TTAC Drive Notes: 2023 Kia Sportage Hybrid

by Tim Healey

Published: November 22nd, 2022

ttac drive notes 2023 kia sportage hybrid

Hi there, this is take two of our new series in which I give you short notes on something I am driving or have driven recently. It doesn't necessarily mean a given car will or won't get a full review in the future -- it's just a chance to hit some highlights sooner since it can take some time before a full review gets published. And some cars don't get full reviews, anyway.

Today's ride: The 2023 Kia Sportage Hybrid.

Ed. note -- We're playing with the title format a bit, since last time I said it I would highlight "five things" and it ended up being like 10.

So, the 2023 Kia Sportage Hybrid is available in plug-in and series hybrid setups. My test unit was a series hybrid, and here are some notes I had:

The Sportage Hybrid is really fun to drive. You know, for a crossover. I'm serious. Sportiness is relative, of course, but this thing handles well enough to keep people like me happy.
I dig the sweeping dash that integrates the infotainment screen nicely. It's easy to use, especially when scrolling through menus either on Kia's home screen or Apple CarPlay.
I didn't measure exact fuel economy, but the MPGs I was seeing were a bit low. I blame the densely urban driving environment I was in -- another local journalist who also lives in a built-up part of Chicago told me he also saw disappointing numbers on the trip computer when testing the exact same car. Then again, another journalist I know just told me he saw really good numbers in suburban Ohio. So either the tester in this fleet has issues, or the car just gets better mileage in a suburban area.
It seems like it would be a pain to use a button to swap audio controls for climate, but it's not that bad. Though it does remove your eyes from the road, at least until you get used to where the button is.
There were plastic button markers for features this tester didn't have. Hate that.
I often have a pass/fail test for cars I review -- i.e. I ask myself "would I buy it" regardless of price, competition quality, etc. Just a simple yes/no: Would I own this car and drive it daily for three to five years? The answer here is yes.
Some materials felt cheap.
The $33K as-tested price is quite reasonable.

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#Kia #Sportage #KiaSportage #TTACDriveNotes #2023KiaSportage #2023KiaSportageHybrid

Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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2 of 3 comments

SCE to AUX on Nov 22, 2022

The Tucson's styling beats this to death.

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Skippity on Dec 12, 2022

I went to the U.S. KIA website to view more pics of the body. Font page is KIA Season of Giving Back. Check it out.

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Recent Comments

GregLocock They will unless you don't let them. Every car manufacturing country around the world protects their local manufacturers by a mixture of legal and quasi legal measures. The exception was Australia which used to be able to design and manufacture every component in a car (slight exaggeration) and did so for many years protected by local design rules and enormous tariffs. In a fit of ideological purity the tariffs were removed and the industry went down the plughole, as predicted. This was followed by the precision machine shops who made the tooling, and then the aircraft maintenance business went because the machine shops were closed. Also of course many of the other suppliers closed.The Chinese have the following advantagesSlave laborCheap electricityZero respect for IPLong term planning
MaintenanceCosts Yes, and our response is making it worse.In the rest of the world, all legacy brands are soon going to be what Volvo is today: a friendly Western name on products built more cheaply in China or in companies that are competing with China from the bottom on the cost side (Vietnam, India, etc.) This is already more or less the case in the Chinese market, will soon be the case in other Asian markets, and is eventually coming to the EU market.We are going to try to resist in the US market with politicians' crack - that is, tariffs. Economists don't really disagree on tariffs anymore. Their effect is to depress overall economic activity while sharply raising consumer prices in the tariff-imposing jurisdiction.The effect will be that we will mostly drive U.S.-built cars, but they will be inferior to those built in the rest of the world and will cost 3x-4x as much. Are you ready for your BMW X5 to be three versions old and cost $200k? Because on the current path that is what's coming. It may be overpriced crap that can't be sold in any other world market, but, hey, it was built in South Carolina.The right way to resist would be to try to form our own alliances with the low-cost producers, in which we open our markets to them while requiring adherence to basic labor and environmental standards. But Uncle Joe isn't quite ready to sign that kind of trade agreement, while the orange guy just wants to tell those countries to GFY and hitch up with China if they want a friend.
CEastwood Thy won't get recruits who want to become police officers . They'll get nuts who want to become The Green Hornet .
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