Kia Cerato replacement lands in Australia

Two prototype examples of the next-generation Kia K4 sedan that will replace the Cerato as the Korean brand’s Australian small-car offering have landed in Sydney ahead of local dynamic testing.

The cars are expected to be finetuned on Aussie roads from March by Kia Australia’s product development team and dynamics consultant Graeme Gambold once local tuning of the electric EV5 medium SUV currently underway is completed.

A first round of Australia-specific K4 testing and tuning was carried out in Korea last year.

The new K4 sedan will be globally revealed by mid-year and go on-sale in Australia early in 2025. It will be built in Mexico rather than Korea for Australia. A hatchback is also coming, but is expected to break cover later.

Longer shipping times from Mexico to Australia have contributed to the K4’s Aussie launch slipping into next year.

All four generations of the Cerato have been sold in Australia, dating back to 2004. Before that Kia sold the Mentor, Shuma and Spectra small cars here.

The K4 badge was previously seen on a sedan sold in China by Kia between 2014 and 2020.

“We are quite big fans of the styling I can tell you that,” said Kia Australia product planning chief Roland Rivero of the Cerato replacement. “It’s grown a lot in size.”

Widely seen in spy shots, the Cerato becomes the K4 because Kia is adopting a unified global alphanumeric naming structure starting with ‘K’ for its passengers cars.

Overseas the new-generation Rio light-car – which isn’t coming to Australia because it is now only made in left-hand drive – has already been renamed K3.

Perhaps confusingly, the current Cerato was known as K3 in Korea and China. It is called the Forte in the North America.

In Europe Kia’s related small car is sold as the Ceed.

“Those days are over,” said Rivero. “There will only be one name for all markets moving forward.”

The K3 sedan – the only model revealed so far – is a significant 165mm longer and 40mm wider than the old Rio, which helps explain why it has claimed that name.

Rivero forecast the K4 will also grow a significant amount compared to the current Cerato. That would elevate it close to the medium car category.

Rivero would not comment on powertrain for the new-generation car, but it is expected to add a hybrid powertrain to its line-up.

Currently, Cerato sedan and hatch are sold in four equipment specs in Australia and are offered with a 2.0-litre naturally-aspirated four-cylinder petrol engine, or a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol engine.

Traditionally one of the key sales players for Kia in Australia, Cerato ranked only as the seventh best-seller for the brand in 2023 and was number four in the diminishing small-car class.

Spy pics: Automedia

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