2023 Kia Sportage Hybrid: It’s about the money, stupid!

the pace of change it's moving along far faster than you and i care to admit and it's not just technology it's technology's impact on economics for example a hybrid not that long ago it was about five to eight grand more than the equivalent car with a gas engine but now that's a change in which means we have to ask the question do you do the one with the gas engine or the one with two propulsion systems [Music] so a couple of months ago you and i did a tech review on the internal combustion engine version of this car just a quick recap there 2.5 non-turbo four-cylinder engine about 187 horsepower this a completely different kettle of fish it is a 1.6 turbocharged four-cylinder 177 horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque but wait there's more because there's a second propulsion system it has an electric motor with a whopping 44 kilowatts that translates to 59 horsepower so total system output here is horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque then there's the reason for being of this vehicle and that is the fuel economy and there if this were not the fancy one that you and i are driving one with these smaller wheels and tires no sunroof basically less weight that would be 42 44 43 combined but this one with all the fancy stuff meaning extra weight 38 38 38. now that fuel economy is not just a function of this being a parallel hybrid it is also a function of this having something that most other hybrids do not have and that would be a real geared transmission now it's not the same transmission that's in the internal combustion engine flavor of the same car that's got eight forward gears this has six forward gears then the battery how big is it well not a plug-in hybrid this one's very small it sits underneath the rear seat and that is 1.49 kilowatt hours there will be a plug-in hybrid coming out towards the end of the summer that one will have a total system output of 261 horsepower and i believe that one is on offer only as all-wheel drive where this is on offer both front-wheel drive as well as all-wheel drive the one you and i are driving today is all-wheel drive one would think it is very heavy that is not the case here believe it or not 3896 pounds or depending on expression weights it measures 1767 kilograms far more interesting than that if this were the non-fancy hybrid version no sunroof all this kind of stuff it would be 300 pounds lighter that's like downright lightweight for a vehicle like this with that oh um oh yeah you feel the torque it comes in it's about 2000 rpm we really noticed let's slow down here because i got a hell of a bump on devil's ladder road that wasn't terrible my intestines are still there anyway back to acceleration there is good passing power here there is good acceleration so it's a combination of the torque coming from the electric motors the fact that it has a real transmission and i'd say almost more importantly it's not 4 500 pounds or some sort of overweight peg like that so moving a bit away from this whole theme of technology impacting the economics of hybrids an old trick in the baby buggy world and that is make the wheelbase longer why is that important because that is the business end of a baby buggy because this is where you package more people and more dogs so why is that important in terms of usability well someone who is six foot tall can get into a vehicle that used to be really small and when i say small about the size of the current cell dose now i would get in it and i no longer am crushed now while we're back here two other party tricks number one usb ports in the rear that is nothing new where they reside that's the unique packaging trick they pilfered the concept from the telluride where they put them on the backs of the front seats off to the side then there's the headrest usually something that has one function mainly safety for the front occupant here the back of the headrest has been carved out we first saw this in the ev6 so it can double as a coat rack and this brings me back to a conversation i had with the then chief designer of hot wheels of all people felix holst he said good design does not cost extra another example of unique design some of the color and trim differences between the different flavors but then there's the front of the vehicle check this out the daytime running light it's a law you gotta have one but that's part of the budget right the budget doesn't dictate the shape of the daytime running light it could be a square or if it's gonna cost you the same why don't you make it look like a boomerang let's go back to that same bump and i'll hit it with a little speed and notice you don't see me moving around you don't see me at my head on a swivel as i'm moving around that's because there's some tire sidewall and i think that was a tough decision from an engineering as well as marketing perspective because you want the car to look good but you want ride quality this needs to have some balance when going on roads like this that are perfect or in potholes like new york city that's the importance of that extra sidewall there it works in conjunction with the choice of the independent suspension in the back which gives it a bit more of a supple ride it's actually a little bit tighter in tuning than the tucson was like if we push it around this corner here the tucson would lean a bit more this one it doesn't have adjustable dampers i don't expect it to have adjustable dampers but there's better composure in the kia side now the most graphic example of that we've recently driven was the difference between the ioniq 5 and the key ev6 this isn't quite that big of a delta but it's definitely there then there's an interesting tidbit of the way they're marketing these things there's two different flavors on offer i should say too there's multiple but there's like an off-roading model it's kind of like a subaru outback and then there's this hybrid which they're saying is like urban adventure i don't know where they come up with the stuff anyway the difference is the ground clearance so a front-wheel drive gasoline sportage has a 7.1 inch ground clearance but the big difference is when they went into this like off-road model that one with the bf goodrich tires and the 17-inch wheels that one's got an 8.3 inch ground clearance now i am not going to spend a lot of time talking about off-roading they actually set up an off-road course for this thing i don't see this thing as being a real off-road thing i see this as taking it to the trailhead with the rugrats to go hiking or more realistically take it to a boat launch with a very small boat because towing it's 2500 pounds 1600 unbreak yes it is indeed that time again to play your favorite game line the options game with today's contestant probably the most important car to kia at least the rejuvenation of kia that started back in 2007 when peter schreier was hired from volkswagen to reinvent the brand it was the sportage that he reinvented first this won the 2023 kia sportage hybrid for a base price of 30 990 now for the avoidance of doubt this is not the most basic one the cheapest hybrid would be twenty seven thousand two hundred and ninety dollars but really the thing we have to focus on in the theme we're talking about throughout