Kia K5 vs Hyundai Sonata – Who wins the battle of South Korean design?

Thanks for the comments on my previous video on what cars you want to see in a design battle and today we have a South Korean showdown thanks to East Terminal’s suggestion.

Today we’re going to have a south korean showdown and this design battle is between the kia k5 and the hyundai sonata so what we’re going to do is of course you know the drill by now we’re going to talk about some of the base spec and tech and then of course analyze and compare the design from front side and rear i’m gonna let you know what i think of it and which

One of these i would personally buy so thanks for the comments on my previous video on what cars you want to see in a design battle and today we have this showdown here south korean showdown thanks to east terminal’s suggestion on my previous video so in the blue corner we have the sharp and crisp design of the kia k5 the price range is from 23 790 for the base

Model up to 29 000 for the top of the line gt version it’s powered by a turbocharged 1.6 liter inline four putting out 180 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque which is pretty low i would say for today’s standard the base model comes at front-wheel drive with an eight-speed automatic transmission in the red corner we find another bold south korean design in

The hyundai sonata of course it starts at 24 150 for the base model all the way up to 33 000 for the top of the line more sporty and lined version and this has the base model has a 2.5 liter inline inline four generating almost the same power as the kia a little bit more 11 horsepower more at 191 horsepower but a little less torque at 181 pound-feet of torque it

Also has front-wheel drive and an 8-speed automatic however both the n-line and the gt come with the same 290 horsepower 2.5 liter inline four-cylinder however the n-line only comes as a front-wheel drive while the gt offers all-wheel drive in their sportiest trim level so now let’s jump in here and let’s have a look at these two designs because there’s so much to

Talk about here i’ve said this so many times before i think you’ve probably heard it before but if i were a designer i would jump on a plane fly over to south korea and apply for a job at either kia or hyundai just because of these designs that we have right here so let’s start with the kia i really like the new design approach from kia not just with the k5 but

The overall design the the entire lineup i think they’re doing a really good job by hammering in the tiger nose we’ve seen the tiger nose in kia since the mid 2000s and that is this specific design treatment in the front end you see the framing of the entire front now is in fact the tiger nose it’s become a lot a lot bigger than we we’ve seen in previous models

And now it houses the the headlights themselves as well right here and this mesh right here is inspired by the the skin of sharks and i think it looks cool it looks a little irregular and it gives something new instead of just a hexagon mesh or something like that this is a 3d style mesh that reaches far into the grill if you look at this from up close and then we

Have the signature headlights of the k5 and this is something that you won’t mistake for anything else than a keo and you see it at night and what this line itself what this design is inspired by is the ekg line or the ekg curve of a healthy human heart that’s how they came up with that design that’s how deep designers are thinking these they’re thinking how can

We create something really cool with the headlight design what can we take inspiration from and what better to take it straight from the human heart and implement that as an led in the front and really cool design what i like about the front end here when we compare it to the sonata in a bit is that we have a proper front bumper so this is one piece that stretches

From one point right here to the other in a almost straight line and it creates this traditional front face where you have the top part you have it divided into two pieces you have the top part of the front fascia then you have it divided by a proper bumper then we have the lower part down here as well when it comes to line flow it’s a little bit confusing the line

Flow here in the kiosk front end but we do have some for example we have this line going from one end to the other and then as i said the top of the bumper here going in a little bit kind of framing giving up a nice chamfer right here underneath the headlight which looks pretty good and then we have the key lines here in the hood going down here creating the edges

Or the corners of these tiger nose details in the middle section of it down at the bottom we not we don’t have a lot of line flow right here but it still looks pretty good it looks cool it looks futuristic and modern with all these chamfers going on and i think this front end is one of the best looking front ends of any you know normal sedan that we have out in

The market today comparing this to the hyundai sonata as i said these two brands have really hammered in their design language the last couple of years and there is no different looking at the sonata so have a look at specifically this piece which is very special for this model and this is something i have never seen before in any production vehicle and what i’m

Talking about is this specific line you have an led right here that fades from very strong down here and then it just fades the higher up it goes and then blends in to this chrome trim piece that also goes around the window in the greenhouse it’s a really cool detail in both of these front ends show that the designers in south korea right now they’re really having

A lot of fun designing their cars and they’re also thinking a bit outside of the box and implementing new strategies specifically when it comes to the graphic features and this is stuff that we couldn’t really do when we had halogen lights and headlights so this is something that i think we’re gonna see more in other brands as well playing around with the light

Design in the front and that that happening a lot now in audi cars as well this as you can see it doesn’t have a clearly defined bumper instead we have this which is very modern in today’s world to have a massive grill in the front and it doesn’t look too bad but i do prefer still having a body colored line or something cutting in the middle off of the grill to

Separate the top part as i said in the kia and then the lower part of the graphics here i think that creates more of a more of a with more width in the front end if you have stuff like that i do prefer from a front view i do prefer the kia’s approach and another thing that i think kia is doing better here in the front end as well is if you look at the lower part

Of these two cars you have a very nice lower part of the front end hugging the road on the on the kia but in the hyundai it goes almost up like this so it’s almost a concave line in the bottom and i prefer to have it be like this and i made a redesign on this a very quick redesign that i think makes a big difference in the front end of the hyundai when you just

Create a similar line like the kia has right here instead of having it be in the opposite direction and go this way let’s have a look at the rear view and here it kind of switches for me which one i prefer the most i think the rear end of the kia it looks a little i don’t know what it is it looks a little too busy the front ends are very busy in both of these cars

