KIA’s new Slovakian factory has started pilot production of a new lower-medium car, designed for Europe.

Code-named ED, it will go on sale in 2007 and was shown as a concept called cee’d at last week’s British International Motor Show.

Output from the factory in Zilina will reach 300,000 units by 2009, with the potential to rise to 400,000 by 2010.

Kia Motors Europe senior vice-president Jean-Charles Lievens said: ‘When the first ED production model rolls off the assembly line in late 2006, it will mark the beginning of a whole new era in Kia’s history, thanks to a whole new brand of DNA.

It will also begin the long-term process of changing how Kia is perceived – from the most European of Korean brands to the most Korean of European brands.’