2022 Kia Sportage [EU]

Kia Europe has revealed the dedicated European Sportage, which has been carefully crafted to establish new benchmarks across the SUV segment in Europe. It combines a sleek yet muscular and modern exterior design with a cutting-edge premium interior featuring a swooping integrated curved display that houses the very latest advancements in connectivity tech. Developed on a new architecture, the European Sportage benefits from a European-focused high-tech engineering program that has realized an optimal wheelbase and ideal dimensions and proportions for European roads. This meticulous approach has helped create an SUV that is a perfect fit for European requirements, underscoring its everyday practicality and usability. Such a progressive and tailored package has also resulted in luggage capacity, headroom and legroom all being substantially increased over the outgoing Sportage model, with best-in-class legroom for the second-row passengers. State-of-the-art hybrid powertrains further enhance the European Sportage's capabilities, serving to dramatically reduce emissions and enhance fuel economy. An advanced plug-in hybrid (PHEV) model represents another first for the European Sportage, realizing emissions-free electric-only driving that can cover most daily trips from the home to work or for daily shopping needs.

Instant visual impact

The exterior of the new Kia Sportage establishes new design boundaries, giving it dramatic presence on European roads. Tense and crisp lines ripple along the refined body, amplifying exquisite styling tensions. At the same time, clean but muscular surfaces join forces with intricate graphics to give the SUV a dynamic and assertive road presence. Revealed earlier this year to great acclaim from the design community, Kia's new design language - Opposites United - is at the core of the new Sportage, influencing every aspect of its appearance and character. The thought-provoking and daring philosophy is formed of five pillars: Joy for Reason, Power to Progress, Technology for Life, Tension for Serenity and Bold for Nature.

The last pillar - Bold for Nature - has profoundly influenced the design creation of new Sportage, embodying the natural world and creating a design identity that takes a daring, emotional, modern but organic form. From the front, new Sportage showcases a precise and intricate design form with its detailed-orientated black grille graphic stretching across the width of the face. The technical graphic pulls together the main frontal features of the new Sportage, presenting a striking look. The grille links Kia's modern signature Tiger Nose grille to the distinctive futuristic-styled boomerang-shaped LED DRLs (daytime running lights), which in turn create solid boundary lines for the striking Matrix LED head lamps also known as intelligent front lighting system.

Advanced powertrains

The new Kia Sportage will be launched with a comprehensive range of powerful, responsive and efficient powertrains, including state-of-the-art hybrid electric technologies as well as the very latest-generation clean gasoline and diesel IC engines. From the very start of development, new Sportage was intended to embrace the latest electrified powertrain technologies, making it one of the most efficient SUVs available. Developed on an advanced architecture that encompasses powertrain electrification innovations, both the hybrid (HEV) and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) models of the new European Sportage deliver a no-compromise eco-friendly SUV package. The packaging for the HEV and PHEV models has been carefully arranged to avoid impact on passenger and luggage space. For the HEV derivative, the battery pack is place under the second-row seats, resulting in legroom that is the same as the IC engine Sportage models.

For the PHEV Sportage, the high-voltage battery is placed centrally between the two axles under the body of the SUV, ensuring a balanced weight distribution and an interior space that is practical, comfortable and versatile. The PHEV Sportage features Kia's award-winning 1.6-litre T-GDI engine, a 66.9kW permanent magnet traction electric motor and a 13.8kWh lithium-ion polymer battery pack. The powertrain combination delivers a total system power output of 265PS, with 180PS originating from the internal combustion engine. The state-of-the-art battery pack in the PHEV Sportage features a high-tech battery management unit that constantly monitors the state of the battery, including factors such as current, voltage, isolation and fault diagnosis. The pack also has an advanced cell monitoring unit that measures and monitors cell voltage and temperature. The HEV Sportage model also benefits from Kia's acclaimed 1.6 T-GDI 180PS engine. It features a 44.2kW permanent magnet traction electric motor and a 1.49kWh lithium-ion polymer battery. Total system power of the HEV Sportage is 230PS.