As well but i think the rear end just doesn’t have the same kind of flow like we have in the front end of the kia right here and another thing that kia is doing right now is i’ve talked about this in kia videos before they like to put this some type of trim chrome trim piece in the c-pillar or in this area of every single new car that they have if you look at all

Kias all the new cars from kia every single one of them are gonna have some silver or chrome trim piece going down in a specific way right here as a just a decoration piece and i’m not sure if that really works with this design though because i’m not sure if i like this curvature than cutting into the rear window in this way it doesn’t really look too clean to

Me but i do like the taillights i kind of wish that they would connect this red line so we have a light bar going right here but at the same time you know i’ve said this so many times as well that every single car has a light bar today so this is a new take on how you can make a light bar stand out a little more and you still have the connection though with the

Front end light with this curvature right here which i really think is a good idea to connect the front end graphics with the rear end graphics by using the leds and the lights inside of the housing itself on top of that we still have a very clearly defined bumper right here with a nice line we also have another horizontal line right here so this creates a bit

Of a wider look for the kia and i really like that down below we have a pretty decent looking diffuser nothing too crazy this is what most car companies do today they add a little diffuser here even though it’s not really functional it just looks cool and looks sporty i’m not a huge fan of these area outlets right here they could have saved that only for the uh gt

Version the sportier version and then make them functional as well of course but other than that it’s a pretty decent looking design i’m going to show you from the side view which car i think this looks a lot like specifically in this area and specifically from a side view in just a minute so let’s have a look quickly at the sonata here i really like this rear end

I think this looks so much cleaner than the front end of the hyundai and it looks a lot more solid in in a way it looks more like a unit and then you have this beautiful line flow a new take here as well on how you can implement a light bar in the design going down here instead of connecting it up here like we have on for example i think and maybe some honda’s

Have done that i can’t really remember what car i’m thinking of right now most cars have their light bar up here not in the center of the of the trunk and i think it actually works here it creates same thing here both of these designs it doesn’t matter if you see them in day or night you’re still going to recognize them as exactly the sonata model and the k5 model

There is no mistaking if you look at them from the rear or the front because they have so unique treatment of their light design so this is a really cool rear end you have the same kind of bumper design right here that you have on the kia so it’s a solid line creating the nice bumper down there and then you have the nice framing of the graphics up top right here

As well with this little curvature at the top creating a very solid beautiful looking rear end in my opinion so the wind for the rear end goes to the sonata here i would say if i had to pick one of these just by looking at the rear view now last but not least let’s have a look at the side view first of all looking at the kia k5 up top now you can see this chrome

Trim piece up here going into the rear end and creating this weird looking thing that feels a little out of place in an otherwise very clean design there’s not a lot of lines in the side in this part of the design there’s not a lot going on within this area but there’s one line here that i think is really annoying and i can’t understand why they added this line

It doesn’t really make sense to me and that line is this line right here the sharp line going just in the body it just looks also out of place so we have two things it looks out of place in the rear we have this line and then we have this twin piece chrome trim piece and they are two things that i would probably take away from this design the thing with kia is it

Looks very very busy in the front end it looks very very busy in the rear end but in the middle it’s like a very calm ocean there’s nothing going on and then the waves are crashing on each of these coastlines in the front and the rear but the car that i think the the k5 really looks like when it comes to this part is the chevy malibu it looks a lot like a malibu

From the i would say the the middle section going back this this section looks a lot to me at least like the chevy metal wheel and that’s not really a bad thing because i think the malibu is a decent looking sedan the thing with the sedans these days is they don’t really have a sedan shape anymore a traditional sedan shape anymore what i thought what i mean by

That is you have a continuous curvature here and it doesn’t really create a proper trunk like we used to have back in the day so we don’t have the three box design anymore with the front box being this part then we have the second box and then we have the third box backs here back here now it looks almost like a sport back all of these designs these days sport back

Design maybe a hatchback even comparing the k5 to the hyundai the hyundai looks very very clean i really like this treatment of the shoulder line same thing here nothing i’ve haven’t i haven’t seen this before having a shoulder line that kind of changes in its thickness very very narrow at this point and then it becomes thicker and thicker going back creating this

Connection to the taillights in a very cool way and then this line is then mirrored down here so we have the same kind of dynamic line here with the thickness in these two parts and nothing really going on right in the middle point and this line then continues into the bumper and all around the rear end and the wraps around the car unfortunately it doesn’t have a

Connection to the front end because it doesn’t have any chamfer right here connecting it all around the car but we have it for about three quarters of the design and i think that’s good enough so which one of these would i choose if i were to buy the kia k5 or the hyundai sonata today well i would definitely go for the k5 simply because of the front fascia which i

Really think he has done a well really good job on same with the hyundai but as i said i think the hyundai looks a little sleeker a little weaker i like the more upright design of the of the kia and also this heartbeat led it looks really cool and it really sets it apart from any other sedan out there on the market but hyundai kia they’re both doing very well when

It comes to design and i really like to see what they’re gonna do 10 years from now is this if this is the change they’ve done in the last five years the next 10 years should be really interesting specifically moving into the ev market let me know which one you would prefer of these two and also let me know which cars you want to see in future design battles right

Here on the channel thanks for watching and i’ll see you in the next video alan did you have to make noise while i was recording you couldn’t wait one more minute

Transcribed from video
Kia K5 vs Hyundai Sonata – Who wins the battle of South Korean design? By Bembli