Besides the trio of exciting Soul concepts, Kia was also exhibiting two new green concept cars at Geneva. Called “eco_cee’d” the concept cars are a development of the highly-acclaimed Kia pro_cee’d (first shown at the Frankfurt Show last year) and the hugely popular cee’d five-door hatchback.

With the eco_cee’d models, Kia aims to achieve even better fuel consumption, with fewer emissions – while still delivering a lively, spirited and entertaining drive. Kia Motors has already confirmed that many of the technologies featured on the eco_cee’d concept cars will be progressively transferred to the cee’d family of production models, manufactured from December 2008.

“The rapid transfer of green-performance eco_cee’d concept features into production versions of the cee’d, demonstrates Kia’s vision for the way ahead,” enthuses Mr Paul Willis, COO Kia Motors Europe. “Our new ‘eco’ features also confirm Kia’s commitment to creating environmentally friendly production models – without losing sight of customer expectations for fun-to-drive cars.”

The impressive performance, fuel economy and emissions figures of the eco_cee’d cars result from numerous small but significant modifications. Fuel consumption is improved (just 3.9 litres/100km) and C02 emissions reduced – to just 104 g/km (down 17%) for pro_cee’d and 106 g/km (cee’d five-door).

Eco_cee’d gallery:

Kia Links: Cee’d Forum, Pro_cee’d Forum, More about Eco_Cee’d, Cee’d crash test video, reviews