Kia’s electric EV6 has been showered with awards, but is the brand’s family SUV touched by the same genius?
Allan Muir Allan.Muir@haymarket.com
1.6 T-GDi 48V ISG 3
ASK SOMEONE TO name the burger that’s most synonymous with McDonald’s and there’s a fair chance they’ll say “the Big Mac” without even having to think about it. Love it or hate it, the fast food chain shifts an estimated 900 million Big Macs globally each year – far more than any other burger on its menu – so it’s not an exaggeration to say that it’s been crucial to the brand’s success.
The equivalent of the Big Mac for South Korean car maker Kia is the Sportage. Now in its fifth generation, this family SUV is Kia’s top-selling model in the UK and appears regularly in the top 10 overall best-sellers chart.
It’s the rock to which Kia’s rise to prominence is anchored, and it’s rightly popular with buyers. We’re rather partial to this latest version as well, giving it our maximum five-star rating. As always, that was good enough for me to put the Sportage on my shopping list.
Regular readers might have spotted that this is my second Kia in a row. The Sportage is a change of direction compared with the electric Kia EV6 I ran previously, but the latter car – our 2022 Car of the Year, remember – proved so good to live with that I had no qualms about taking on another of the brand’s models.
Moving from an electric car (three in a row, in fact) to a relatively conventional petrol model might seem like a backward step in some ways and it’s a bit of a shock to the system, but with the price of electricity (particularly from public rapid chargers) skyrocketing, it’s getting to the point where an efficient petrol car might not be all that much costlier to run (if at all) than a large electric SUV like the EV6.
And efficiency is something my Sportage promises to deliver, because its 1.6-litre petrol engine is supplemented by 48-volt mild hybrid technology. Unlike the full hybrid versions, my car can’t propel itself along on electric power alone, but a small amount of electrical assistance helps to reduce emissions and boost performance and fuel economy compared with the regular entry-level 1.6-litre engine.
The mild hybrid engine is linked exclusively to a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox and drives the front wheels. Four-wheel drive is available, but only on the upper trim levels.
Because I don’t usually need the traction benefits of four-wheel drive, I’ve settled for mid-range 3 trim, which still comes with such goodies as electrically adjustable front sea
