Kia is losing its Soul, literally. The automaker is retiring the boxy model at the end of the 2025 model year. Assembly ends in October, and the company reports there are just a few thousand new examples still available from dealers. Since the nameplate's introduction in 2009, the company has sold over 1.5 million of them in the United States.
In the 2000s, there was a micro trend of automakers bringing boxy hatchbacks to the United States. For example, there was the Honda Element, Nissan Cube, and Scion xB. The Soul arrived at around the same time as these vehicles but managed to outlast them all. All stories eventually come to an end, though. The boxy model appealed to a new segment of the market for the automaker by offering a stylish, compact vehicle that also offered impressive cargo capacity for its relatively small physical footprint.
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