New Kia Carnival coming soon

The SUV-inspired design of the fourth-generation Kia Carnival has been teased ahead of the all-new eight-seat people-mover's global premiere in July.

Expected to pack some serious safety and technology firepower, the all-new Kia Carnival will seek to defend the nameplate's top-selling status in Australia when it arrives here in the fourth quarter of 2020 – around November.

The first official teaser image shows a resolved, contemporary design that borrows some of its butch styling cues from the new Kia Sorento.

Badged as the Kia Sedona in markets such as the USA, the new model not only borrows design elements from the upcoming Sorento seven-seat SUV, it will be based on the same platform.

But don’t call the new Carnival a people-mover, as we do, or a mini-van, as Americans do, because Kia says the SUV-like exterior of its latest troop transporter makes it a ‘grand utility vehicle’ (GUV).

Kia’s signature ‘tiger-nose’ grille is in evidence, as are slimline LED headlights, but it’s the pumped-out wheel-arches and slightly canted roofline that give the Carnival a tough new look.

While Kia isn’t talking about new features or engine types just yet – that’ll happen during the July reveal – we know that the new Carnival rides on the same platform architecture as the 2021 Kia Sorento, which arrives here in August 2020.

Ergo, items like the big 12.3-inch ‘Supervison’ digital instrument cluster and 10.2-inch infotainment touch-screen will star.

The 2021 Kia Carnival will almost certainly get the Sorento's new blind-spot detection/camera system that displays rear three-quarter vision from both sides of the vehicle on the instrument panel, to improve driver awareness around the extra-large vehicle.

Driver-assistance systems will also likely be carried over from the Sorento, with Level 2 autonomous driving tech (acceleration, braking and steering) expected and likely to include autonomous emergency braking with vehicle, cyclist and pedestrian detection.

The next Kia Carnival will almost certainly get the new Sorento’s auto-parking system as well, which works without anyone inside the vehicle via a few clicks of the new key fob.

Engine options are not yet clear but again, expect similar choices to the Sorento, meaning the 2.2-litre turbo-diesel (147kW/440Nm) will carry over, as will the petrol V6 (206kW/336Nm).

Overseas markets will almost certainly get access to a new 1.6-litre turbo-hybrid powertrain (169kW/350Nm) but Kia Australia probably won’t offer the hybrid engine here.

The new Kia Carnival will go on sale in Korea first, from around August, with Australian customer deliveries to start around November.

Since its launch in 1998, more than two million Kia Carnival people-movers have been sold globally.

Today, the Kia Carnival sells for between $43,190 and $63,490 depending on the model grade and engine.

For more than half a decade the Carnival has been Australia’s best-selling people-mover and so far in 2020 it commands a whopping 55.8 per cent share of the sales segment (1622 sales to the end of May).

The next-best seller is the Honda Odyssey, with a 15.7 per cent market share (456 sales), while the Hyundai iMAX and LDV G10 vie for third sport ahead of the Toyota Tarago, Toyota Granvia and Volkswagen Multivan.