Judging from that brief, curated introduction, Kia’s ambition for the Seltos may be warranted. Kia gave me a vibrant, Starbright Yellow Seltos SX Turbo AWD to drive around Texas Hill Country for a day. They want the Seltos to appeal to Gen X and Gen Y buyers, but also car-downsizing Boomers and first-car-buying Gen Z-ers. As such, Kia gave it about as broad of a mandate as possible. The Seltos plans to grab market share in a segment that grew 18 percent in 2019: subcompact SUVs. It’s shoehorning its way into the Kia lineup between the new Soul and the larger Sportage SUV. It starts for a little under $22,000 - even with all-wheel-drive, if you wish - and tops out around $30,000. That success raises the expectations for Kia’s next SUV - which happens to be the Seltos, a stylish subcompact crossover arriving for the 2021 model year. The Telluride was named America’s best SUV for 2020, was a Car and Driver 10 Best pick, and is a finalist for World Car of the Year. Even now, Kia can’t ship Tellurides to dealers fast enough the average turnaround time for them at dealers is a little over a week. The company swung for the fences and knocked it out of the park, creating a surprisingly luxurious three-row crossover that ended up being the best value in the three-row SUV segment. The Telluride was a raging success for Kia last year.
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