2026 Kia Sportage PHEV SX

[Blueprint]

What I was driving the other week. The fun thing with PHEV's is playing with the various modes and finding out what algorythms are at play for balancing the propulsion systems. Turns out Kia's engineers wanted a "super hybrid" here and not a short-distance EV - at least in the cold. The ICE ran for a solid 15 mins at each start-up, negating what most people want in a PHEV. And it ran at idle, steady rpm, the electric motor doing the pulling.

In theory this has a range of 53 km with the 13.8 kWh battery, but although once warmed up it did some EV stints, it mostly acted as a hybrid in the cold, the end result being 4.4 l/100 km.

This thing has a 1.6 turbo mated to a conventional 6-speed automatic and mechanical awd. It drove us fine through a nasty blizzard. This top trim is $53k before pdi.