The 2022 Kia Sportage Is Bigger And More Controversial –
If you’re looking for a compact crossover and you’re thinking to yourself, “I’d like a little bit more room than the rav4 or the crv,” kia has an answer for you with the all-new sportage.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to see the sportage in person because it was in southern California and I was in Oregon driving a Subaru, but thankfully, my friend Roman from tfl car was able to send one of his guys down to southern California and Let’s have a look at the Sportage, and then we’ll come back and tell you what we think.
Hello, everyone, my name is Case, and I’m normally for the fastlane automobile, but today for Alex on Autos, and what you’re looking at next to me is the brand new 5th generation kia Sportage.
The 2017 kia sportage is bigger, badder, and more tech-laden than ever before, further separating it from the kia celtos.
It also introduces new more robust trims of the kia sportage, such as the x-line and x-pro that you see above, and there are even electrified variants of the sportage on the way.
The unusual tiger nose grille, which has a floating design, can be seen on the front end of the new Kia Sportage, and the highly unique boomerang shaped daytime running light can be found on the headlamp.
This is what truly sets the front end of the new Sportage different.
You’re not going to mistake that for any other vehicle in the segment.
Continuing with design, you can see that this particular x-pro has a two-tone exterior with a black roof green exterior, which is the same if you get this x-pro in gray, but that’s unique to the x-pro.
There’s also a really cool texture here on the c-pillar that adds just a little more flavor, and then these not shaped tail lights that are connected in the Looking at the badges on the back of the new Sportage, you can see they have this very modern very chic appearance to them, they’re brushed metal and they just have a great look to them that’s another good piece of design when the new Sportage launches it’ll be available with this 2.5 liter inline 4-cylinder and kia is aiming for 187 horsepower output and that’s through an 8-speed automatic transmission, but very soon there will be details released on new elec.
This car rides on the same m3 platform as the sorrento, and the sorrento has a hybrid version, so we can expect a hybrid version of this as well, but no details have been released yet.
Technology is as important as ever in new vehicles, and the headline piece of technology in the interior of this new sportage is these dual curved 12.3 inch screens, which are very sharp.
This is only available on higher trim levels of the sportage, but even if you don’t specify it, It’s not too difficult to operate, so it’s not the end of the world, plus you can get this vehicle with a wireless charger and harman kardon audio as an option.
The 2017 Sportage also comes with a kia connect package, which adds google assistant and Amazon Alexa smart speaker technology to the infotainment system, as well as live traffic and a wi-fi hotspot, and allows you to connect to an app to adjust temperature controls.
You can control the door locks, as well as track and immobilize your vehicle.
In terms of the interior quality, there are some really nice materials and features in play here as you can see a lot of piano black which looks really nice especially when it’s brand new but does get dirty quickly but still has a premium look and feel to it I love the shape of this shifter it’s got a more rugged kind of old-school appearance to it that I find pretty appealing and then moving down to a black leather You’ve got ventilated front seats, heated front seats, and even a heated steering wheel, which is something I really appreciate.
The steering wheel has a similar kia logo to what’s on the back, and it’s an overall nice wheel.
It’s a decent size, has a pleasant feel to it, has a basic button structure that’s easy to use, and everything is displayed properly.
The shape of these vents and the way they flank the screens is also a really nice look, and the materials along the dash are all sharp, it looks good, and it works well here in the back seat naturally these seats fold down so you have access to the back, you’ve got extra space, and then they’re easy to flip back into place, and the really nice thing about the sportage is that kia claims this is the best in class rear seat leg room, and I believe them at around about 15 inches.
Reese’s passengers also have their own vents as well as usb-c ports on each seat back and of course grocery bag hangers and then if you go up top here this is pretty unique this is a coat hanger with a non-slip material here so you can hang up your suit jacket button down anything kia also claims that the new sportage has the best rear cargo volume in the segment this is 39.6 cubic feet of space as I previously mentioned there are new rugged versions of the ki The x-line, x-pro, and x-pro prestige are the three more tough trims available, and each one comes standard with all-wheel drive and an additional inch and a half of ground clearance.
If you choose the x line, which is the basic rugged version, you’ll also receive unique 19-inch wheels.
The x-pro comes with 17-inch off-road wheels and BF Goodrich all-terrain tires, as well as a roof rack and unique external and interior style.
Lane keep assist, forward collision avoidance, rear proximity sensors, and high beam assist are all standard safety features on this new model, but there are also a variety of optional safety options.
Other available safety features include live blind spot view, which provides a camera view of exactly what’s going on in your blind spot and is especially useful for changing lanes; blind spot collision avoidance, which can provide steering inputs to help you avoid an accident; and rear cross traffic alert, which can apply the brakes when you’re pulling out of a parking space to help mitigate the chances of an accident.
I’m not the biggest fan of the front end right now, especially the way the grille wraps around there, but I do like the headlights, and I’d love to hear what you think down in the comment section.
I’m going to reserve final judgment until I see it in person, but aside from the front-end design, I have to say everything else I have to say everything else I have to say everything else I have to say everything else I have to say everything else I have to say On the interior, the sorrento is similar to the highlander, the kia telluride is larger than the highlander, and now we have a new sportage that will undoubtedly fight directly with the Volkswagen tiguan, the crv, and the rav4.
On the inside, the rav4 falls somewhere between the new sportage and the smaller kia celtos, which is quite surprising.
I’m interested to see how the cargo area compares to the rest of the compact crossover competition because it appears to be about as big as the average mid-sized crossover, if not even bigger than some of those mid-sized crossovers.
It’ll be about as big as an honda passport if the numbers are correct at the time of writing.