Think Kia doesn’t makes sports cars, huh? The GT4 Stinger concept should change your mind

By Peter Braun Published January 13, 2014

A pure, raw sports car with rear wheel drive … from Kia. It does sound a bit strange but, apparently that’s what is coming next from the Korean automaker – and it is called the GT4 Stinger.

Right now the car is just a concept, bound for the 2014 Detroit Auto Show. Kia has teased an image and a few detail, but mostly the car remains a mystery. What we do know is that it will have a turbocharged four cylinder, 315 horsepower, rear-wheel drive, and that it looks a hell of a lot like the Audi R8.

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The concept renderin, released by Kia, shows a very low-slung car with more LEDs than a truckload of Audis. And while a production car is sadly likely to be toned down, this is the sort of car that may actually see a dealer lot.

Kia has shown a willingness to buck the expectation of buyers by releasing luxury vehicles like the K900. What’s more; because Kia is linked to Hyundai, it already has a RWD platform from the Genesis Coupe at its disposal.

Personally, though, I hope that if the GT4 Stinger does get made, it’s an entirely new car. The Genesis Coupe is a very fun sports car, but the platform is five years old and it was never a world-beater. But even if we get some old underpinnings, this is one exciting Kia.

Just remember, even if the Kia badge doesn’t seem fitting on a sports car, before Lamborghini made cars, it made tractors.

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Detroit Auto Show

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Peter is a freelance contributor to Digital Trends and almost a lawyer. He has loved thinking, writing and talking about cars…

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Waymo and Toyota explore personally owned self-driving cars

Front three quarter view of the 2023 Toyota bZ4X.

Waymo and Toyota have announced they’re exploring a strategic collaboration—and one of the most exciting possibilities on the table is bringing fully-automated driving technology to personally owned vehicles.
Alphabet-owned Waymo has made its name with its robotaxi service, the only one currently operating in the U.S. Its vehicles, including Jaguars and Hyundai Ioniq 5s, have logged tens of millions of autonomous miles on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Austin.
But shifting to personally owned self-driving cars is a much more complex challenge.
While safety regulations are expected to loosen under the Trump administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has so far taken a cautious approach to the deployment of fully autonomous vehicles. General Motors-backed Cruise robotaxi was forced to suspend operations in 2023 following a fatal collision.
While the partnership with Toyota is still in the early stages, Waymo says it will initially study how to merge its autonomous systems with the Japanese automaker’s consumer vehicle platforms.
In a recent call with analysts, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai signaled that Waymo is seriously considering expanding beyond ride-hailing fleets and into personal ownership. While nothing is confirmed, the partnership with Toyota adds credibility—and manufacturing muscle—to that vision.
Toyota brings decades of safety innovation to the table, including its widely adopted Toyota Safety Sense technology. Through its software division, Woven by Toyota, the company is also pushing into next-generation vehicle platforms. With Waymo, Toyota is now also looking at how automation can evolve beyond assisted driving and into full autonomy for individual drivers.
This move also turns up the heat on Tesla, which has long promised fully self-driving vehicles for consumers. While Tesla continues to refine its Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, it remains supervised and hasn’t yet delivered on full autonomy. CEO Elon Musk is promising to launch some of its first robotaxis in Austin in June.
When it comes to self-driving cars, Waymo and Tesla are taking very different roads. Tesla aims to deliver affordability and scale with its camera, AI-based software. Waymo, by contrast, uses a more expensive technology relying on pre-mapped roads, sensors, cameras, radar and lidar (a laser-light radar), that regulators have been quicker to trust.

Cars

Aston Martin DBX S is the world’s most powerful SUV, if you ignore electric

Aston Martin DBX S

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The DBX S continues Aston Martin’s tradition of using the ‘S’ suffix to denote higher-performance versions of existing models – something it first did back in 2004 with the Vanquish S.

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I drove 500 miles with Android Automotive, here’s why every car needs it

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