The Automaker That Takes Design Very Seriously? Kia. Surprised? Here's Why...

The Automaker That Takes Design Very Seriously? Kia. Surprised? Here's Why... Driven Car Reviews · Jun 25, 2026

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13:48

Place

Milan, Italy

Milan is a famous design city in Italy. The episode is talking about design week there, and how Kia is showing off its design thinking.

Person

Karim Habib

Karim Habib is the person Kia brought in to lead design. The host mentions he previously worked at several major car brands, so his ideas come from a lot of experience.

Term

virtual reality

Virtual reality is a way to look at something in a computer-made 3D world. Kia uses it so leaders can judge how a car will look before they build a real model.

Person

Peter Schreier

Peter Schreier is a designer Kia hired in 2006. The host presents it as a major step to make Kia’s cars look and feel more premium.

Company

Volkswagen Group

The Volkswagen Group is a big company that owns several car brands. The episode says Kia hired a top designer from that group to improve Kia’s design.

Car

Kia EV3

“EV3 Concepts” is Kia’s preview design for an upcoming electric car. The point here is that Kia’s concept version already looks very close to the production car.

Topic

New York Auto Show

The New York Auto Show is a big car event where brands show off new cars. Here, it’s where Kia showed the production version so the host could compare it to the concept.

Term

Opposites United

Opposites United is Kia’s official design theme. The idea is that Kia combines contrasting elements to make the car look more energetic and interesting.

Term

star map lighting elements

“Star map lighting elements” means the car’s lights are designed to look like a star chart. The host compares the pattern to something you’d see in astrology.

Car

The Kia EV2 is a concept car, meaning it’s a preview of what a future electric Kia could look like and how it might be built. Concept cars help show design ideas before a real customer version exists. The podcast mentions it because it may eventually turn into a production EV.

Term

EGMP platform

EGMP is the shared “EV building system” Hyundai and Kia use for their electric cars. It’s like a common foundation that helps them design different EVs more efficiently.

Car

Hyundai Ioniq

The Hyundai IONIQ 3 is an electric car concept that hints at what Hyundai’s future EVs will look like. Here, the host says it’s roughly the same size as the EV2 Concept and shares the same design direction.

Car

Ioniq 3

The Ioniq 3 is an electric concept car from Hyundai that was shown at an event focused on design. It’s meant to give a preview of a future EV, including its size and general layout. The podcast brings it up because it’s in the same general “category” as other upcoming concept EVs.

Term

Art of Steel

“Art of Steel” is Hyundai’s branding name for a new way of designing car shapes. The idea is to make the car’s look feel like it’s built from strong, sculpted “steel” forms.

Car

Boulder Suv

The Boulder SUV is mentioned as a future Kia SUV that will use the same new design style. The host is basically saying: don’t just look at the concept—this look is coming to real cars.

Term

C-pillar

The C-pillar is the vertical support behind the rear side window. It helps shape the car’s overall look from the side and rear, so changing its design can make a big visual difference.

Car

Kia EV4

The Kia EV4 is an electric SUV concept, which means it’s a preview of a future production car. The podcast compares its design style to other Kia models to help describe what it looks like. It’s mentioned because it could become a real EV later.

Concept

art installation

An art installation is a big, designed display space meant to be experienced, not just looked at. The host is using it to show Kia is making design a major part of how they present themselves.

Company

Kia staff

This just means Kia’s employees. The host is saying the people at Kia designed the installations themselves, not an outside group.

Place

Korea

Korea is where Kia is based. The host mentions it to explain where the company’s design culture comes from.

Place

India

India is where Kia plans to open a new studio. The host is pointing out Kia is putting more resources into design by expanding to new locations.

Place

Irvine

Irvine is where Kia has a design studio for the US. It helps the company design cars that fit what American buyers and rules require.

Place

Frankfurt

Frankfurt is a city in Germany where Kia has a design studio. Big car brands often set up design teams in major cities to stay connected to the rest of the world.

Term

clay work

Clay work means designers physically sculpt the car’s shape out of clay. It helps them check the look and feel of the design before it becomes a real vehicle.

Concept

cheap and cheerful segment

This phrase is basically about the budget-friendly car market. The idea is that Kia had to make its cars look more special because cheaper competitors were getting better.

Term

hard points for the architecture

Hard points are non-negotiable spots in the car’s structure where parts have to fit. Designers can change the look around those spots, but the spots themselves are fixed.

