.

So i think that's been the biggest thing.

And of course at the same time, we're working very hard to make sure that our employees are safe and following proper guidelines at the dealership level.

And also at the manufacturing side, speaker 1: if people want more information, where do they go?

Speaker 2: it's real simple.

Please just go to kia.com and check out that new k five.

I think you're going to like it.

Speaker 1: james, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it,