The 2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid should give Toyota and Honda sleepless nights

Kia’s current lineup of crossovers and SUVs is pretty stacked. Both the Sorento and Telluride have proven to be excellent family cars, Kia has gone through a recent effort to make them visually very interesting, affordable and fairly painless. Now, I’m tasked with evaluating the smaller of the offerings, the Sportage, and not just any Sportage, but the hybrid model.

It’s on the smaller scale, but the full name makes up for it: the 2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX-Prestige AWD. Breaking down the taxonomy, the Sportage sits just above the Seltos and below the Sorento in Kia’s SUV lineup. The SX-Prestige is the highest trim available, offering the maximum amount of bells and/or whistles you can fit into a compact Korean crossover. AWD, of course, indicates that it’s all-wheel drive. Although it may not seem worth listing, all-wheel drive is not standard equipment on the base LX model.

All of which makes this Sportage sound like the best and brightest Sportage on the market, right? Well, not really, as there is a plug-in hybrid version at a considerably higher price (just over $8,000 at the time of writing).

Read more: Honda’s CR-V TrailSport Hybrid looks great, but the smart money buys a different trim

Kia’s hybrid wonder

The second most technologically advanced Sportage Hybrid model is a turbocharged 1.6-liter four-battery that, with the help of an electric motor, generates 232 horsepower and 271 pound-feet of torque. Interestingly, unlike other vehicles in its class that usually opt for a CVT, the Sportage’s transmission duties are handled by a 6-speed automatic. All of this works together to give the Sportage Hybrid 35 combined miles per gallon, though we found it’s possible to get more than 40 miles per gallon if you’re careful.

Assessing the driving dynamics of a crossover hybrid can be difficult. It is by no means made to be a performance car, and the presence of electric motors is for the sake of efficiency, not acceleration. Still, the Sportage Hybrid could be athletic when you hit the gas pedal. It’s not particularly quick, mind you, but the electric motor does even a little to make the Kia a bit more interesting to drive. Even though it has far fewer horsepower than its bigger sibling, the Sorento, the Sportage proved more enjoyable when we wanted it to drive a little more enthusiastically.

Really prestigious

At the more practical end, it’s a comfortable and relatively quiet ride in normal highway conditions. Occasionally, there was some mechanical and electrical wizardry going on under the hood and you could hear the engine screaming to life, but it was no more noticeable than in your average crossover.

Given the SX-Prestige’s adjacent luxury trim level, it was certainly a luxurious place. The seats aren’t leather, the interior is instead upholstered in a material Kia refers to as “SynTex”, but it certainly felt close enough to leather/velour, so I didn’t mind. The model includes a Harman Kardon sound system, cameras everywhere, a 12.3-inch infotainment display, ventilated front seats and a heads-up display.

I’ve driven compact SUVs from luxury brands that cost nearly twice as much as this Kia, and the Sorento Hybrid’s interior would give those cars a run for their money. As we found with the Telluride, the top-trim Sportage is a very compelling luxury car. For those who don’t respect the brands, the Kia Prestige trims are worth considering if you want an especially luxury car experience. It won’t be as outlandish as a Mercedes or a BMW, but if you just want leather seats (or some kind of leather), a nice sound system and a quiet ride, the Korean brands are hard to ignore.

Kia against the world

Now, how does the Sportage Hybrid compare to the absolute king of quasi-luxury crossover hybrids, the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Limited? Well, the Toyota has a fuel economy win at 38 combined miles per gallon. In other, very important categories, however, the Kia wins. The Sportage has a maximum storage capacity of 73.7 cubic feet, more than the Rav4’s 69.8 cubic feet. The Kia has more horsepower at 232 horsepower, slightly more than the naturally aspirated Toyota’s 219.

The Kia also has a lower starting price at $40,390 compared to the Toyota’s $41,155. That’s not a win by a huge margin, but when you’re shopping for a crossover you’ll have for the next few years, every dollar, mpg, and cubic foot of storage counts. For the sake of clarity, Toyota has yet to release pricing — or any other spec changes that may be coming — for the 2026 RAV4 Hybrid Limited, only for the 2025 model year.

Since the SX-Prestige trim is already the top level, the number of optional extras for this Sportage Hybrid was pretty minimal, consisting of a $200 set of floor mats. Even the very nice blue paint color – “Heritage Blue” – was included. Add in the inevitable $1,445 destination charge, and you’re all but silent on the final price of $42,035. That price is not only competitive with the aforementioned RAV4 Limited, but also with another vehicle in Kia’s class, the Sport Touring trim of the 2026 Honda CR-V Hybrid. That starts a little higher at $42,250 before destination tax and all that fun stuff. Kia could be a price winner against industry giants.

Verdict 2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid

That claim aside, it’s not all hybridized sunshine and rainbows. As I alluded to earlier, it’s only moderately interesting to drive: you won’t burn a lot of tires while behind the wheel. Also, I’m a tall person, over 6 feet tall, and I felt a little cramped in the driver’s seat and could never get it adjusted to where I was 100% comfortable with where I was sitting.

The 2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX-Prestige really wins in two categories: the cool numbers make it numerically more appealing than its Honda and Toyota counterparts, and in subjective terms, it looks great. Plenty of online reviews will take the competent Kias as a harbinger of the brand’s arrival as a serious contender for American driveway space. I think Kia is already here. The Sportage Hybrid is just a thoroughly good car.

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Read the original article on SlashGear.