Kia Seltos Facelift Spotted Testing - Launch In Mid-2023 Likely | V3Cars

Feb 12, 2023, 03:00 PM IST
By Mahesh Yadav
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Images of a camouflaged C-segment SUV with ADAS hardware recently surfaced online. It looks like the car in question is the upcoming 2023 Kia Seltos facelift. The update is overdue for the Seltos, which first went on sale in August 2019. Considering a 6-7 year product lifecycle for a car as important as the Seltos, we expected to see a facelift of the SUV between August 2022 and February 2023.

In the last year or so, Kia are off their tick-tock launch cycle. At the 2020 Auto Expo, Kia announced that they will bring one new vehicle every 6 months. Here’s a look at the launch history of Kia cars in India:

KIA INDIA CARS LAUNCH HISTORY
Seltos	August 2019
Carnival	February 2020
Sonet	September 2020
Carens	February 2021
EV6	June 2022

As you can see, there’s a big gap between the Carens and the EV6 launch. Moreover, we’ve entered the 8th month since the EV6 launch with no new Kia car in sight for this month. Since the last launch from Kia (EV6) was a low-volume halo product, we should expect the Seltos facelift to launch next. With a 6-month launch schedule, I'm only expecting the Carnival’s replacement to go on sale in the 2nd half of 2023.

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For reference, Apple followed the tick-tock launch cycle for almost 10 years since the launch of the first iPhone. They offered design upgrades in one launch cycle and brought performance/feature upgrades in the next cycle. Kia’s product launch cycle brings one high-volume car in one launch cycle and a low-volume, halo product in the other.

The Sonet and Seltos facelift are due considering their respective product life cycles. Unfortunately, neither of these cars were present at the Kia’s 2023 Auto Expo stall. The Sonet, which launched in September 2020 made its debut in concept form at the 2020 Auto Expo in February 2020. Similarly, the Seltos was first on display at the 2018 Expo as a concept. Among cars from Kia’s sister brand, Hyundai, the Venue got its mid-life update a few months ago but the Creta is starting to get long in the tooth and is begging for a design refresh.

Also Read: Kia Carens Petrol Variants Explained - Which One To Buy?

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