Term

safety requirements for dozens of markets

Different countries have different rules for cars. So the design has to be adjusted to meet safety requirements everywhere it’s sold.

Term

feasibility

Feasibility means whether the design can realistically be made in a factory. It’s not just about how it looks—it has to be buildable.

Term

ergonomics

Ergonomics is about making the car’s interior easy and comfortable to use. It includes things like where the controls are and how the seats fit different people.

Term

stamp

To “stamp” means forming metal parts using big presses. The car’s design has to be shaped in a way that factories can press into real body panels.

Term

production vehicle

A production vehicle is a car that will actually be built for customers to buy. It’s different from a concept car that’s just shown for ideas.

Car

Kia EV5

The Kia EV5 is an electric concept car that’s described as being about the size of a typical compact crossover. Concept cars are shown to preview what a future EV could be like. The podcast mentions it because it’s aimed at a common, everyday vehicle size category.

Car

Honda Crv

The Honda CR-V is being used as a “size benchmark.” It helps you picture how big the Kia EV5 is supposed to be.

Car

Kia EV9

The Kia EV9 is an all-electric SUV that can seat more people, including in a third row. It’s important because it’s designed to make EVs practical for families. The podcast mentions it because it connects to earlier concept designs that showed what Kia was planning.

Car

Vision Metaturismo

The Vision Metaturismo is a Kia concept car, basically a design study/showpiece. Kia is trying to make it realistic enough that they could build something close to it later.

Term

show car

A show car is a car made mainly to be displayed at events. It’s often a preview of ideas that might (or might not) make it into a real customer car.

Car

Stinger

The Kia Stinger is a Kia model that was important for the brand’s image. The point here is that it helped Kia look more serious and design-focused, not just like a budget option.

Term

long wheelbase

Wheelbase is the distance between the front and rear wheels. A longer wheelbase can make it easier to fit an EV’s battery without making the car awkward or cramped.

Term

transversal engine

A transversal engine is an engine mounted sideways in the car. The speaker is saying that some designs don’t need that kind of front space, which lets the car have a shorter front overhang.

Term

overhang

Overhang is how much the car’s body sticks out past the wheels. Shorter overhangs help the car look more balanced, and they can also make packaging easier.

Term

bigger wheels

Bigger wheels can help a heavier EV feel more stable and controlled. The speaker is connecting wheel size to overall car proportions and how the car is designed to handle its weight.

Term

burdle flange

A flange is a folded edge on a metal part that helps it fit together and stay strong. The speaker is saying that certain edge details take extra manufacturing steps to make them come out very clean and accurate.

Term

wobble in the metal

When metal panels are stamped, they can end up slightly uneven. The speaker is saying that better forming control helps the surfaces line up smoothly so you don’t see or feel distortions.

Concept

automotive design DNA

“Design DNA” means a brand’s recognizable style and design habits. The speaker’s point is that what happens inside the company—its process and mindset—often shapes the look more than where the company is located.

LIVE

The car industry now has changed so much and there's so many things that are actually very impressive.

Welcome to Milan, Italy. It's design week and when I think design, I think cars because cars are not just transportation.

They're also art.

Kia has kind of been knocking it out of the park when it comes to design and they have quite a presence here in Milan.

People go to a brand for a certain value system. That's what we're trying to build.

I had access to Kia's global head of design, Karim Habib, who spent years at BMW, Infiniti and Mercedes-Benz.

He offers interesting insights, stuff you might not have thought about when it comes to the way your car looks.

Obviously we use virtual reality a lot. When we design our cars, even when we make the decisions, when we have multiple designs,

we show them to our executive chair, our CEO, in different environments.

We do it two ways. We do one way is when we have different concepts of the same project, one is a bit more urban,

one is a bit more SUV or more off-roading. We show them in those environments virtually before we show the actual physical model.

And then what we do is we show them driving in different settings.

We have different cities and different environments to do that because it's absolutely essential.

Also important is to show them in a setting where you have today's cars because that's a really important reference point.

How does it compare to a car that's today? If it looks too similar, then it's maybe not futuristic enough.

Design Week in Milan covers all sorts of industries. I'm focusing on automotive, duh.

No matter the brand, nothing telegraphs quality and upmarket vibes than good design.

Kia was smart enough to realize that. In 2006, it hired Peter Schreier away from the Volkswagen Group to elevate the South Korean automakers lineup.

