The Kia Stinger Will Be Discontinued in April: Report
Kia’s performance four-door has been sputtering along for years, and an end to the pain could be in sight as rumors of its discontinuation return.
The Kia Stinger never really caught on as well as anyone would have hoped—in fact, I bet some of you forgot it was still around. Soon enough, though, it may not be, as rumor out of Korea has it that the Stinger's prognosis is terminal and that it has six months to live.
This comes via the Korean business paper Hankyung, which reported Kia would discontinue the model in April. We reached out to Kia to confirm, and the Kia spokesman James Bell seemed to confirm the rumor: "We knew that it was having [its end] some day in the near future, but didn't know when." He also promised to verify, and follow up later in the day.
Previously rumored to be canceled in 2022 due to slow sales, the Stinger has lived on into the 2023 model year. But its sales are as weak as perceived, totaling 6,643 through Q3 when it managed 10,377 over the same period last year. That's a 36% decrease to an already small number. For context, while the Chevrolet Camaro is selling so poorly that it's considered to be in a death spiral, even it has outsold the Stinger more than 3 to 1 this year.
The Kia Rio outsells the Stinger by a similar margin, while Kia's top seller the Sportage outperforms the Stinger by a factor of more than 13 to1. In all, the Stinger accounts for less than 1.3% of Kia sales in the United States. It's just getting harder for this performance four-door to pay its way, all at a time when EVs are of greater importance to Kia than a niche, slow-selling ICE model, especially when the EV6 already outsells it almost thrice era. If that ain't a sign of the times, I don't know what is.
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