this episode is how much is the hybrid technology now costing you and there the most basic gasoline version of the sportage is twenty five thousand nine hundred ninety dollars so you're talking about what thirteen hundred bucks for a full parallel hybrid system that is what is unique about this vehicle and the impact of technology on hybrids then there are options the color is stunning i believe it's an additional 395 it would be the choice that i would have because blue is my favorite color uh the interior is that light gray with the blue two tone and then there is one factory fitted option believe it or not it is the ex prestige package which adds the panoramic roof uh the vanity mirrors the led lighting as well as the power liftgate that is a whopping 1 500 then there is one more option on this vehicle which i believe is port installed floor mats 155 really on a 30 what three thousand dollar vehicle you're gonna charge me 155 bucks for floor mats please change that then destination and handling from the exotic port of call of not ulsan korea this is the first sportage to be manufactured in the good old usfa in the very exotic city in the south of west point georgia 1255 that is more than a destination on a porsche from stuttgart perhaps look at that then we get to the total retail price of thirty three thousand eight hundred and sixty dollars [Applause] so design specifically interior design a very hard lesson the folks at the hyundai kia group internalized many years ago you see the popular opinion back then was people buy cars based on price that is not correct you see they made cars that were finally reliable and had great warranties but no one except for credit criminals bought their cars well then they hired some designers from like u.s car companies and european car companies and all of a sudden people started buying hyundais and kias well that continues and they kind of to the point where they're known for their design but as it relates to the interior some unusual things going on here first and foremost notice the color and trim what i didn't expect is not just the contrast so it's got this like light white like grayish kind of interior but notice it's a two-tone top of the door panels and the top of the dash not black blue can i say thank you very much for this because look at it it makes it feel and look like a much more expensive vehicle then notice some design details specifically the vents and the door handles it's got this very unique look to it and it's repeated all the way throughout the car not just the interior but some of the details and the lights in the front and the back of the vehicle now that we understand the good all is not right in camelot or in this case num young specifically the ux uh we did a tech review of this vehicle when it was first shown and there i pointed out this a massive change for kia i'd say the hyundai kia group normally these guys they have spot on ux systems because they've kept real hard buttons all this kind of stuff here but in this case they've gone with this haptic feedback screen type controller and the logic is to be able to switch between different applications so right now i'm in hvac so if i want to switch on and off the compressor i got to look down there and switch on and off the compressor but notice i'm not paying attention to the road but then i can switch it to run navigation and i hit this over here and then i can change the navigation menu i can seek different tracks change the radio now yes there is kind of a hybrid model here notice as i switch between different menu items here so different applications it changes the functionality of this one knob i have here so it could either be volume when i'm in the map navigation setup or if i go into this the hvac system it's a temperature control so it's it's almost there but i would strongly caution these guys to go back to hard buttons that's one of the reasons that kept them to stand out now another thing that i'm not particularly fond of and this i think is more of a personal preference not really a good or bad the rotary controller i see why they do it the idea is to have more room for like cupholders in this case they've got like two spaced cup holders where one can move this thing around and put like big gulps and that kind of stuff so i get the functionality i just don't like the actual tactile feel of this setup then there's an interesting thing with the screen so there's three different screens on offer so like the most basic one the cheap seats that one has an 8 inch screen then like not even the middle model one step up it's a 12.5 inch screen but it's just like one screen over there and then there's this one which changes it to two 12.3 inch screens under one piece of glass so it gives you that like modern electric car feel i kind of like the design here it works pretty well overall this would be better with more like knobs and toggle switches down here this way you'd have the best of both worlds so hopefully i have been abundantly clear in many previous episodes that i am not a fan of equations like this although i do understand why they exist because there are more practical people on this planet than i am so rolling into this i expected this not to be good and you know what it's not terrible i'd go so far saying it's actually very good and remember in the hyundai twin of this the tucson it was the hybrid that was the better one there this it's actually a bit better than that because of the tuning changes like for example the steering there's better weight to the steering than this than in the hyundai which would make me choose this and that brings us to the wish list and there this is an odd one usually i ask for more or something different my feedback in the wish list here is i don't think you need the 2.5 in fact go only with a hybrid and it's kind of the concept of we'll make more money on volume meaning lower the price of this get rid of the 1300 delta and just make it the hybrid which is the better of the two but this is one man's opinion and so i'm going to turn that episode around to you guys to a point in the comments below or via our social media moto man tv on word moto man tv onward facebook twitter instagram and with that i do want to leave you with a very interesting fun fact about this episode for the first time ever in all my 13 years of doing this i didn't do my normal and fly here with like united airlines this was kind of close to the home base of the hangar where we usually shoot these episodes so instead i flew myself to this chute and can i say it was it was bumpy going for the banning pass but man oh man was it fun until i see you in the next episode [Music]

Channel: MotoManTV

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Keywords: Kia, Kia Sportage, 2023 Kia Sportage, 2023 Kia Sportage X-Line, Kia Sportage X-Pro, Kia Sportage SX, 2023 Kia Sportage SX, Toyota RAV4, Honda CRV, Honda CR-V, Hyundai Tucson, VW Taos, Nissan Rogue, Mazda CX-5, Toyota Corolla Cross, MotoManTV, Cars, Buick Envision, Jeep Cherokee, Ford Escape, Subaru Forester, Jeep Compass, VW Tiguan, Chevy Equinox, Chevrolet Equinox, Kia Seltos, Kia Sorento, Kia Sportage Hybrid, Kia Sportage Hybrid Review, 2023 Kia Sportage Hybrid Review

Id: MoCtLTXFHfg

Length: 15min 20sec (920 seconds)

Published: Wed May 04 2022