Over its 126 year history, Auckland’s iconic Eden Park has played host to cricket matches, football games, rugby tests and even music concerts. On its off days, the facility accommodates school balls, golf rounds, roof walks and many other such events. Yet, despite its lengthy CV, ‘New Zealand’s National Stadium‘ has never held a car launch, that is until this week! If you’ve attended any of the above events at Eden Park over the past decade then you’ve likely seen the Kia branding that adorns the place. The Korean brand first entered our market over twenty years ago, around the same time they inked a deal with the Australian Open, signing a deal with Eden Park in 2016 to become one of the venue’s key partners.
Fast forward to 2026 and Kia are ready to unveil the second generation Seltos in New Zealand, naturally, I was puzzled when the invite arrived. Meet at Eden Park it said! Surely there weren’t going to be cars on a field that had only just hosted one ODI and two T20I cricket matches, right? Wrong, there were about forty cars sitting on this hallowed turf when I arrived at the venue early on a Friday morning.
Our day would kick off with an essential coffee before a series of presentations highlighting Kia’s relationship with Eden Park before delving deeper into the Korean brand’s global and local performance followed by a detailed overview of the new Seltos that was being launched at the facility.
Eden Park’s story is an intriguing one, the facility receives no funding from either the local council or government as highlighted by the stadium’s chief, Nick Sautner. Instead, it maintains viability through the aforementioned events as well as the support of its corporate partners, Kia included. The car manufacturer is joined by other iconic brands like AA Insurance, CocaCola, KFC, novo nordisk and Samsung, even counting the University of Auckland as one of its partners! Sautner’s had a few Kias himself and although not a car enthusiast, his garage has previously housed a Stinger but that’s since been replaced with a Carnival and an EV9 as he’s currently expecting a fourth child. Nick closed off his presentation by announcing that Kia and Eden Park have extended their partnership by a further five years and that the Seltos’ launch at the facility would help its perception as more than just a sporting stadium. After all, we were all seated in the CocaCola Field Club, an all new pitch side event space that can accommodate up to 2,000 people!
We also found out that other car brands can host their launches and events at Eden Park but the Kia logos will have to stay!
Speaking of Kia, the brand has come a very long way since its New Zealand debut back in 2006. Starting off as entry level, the Korean manufacturer is currently in a phase it terms “Personalised Mobility Brand” with an eye on becoming an “Aspirational Brand” come 2030. Following a successful rebrand in 2021, Kia has already sold more than 3.35m cars globally in 2026, with its sights firmly set on an even stronger 2027. Undeniably, the rise of Chinese manufacturer presence across the globe has stunted the growth of most automotive brands but Kia remains one of the few to record an improvement of 0.8% despite these challenging market conditions.
Looking further forward to 2030, the brand is forecasting that circa 29% of its global sales will be comprised solely of EVs. With a more local lens on, Todd McDonald, Kia NZ GM, highlighted that New Zealand’s market is now home to 70 car brands, four of which, Kia included, occupy fifty percent of market share! Fortunately, Kia’s local lineup includes some heavy hitters like the Sportage and Carnival, both have recorded an over 200 percent increase in sales year on year. However, there’s been no more successful product for Kia locally than the Seltos as Justin Beattie, National Sales Manager, Kia NZ pointed out. The compact SUV has notched more than 16,527 units sold since its local debut in 2019 and the brand are expecting this new second generation car to record 2,750 sales in 2027.
Kia NZ themselves have had a pretty stellar year with 9,750 vehicles sold to date as compared with 8,934 across the whole of 2025. It’s been a busy year for the brand who kicked things off with launching the Stonic, followed by the announcement of a 3-year servicing plan, then the PV5 followed and now the new Seltos is here! They’ve also secured key fleet contracts like that of Bluebird, New Zealand Post, Waste Management as well as an increasing presence in the government sector.
Next up, it was the turn of Nick Carpenter, Product Manager for Kia NZ. The big talking point here is that the Seltos is now hybrid only across a range that includes effectively five different trim levels. Priced at $39,990, the Light 2WD is the entry level vehicle which progresses to the Earth, Water and then X-Line which is available as a 2WD or with an eAWD powertrain, the latter of which has an asking price of $55,490. This second generation vehicle has also grown, 45mm longer and 35mm wider, both of which directly improve interior space for the car’s occupants. Despite the changes, few key elements remain from the first generation vehicle, the floating roof in particular which was a favourite design feature of Seltos buyers. There’s now an even bigger focus on symmetry as visible in the below photo, aligning the new Seltos with more premium offerings from Kia’s range.
