Kia Sportage Family Compact SUV New Gasoline Hybrid Car Vehicle 4WD Motors China

• Vehicle Specification

The Kia Sportage is a bit like a Smeg fridge, in the way that it’s an essential part of a family home that has been styled to make it seem more trendy. You may be considering the Sportage if you’re also looking at family SUVs, such as the Hyundai Tucson and Nissan Qashqai.

You’re certainly not likely to lose the Sportage in a supermarket car park. The boomerang-style LED running lights up front and the big ‘tiger nose’ grille give it a presence that is only really matched by the Hyundai Tucson. The rear of the car also gets some funky-looking LED lights and the whole car is covered in bold creases and angles. It certainly stands out, but we’ll let you draw your own conclusions on the styling.

The interior is slightly more subdued, but not in a bad way. The materials in your direct eyeline are soft touch and there are plenty of metallic details around the place to liven it up, although it’s not quite as snazzy as a Peugeot 3008’s cabin. If you look lower down you’ll find some harder plastics, but this isn’t uncommon for cars in this class and overall the build quality is solid.

Hidden in the huge panel on the dash you’ll find two 12.3-inch screens for the infotainment and driver’s display. Both are easy to use and customise as you’d like, however the climate control can be fiddly. There are touch-sensitive shortcut buttons below the main display, but these can be tricky to figure out on the move.

The Kia Sportage is available with a range of engines including petrol, diesel, hybrid and plug-in hybrid options. The petrol and diesel models can be paired to either a six-speed manual gearbox or a seven-speed automatic, while the hybrids are automatic only. If you go for the standard hybrid model, it has plenty of punch for overtaking and the petrol engine cuts in and out smoothly as it switches to and from electric power. The pricier plug-in hybrid, meanwhile, can manage an impressive real-world electric range of about 40 miles – which is fantastic if you want to save a bit of money at the fuel pumps and on company car tax.