Review: Kia Sportage HEV and PHEV

Remember when Kia was an underdog to the established car brands? How times have changed. Kia and its sister marque, Hyundai, are now two of the biggest names in the car market. Kia alone accounts for a 7 percent market share in the UK. In the US, Hyundai-Kia were the fifth biggest player in 2021, comfortably beating VW and BMW, and Kia alone set a new market share record at 4.7 percent. The Sportage is a major contributor to that. It’s the Korean brand’s biggest selling model globally—not surprisingly, since it’s consistently been a great, well-priced, reliable midsize SUV—which makes this revamp all the more important.

This new model sticks to those core values, but it also makes some big leaps. First of those is the drastic change in styling. Subjective as ever, it’s up to you whether you like the look of the Kia Sportage, but to these eyes it looks very modern yet also rather over-styled, particularly around the confusion of angular LED headlights.

As for engines, the Kia Sportage offers something for everyone, unless you’re after a pure electric car—in which case, you might want to look at the Kia EV6, Kia Niro EV, Hyundai Ioniq 5, or Skoda Enyaq iV. The Sportage caters to everyone else, with petrol or diesel engines as well as the hybrid engines we’re focusing on here, including a “full” hybrid and a plug-in hybrid badged Sportage HEV and Sportage PHEV. 

Photograph: Kia

The full hybrid offers similar technology to a Toyota Rav4, which is another of the Sportage’s many and varied rivals. A small 1.5-kWh battery gives short stints of pure electric running at low speeds, or when you’re off the throttle and coasting along, but you can’t plug it in and you don’t get more than a minute or so of pure electric running at a time. 

The plug-in hybrid gets a bigger 13.8-kWh battery, which you charge via a Type 2 AC socket and can be topped up from flat to full in under five hours at a maximum rate of 3.3 kW—a little slow compared to some rivals, but not a deal breaker. That battery brings a claimed WLTP pure electric range of 43 miles, but I managed around 36 miles quite easily in real-world driving. Winter conditions will likely see that drop to around 30 miles. 

Both the HEV and PHEV use a turbocharged 1.6-liter, four-cylinder petrol engine and a six-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox in conjunction with the electric motor, and they flick between electric and petrol without too much noise and vibration. They’re also comfy and confident to drive, and quiet, provided you’re not revving the coarse-sounding petrol engine too hard. Just avoid the big 19-inch wheels if you can, as they can make the low-speed ride a touch choppy. 

Photograph: Kia

You can have front- or four-wheel drive on the full Sportage HEV, while the PHEV is four-wheel drive as standard. We drove the four-wheel drive iteration of the HEV, and both this and the PHEV feel predictable and secure, if not as zingy to drive as something like the Mazda CX-5. 

More pertinent to most buyers is that a turning circle of 11 meters is very decent by the standards of these fairly large SUVs, helping the Sportage to wind around annoyingly tight car parks with relative ease. Visibility could be better, mind, but the Blind Spot Collisions-Avoidance Assist (BCA) system helps to mitigate that by beaming a camera feed onto the dash of the side of the vehicle whenever you indicate. It’s a properly nifty, useful bit of safety tech, although it’s a shame you have to go for the pricey, top-spec “4” trim to get it. 

Photograph: Kia

The interior is very similar to that of the EV6 (a good thing), and Kia’s also gone big on infotainment tech in the Sportage, with all the trims from “3” and up getting twin 12.3-inch screens (lower trims get a 4.3-inch driver’s readout) that are housed in a single, slick-looking curved display. 

The touchscreen in the center of the dash is the focal point; Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are a given, of course, but it’s a shame that you still have to plug your cable in to activate them, as many rivals offer wireless phone integration. USB-A and USB-C ports for charging is a nice touch. 

Photograph: Kia

Other than that, Kia’s is one of the best systems out there. The graphics and screen response times are really good, the icons are big and easy to hit when you’re driving, and the menu layouts are logical. No head-up display is a shame, however.

You can argue that it’s a bit old-fashioned, but I also like the fact that the Sportage has straightforward rotary air-con controls beneath the touchscreen and logical push-buttons on the steering wheel. Climate controls in the screen and touch-sensitive buttons on the steering wheel are very trendy and certainly look minimalist, yet they can be really poor ergonomically if they’re not executed well. Sometimes, old-fashioned buttons and rotary knobs are still the best solution. 

The plug-in hybrid’s charging controls are top notch, too. You can set timed charging to better take advantage of cheaper overnight tariffs, and there’s even location services so that the car automatically knows when it’s home and needs to stick to those overnight charging parameters. A phone app also allows for remote control of the Sportage PHEV’s charging and cabin temperature presets, among other features.

The Sportage is plenty practical enough for the family car market, with loads of rear passenger space, great visibility, and a boot that’s usefully bigger than you’ll find in key rivals like the Nissan Qashqai and Ford Kuga. A double buggy or big dog will be no issue. As for economy, one 60-mile trip in the HEV version achieved 45.9 miles per gallon. Be warned, though, there is a touch more wind noise than we’d like to hear as you go over 80 mph. 

As for pricing, Kia has moved a bit upmarket in that respect, in line with a noticeably improved interior quality and tech focus. We’d like to see lower interest finance, but even so, the Sportage is competitively priced whether you’re looking for monthly payments or buying outright. With the HEV starting from $27,290 and the PHEV from $38,490, and with generous equipment levels, loads of space, great infotainment and safety kit, a standard seven-year warranty, great reliability record, and good resale values, the Sportage is still one of the best family SUVs going.