At the front, an all new fascia integrates Kia’s ‘Star Map’ signature design with a rather wide grille that pushes the headlights out to the corners. The design might be more polarizing than the previous model but it allows this new Seltos to integrate with Kia’s family of SUVs. A total of eight colours are available to match with three different wheel options that are 16,18 and 19 inches respectively.
There’s another huge change in terms of connectivity, all new Seltos’ come with six years of Kia Connect which is transferrable between owners as the over-the-air-updates will be, this also means that 85% of Kia NZ’s range of vehicle now comes with connected functionality. Interestingly, this six year timeframe was chose to benefit both the first and second owners of the vehicle, nicely done Kia.
Upgrades on the inside are aplenty with the infotainment screen now 12.3 inches as is the cluster, both separated by a 5 inch screen that focuses on HVAC. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard across the range too. Then there’s the safety improvements, features like ‘Junction Crossing’,’Blind Spot View Monitor’, ‘Surround View Monitor’ and ‘Remote Parking Assist’ make the Seltos one of the market leaders for vehicle safety in this compact SUV segment.
As I mentioned previously, the Seltos is now hybrid only across the range, the trusty 1.6L GDi engine powers all variants of the vehicle with a helping hand courtesy of a 1.49kWhr battery. Power output on the 2WD versions is a reasonable 112kW whilst the X-Line eAWD delivers an improved 126kW. Combined fuel consumption ranges between 4.5L/100km on the entry level models with smaller wheels and can go up to 5.2L/100km which is what the range topping X-Line eAWD promises.
Worth noting that this powertrain is Euro 6e compliant while New Zealand are only planning a move to Euro 6d in 2028! The eAWD is an interesting kettle of fish because it makes use of a small electric motor bolted to the rear axle to offer part-time AWD assistance when needed, it will also help with regenerative braking which is a plus! The pro is that you should be able to get out of the occasional sticky situation but the powertrain will struggle with any actual off-roading or towing.
Not only is the Seltos so feature laden but it also comes with an ‘ANZAC’ steering and suspension tune from factory, making it more adept for our roads than many of its competitors. The biggest test of this promise would be to actually get behind the wheel of the car but first, Kia had a special tour that would take us behind the scenes at Eden Park.
A walk through the tunnels would see us enjoy the various murals that have been painted as a tribute to some of the famous names to have graced Eden Park over the years. These included Tottenham Hotspur FC, Chelsea FC Women, Indian Cricket Team and of course, the Wahs to name a few! Once inside the tunnels, there were photos of various events through the years including the 2011 Rugby World Cup, 2015 Cricket World Cup as well as concerts from the likes of Coldplay, Ed Sheeran and Pink along with a floor to ceiling artwork of Ardie Savea’s now famous “this is our house” statement.
The tour led us to the changing rooms where a personalized rugby shirt awaited us, you’ll already know that Kia New Zealand are partial to a good rugby shirt and this one was no different. A monochrome colour scheme featured the Kia logo along with ‘Tarmac Life’ and the Seltos nameplate on the back. It was one of two personalized touches from the Kia team throughout the day, the other being the inclusion of our names on the board at Eden Park!
Following the conclusion of the tour, we were handed a packed lunch and the keys to a Seltos X-Line for some free drive time. A full in-depth review will be on its way once I’ve spent some time behind the wheel of the car. As for my initial thoughts, I have to commend the range topper on being well equipped and offering a ride that is compliant on New Zealand’s ever changing road surfaces, it does lack punch though, especially on the uphill stretches. My brief time behind the wheel returned an efficiency figure of 5.6L/100km which is not far off the 5.2 number promised by Kia. Backed by a strong local dealer network, it’s easy to see why the Seltos has been so popular for Kia New Zealand and with this new generation offering already in dealerships as of 6th November, I see an improvement in that trend!
Thanks for reading! For more Kia news and reviews, visit Tarmac Life.
Media invite and hospitality courtesy of Kia New Zealand. Pictures and words by Matthew D’Souza.
This article was entirely researched, composed and written without the use of AI.
