K900 sold less than 6k cars between 14-17, many of them for far under MSRP.
They still found justification for a 2nd gen K900 so I don't see how they wouldn't be able to find a reason for a 2nd gen Stinger.
Explain? It’s out selling the K900 and Cadenza by far, also the Sedona as only sold 2000 more units then the Stinger so far this year.
I guess it would also be different based on region. It seems like its seeing a huge sales success in Asian countries like Australia and Canada, a bit softer sales in the US and is more or less a flop in Europe where it's much harder to compete with the Germans.
Have to take into account worldwide sales and in particular, importance to Kia's domestic market.
While the K9/K900 hasn't sold well here, it is an important model for Kia in Korea and the new model has been selling at around
1,500/month (highest month being over
1,700) - which is around
3x what the Stinger does in Korea and what the Stinger does in the US (the high CO2 tax hit is a limiting factor for Euro sales).
The new K900 should sell a good bit better here.
The Stinger has been doing around...
around
1,500/month in the US
btwn
150-200 in Australia and Canada
btwn
300-400 in Europe (usually a little less than what the IS does in Europe)
btwn
500-600 in Korea
So, in its largest markets, around
2,450-2,700 a month or around
29.5k-32k a yr.
Is that enough to justify continuing w/ the Stinger?
Tough call.
Worldwide Stinger sales seem to be in the ballpark of current sales for the IS and Toyota is going ahead w/ the next gen IS (the GS, otoh, looks more and more to be discontinued).
What's been disappointing and an area where Stinger sales can certainly improve is for the base 4 cylinder engine.
That likely won't happen until the new (more powerful and more efficient) 2.5T replaced the aged 2.0T and better yet, if adjoined to a 48V mild hybrid system.
This set-up should, in particular, help European sales as diesels have fallen out of favor and the diesel engine in the Stinger is aged and more suited to something like the Optima and
Sorento than the Stinger.
That being said, it'll be better if Stinger sales go back north of 1,500/month in the US.