Kia Sportage Hybrid is an affordable look at the latest auto technology | Auto Features

The new 2023 Kia Sportage isn’t so much a automobile as it is a Universal Studios concept park attraction: an cost-effective appear at the hottest auto technological know-how that you can do with the total relatives: massive screens, semi-autonomous driving, purple leather, hybrid-electric powered energy.

My Matte Gray (yes, Matte Grey in a $38,000, non-luxe vehicle) tester appears like it was sketched by a Hollywood designer.

The front is all grille, chrome accents and LED mild bars — the headlights pushed to the really edges of the fascia. It’s a stark contrast with the preceding-generation Sportage and its anthropomorphic functions. The ‘22 Sportage was a cutie, its big eyes and content mouth — er, grille — seemingly motivated by Pikachu from the Pokemon loved ones. The new Sportage appears to be like like a little something from the Tron motion pictures.

“Is that from the foreseeable future?” my neighbor John commented as I rolled past his driveway on my way up north for a long road journey to get pleasure from the Kia’s highlighted sights.

Whilst it should conform to the standard format of four-doorway SUV, Sportage issues styling convention. Sister Hyundai has completed the same with its angular Tucson ute, which is developed on the exact platform as Sportage. The Kia’s rear is almost as intriguing as the entrance with a wedding day cake development that separates rear window, taillights, license plate panel and diffuser into four planes. The full sculpture sits beneath a modern floating-roof design and style.

For all its design ambition, on the other hand, my Sportage tester was fairly sensible. It sat on high-profile, 18-inch wheels with a beneficial, Wrangler-like 8.3 inches of floor clearance really should I experience a standard northern Michigan grime street.

The very long generate up I-75, even so, was nearly anything but regular.

The Sportage has the most effective semi-autonomous process this aspect of Caddy’s Super Cruise and Tesla’s Autopilot. I’m not generating this up. Like Tremendous Cruise (and not like Autopilot) the process has no interest in nannying me all the time.

In contrast to all those sophisticated units, Kia does not give its adaptive cruise element a fancy identify and it will not self-navigate to your destination (so it will not mechanically switch lanes in the course of action). If not, it authorized me to relax, presume a chair-like seating placement (arms on my knees) — only reaching for the steering column when a different car got in the way.

The radar brick in the entrance grille study autos in entrance of me, slowing down from my established pace of 79 mph as I approached. Assuming the controls, I turned on the blinker, drove about them, then settled back again into palms-cost-free driving. The cameras kept the automobile centered, even in lengthy interstate curves. While Tesla’s Autopilot nannies me every single 30 seconds to utilize torque to the wheel (building certain I’m paying out interest), the Kia procedure still left me on your own, not often asking me to affirm my existence.

A quick rainstorm did not faze the technique. About the Zilwaukee Bridge, Sportage was a rock, next the lane superbly. A pair of whole-dimensions pickups — in a hurry to get up I-75 — roared into perspective driving me, swerving across lanes and passing targeted visitors. Quickly along with, they lower in entrance of me and into the remaining lane. The Kia braked quickly as the Ram cut across its bow — screening the crisis braking procedure — then continued on its way as the pickups disappeared into the length. Impressive.

As the Sportage drove by itself, I had the possibility to make phone calls, preserve my most loved radio stations, marvel at the interior. The present day cabin is on par with the Sportage’s sci-fi exterior and chopping-edge adaptive cruise manage.

A huge, hoodless curved display stretches across the sprint like — properly, a Mercedes. It properties two electronic 12.5-inch screens — one for instrumentation, the other for infotainment — that are graphically remarkable and configurable. Amid all this digital wizardry, Sportage is nevertheless curiously a generation at the rear of its peers in not presenting wi-fi Apple CarPlay and Android Car. Fortunately, there was ample console house to plug in my cell phone for navigating my journey. The Kia native system was no match for the smartphone’s voice and navigation abilities.

The handsome gloss-black middle console is entire of intelligent ideas. To lower buttons, the infotainment and climate controls alternately access the exact same middle console screen for altering, say, quantity or warmth. Kudos to the initially member of your family members who figures out this tiny Easter egg without having first consulting the glovebox manual.

Talking of buttons, the starter, rotary shifter and rotary manner controller are all neatly aligned like the solar, moon and earth in a photo voltaic eclipse.

Console cupholders are multi-functional. Having a webpage from Honda — whose Civic and Pilot consoles are engineering gems — the Kia’s cupholder rims can be hidden at the touch of a button, turning the house into greater storage for a box of fries or a little purse. I made fantastic use of the house whilst downing a quickly-food stuff meal on my vacation.

All of this was wrapped in red leather below a panoramic sunroof that I normally see in, properly, a Mercedes (or Mazda CX-50, yet another mainstream motor vehicles with upscale ambitions like Kia).

Yet again, this in a $38,000 automobile.

Speaking of relatives, there is plenty of space for second-row travellers. Sportage offers superb rear legroom, courtesy of a wheelbase stretched by 3.4 inches over that previous-gen, and I could tilt the seatback farther to permit myself a lot more headroom.

How does it drive, you inquire?

So high-tech is Sportage that I virtually forgot the hybrid drivetrain, which went about its duties in workman-like way. The hybrid marries a turbocharged 1.6-liter four-banger with a one electrical motor for a balanced 226 horses. It created superior acceleration out of stoplights, but when it came to tackling the twisties on my most loved M-32 west of Gaylord, the Kia wasn’t intrigued. It is no Mazda CX-5.

The hybrid drivetrain is new to Sportage (there is also a plug-in model available with 32 miles of battery-only vary) and statements a mixed 38 mpg with all-wheel drive — a significant bounce in excess of the non-hybrid’s 28 mpg. That’s welcome news as I handed by fuel cost signs of $4.51 (quickly to increase over $5).

But in my week of driving, the Sportage hybrid returned a a lot far more modest determine of 29 mpg. Oh properly. That’s a uncommon skip in a motor vehicle that normally exceeds all expectations for the regular family ute.

Henry Payne is car critic for The Detroit Information. Discover him at hpaynedetroitnews.com or Twitter HenryEPayne.