Kia gave a bunch of us access to its collection of concepts that led to production vehicles.

The days of wild concept cars are largely over. Kia definitely bases their concepts in reality.

This is the EV3 Concepts and the production version that they showed at the New York Auto Show looks awfully familiar.

Check it out. It has the same bulldog stance. It's easy to see the connection between the concept and the production model.

Kia calls its design language Opposites United, which uses the tension of unusual pairings to add dynamics to the visuals.

While Kia doesn't take the Russian nesting doll, small, medium and large approach to its vehicles,

there are similarities like the star map lighting elements that, if you squint, look like astrological maps.

This is the EV2 Concepts. It will be built, unfortunately, we probably won't see it in the United States because we like our vehicles big.

This is probably a little bit too small. I'd say about five inches shorter than a Chevy Bolt.

It's built on the EGMP platform, which underpins both Kia and Hyundai electric vehicles.

At Design Week, Hyundai took the wraps off its IONIQ 3, which is about the same size as the EV2, should be no surprise.

The IONIQ wears Hyundai's new design language that it calls the Art of Steel.

We created the idea of Art of Steel. You see many of the sketches here on the wall with this whole exhibition now going on.

In fact, the way we started it and created it was with simple paper models.

The paper models helped us to shape and to bend steel to explore a little bit a new design language,

because obviously steel is quite a strong material.

This was a really good human-scale way of exploring a new design language.

We pitched it with small paper models to our management. They loved it, and here we go.

Fast forward, we created IONIQ 3 with it.

We won't be getting the IONIQ 3 in the US either, but you will see this design language in upcoming models like the Boulder SUV,

which was shown at the New York Auto Show.

This is a concept, but the production version should look pretty much the same. Keep your eyes peeled.

To my eye, the EV4 concept has Optima or K5 vibes, especially in the C-pillar.

I saw the production version roaming the streets of Milan. Sadly, this has been pulled from the US market.

Again, quite similar to the concept.

Kia didn't just bring vehicles to Milan. It created an entire art installation.

Seems like no cost was spared. If this space seems very large, well, it is.

The mirrors make it feel like it's the size of a Costco, and it's very trippy.

These installations were designed by Kia staff to give them creative freedom to let them flex some artistic muscle

and blow off some cerebral steam. Maybe mention it to your boss or management if you feel stagnated.

Now, I'm showing this to you so you understand how serious the South Koreans take design.

So we obviously have our headquarters in Korea. We're going to be opening this summer a studio in India.

We have two studios in China. We have our studio in Frankfurt, and we have a studio in Irvine.

The US studio has more clay work. Just from the history, the studio has been open for almost 20 years.

We have excellent clay modelers there that we've been developing over the years.

Kia being based in Korea, and a lot of our markets are outside Korea. A lot of our sales are outside.

So it was very important to have these outside studios to understand the markets in which they're located.

Remember, 20 years ago, Kia's vehicles looked fine, but they were forgettable.

It knew the Chinese were going to take over the cheap and cheerful segment,

and it had to elevate its position in the marketplace to stay relevant.

I talk to all sorts of consumers who have no idea what you guys are up against.

How difficult is it to give a car an appealing design, but you have all of these things that you have to deal with?

Hard points for the architecture, safety requirements for dozens of markets, which are all different.

How hard is that for a designer, and what do you guys have to go through to meet all of those?

It's hard for me to answer, to be honest, because it's so intrinsic to what we do.

We don't design in this bubble, although we're still pretty fortunate compared to other people in the company.

It's our job. Safety, ergonomics, feasibility, you have to be able to stamp these things a certain amount of time.

Costs are always an issue. I would argue that costs, in many cases, are more of an issue for us than engineering.

At least, that's my experience right now, but that's also what we study, that's our education, that's what we do.

I think any designer, whether it's somebody who does a one-off chair in carbon fiber or, I don't know, in teak wood or something,

they would also say there's limitations to the material, to the time it has to be built. I think that's part of industrial design.

This is the EV5 concept. It's about the size of a Honda CR-V, and it is going to be a production vehicle.

If you live in Canada, you'll be able to buy it. The United States, sorry, out of luck.

Dang, we are really missing out in the US. We do get the EV9, though. This is the concept from which it came, again, super close.

Which brings me to this, the Vision Metaturismo. It's strictly a concept, but hope it gets built. It's a beautiful design.

