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Both the Kia Seltos’ killer looks and its fan base had their genesis right from when it was a concept at the 2018 Delhi Auto Expo. While the SP2 concept set the tone, the final production version of Seltos didn’t disappoint with its perfect proportions, upright SUV stance and premium quality finish. Even after nearly a year in the market, and after Hyundai launched its new generation Creta, the Seltos continues to be the best looking compact sports utility vehicle in the market. Yes, the Creta’s design, though awkward at first glance, grows on you over time. Yet, the Seltos continues to be the better of the two in terms of design.
The lockdown, the crossover to BS-VI, growing competitive pressures and the delayed model year transition meant that the Seltos needed a mild reset. And that is what Kia has done with the launch, earlier this week, of the new Seltos. New features have trickled down for lower-end variants and the addition of more connectivity features gets the Seltos buyers more bang for their buck. The company has also used the opportunity to rationalise the variant strategy for the Seltos, leading to two of the older trim variants being dropped out of the mix. The Seltos was being offered in two model lines - Tech Line and GT Line. The GTK and the GTX DCT variants from the Smartstream 1.4T petrol’s GT Line have been removed, supposedly because of low demand. The Seltos continues to have one of the widest variant range with a choice of three engines, four transmissions and a total of 16 trim variants to choose from.
What’s new?
The Seltos gets a few safety and convenience feature upgrades, and quite a few of them are now available in lower trim variants. One of them is the dual muffler finish at the rear which is now available even for the HTK+ variant. The emergency stop signal with the flashing rear lights in the tail-lamps get activated during emergency braking while travelling at over 55kmph. This safety feature is now standard fitment across variants. The top-end HTX+ and the GTX+ are now offered with dual tone body colour paint jobs with the roof in a contrast colour, including an orange and white combination.
The new Seltos doesn’t get any changes to the powertrain or other performance hardware. But, there are some changes to the cabin, including the addition of a silver finished panel for the automatic climate control in the variants just below the top-end. There are also metal scuff plates that some of these variants will now be offered with, and the sunroof is now available in more variants below the top-end. The differential in pricing between the previous Seltos’ similar variants and the new ones ranges between ₹15,000-30,000.
The new Seltos also gets additional, updated features for its UVO connectivity system. There are more voice command features that is part of the infotainment package and now includes calling out “Hello Kia” and asking for information on weather, the current cricket score and details about Indian holiday calendar amongst others. In addition to the infotainment controls offered by UVO, the new upgrade also allows controlling the smart air purifier system. Also, with the refreshed Seltos, all automatic variants get the smart key remote engine start feature.
Prices for the new Seltos start from ₹9.89 lakh for the petrol 1.5 HTE manual transmission variant and go up to ₹17.34 lakh for the diesel 1.5 CRDi GTX+ automatic variant.
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