Kia just announced a bit of a hand-and-foot test drive service that is intriguing. Instead of you coming to the dealer to test a car, Kia is planning on bringing the cars to you at home. That is, so long as you live in a one of a group of cities and are interested in either the Kia Carnival or Niro EV.
In a nutshell, a Kia representative will bring the vehicle to your location of choice, give you a detailed walkaround of the vehicle, and then it’ll be yours to test drive. In total, Kia says it should take up about an hour of your day. Kia is calling this service “Kia@Home.”
If you’re interested in using it to test drive either the Carnival or Niro EV, Kia says the following cities will be offering it: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York City Metro, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington D.C. If you’re only interested in the Carnival, your options also include Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Indianapolis, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa.
Kia says that if you ultimately want to purchase one of those vehicles after driving, you will have to work with a local Kia dealership to make it happen. So no, the dealership experience is not totally removed from the equation here, but at least part of it is. Appointments for both the Carnival and Niro EV in those cities are now available to be scheduled through October 3. Past that date, Kia doesn’t specify what will become of the program, but we suspect it will continue if successful.
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