It's obviously a show car. We really want to make that credible. We want to make sure we can build something close to that,

on the platform that we have, with the technology that we have. This case, the Metaturismo, we haven't made the decision yet for production.

If we do our job right, then it will be one day. It's nothing we have in our portfolio. We did have a Stinger.

Stinger was a very important car to us as a brand shaper. There's something very automotive, but at the same time, something very architectural.

That's why also the surfaces feel like they're all folded. EVs have one thing that I love as a designer. You need a long wheelbase to put the battery inside.

And you don't have a transversal engine in front of the axle, like maybe cheaper cars were in the past. So we don't need a long overhang.

So you have short overhang, long wheelbase. And on top of that, obviously because of the weight, they need bigger wheels too.

So big wheels, long wheelbase, short overhang is the basis for any good car design.

You might have heard that it costs the same to make an ugly car as it does to make a beautiful one. So I posed that question to Karim.

I would say it's true up to a certain point because we stamp multiple times. It's usually three and sometimes four times.

And the fourth time is often to make the edge extra precise, you know, or the burdle flange or how do you, you know, these things, that's extra time and extra costs.

So yes, of course, the basis is, you know, a good design is still made out of metal and still has four wheels and so on.

So you're right. But to get that extra precision, that extra refinement, how a surface leads in so there's no wobble in the metal, that does require more time.

Born in Lebanon, Habib immigrated to Montreal and was educated at Canada's McGill University and the U.S.'s Art Center College of Design.

He speaks five languages and has worked at German, Japanese and South Korean automakers.

So who better to ask, does it matter if a car company is American, Asian or European when it comes to design influence?

I've been fortunate enough to work in those different cultures and my personal point of view is no.

I think there's, of course, common attributes between the brands in the different regions.

And I answer that clearly because I have a very inner perspective.

What I find that is fascinating is how each company has their own kind of DNA.

Each company has different ways of seeing things, different processes, obviously, different mindsets.

People are educated with their mindset in the company and that, actually, to me is way more, has a way more impact than the country in which it's based.

All automakers have multiple design studios all around the globe.

One person might give a car inspiration and life, but it's a very large team that's responsible for the final production vehicle.

Hope this gives you a little insight into automotive design and that you don't have to spend tons of money to get good stuff.

Full disclosure, Kia and Hyundai brought me to Milan to experience all of this and interview the teams and experience jet lag.

I'm just trying to give you another layer of understanding when it comes to the automotive world. It's incredibly complex.

I'll leave you with this anecdote. Whenever I talk to a designer, I always ask them, whose work do you admire?

And when I pose that question to the lead designer of a very prestigious European brand, without hesitation, he said, Kia.

Kia is absolutely killing it, bringing great design to the mass market. And I have to agree.

Thanks for watching. This video is very different from the car reviews that I do, so check those out.

I'm on all the major social media platforms, so follow me there.

And if you have a question, leave it in the comments. I'm good about getting back to people.

For Driven, I'm Tom Volk.

What do you think? Does that work?

I've got an audience here, folks. Okay.

About this episode

Kia’s design process gets unpacked as a mix of creative ambition and real-world constraints. The team uses virtual reality before physical models exist, anchored by a named design language—Opposites United—and a concept-to-production continuity the host notices with EV3. Kia’s EV concepts also tie back to Hyundai’s “Art of Steel,” while regional studios and safety “hard points” shape what can actually be built. Even EV proportions and multi-pass stamping are framed as part of the craft.

art installation Art of Steel automotive design DNA bigger wheels cheap and cheerful segment clay work C pillar EGMP platform ergonomics Frankfurt

Honda CR-V Hyundai Boulder Hyundai Ioniq Hyundai Ioniq 3 Kia EV2 Kia EV3 Kia EV4 Kia EV5 Kia EV9 Kia Stinger

Original notes

Think great automotive design is only for high-end luxury and performance vehicles? Not necessary. Starting 20 years ago after stealing Peter Schreyer from the Volkswagen Group, Kia has quietly built an impressive portfolio of original award-winning automotive design. Tom Voelk travels to Milan, Italy for Design Week 2026 to show how the company is serious about staying true to its concept car designs. Kia's Global Head of Design, Karim Habib (formerly of BMW, Infiniti and Mercedes Benz) offers interesting insight, stuff you may not have thought about when it comes to the way your car looks. Plus, a close look at the Vision Meta Turismo concept.

Tom was attended a Hyundai/Kia event to produce this story. All editorial content is his own opinion.

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