Why the Kia Sportage Hybrid hasn’t come to Australia… yet

Kia’s rival to the top-offering Toyota RAV4 Hybrid is still not a confirmed starter for the Australian sector, inspite of the area arm’s most effective endeavours.

The Kia Sportage Hybrid (HEV) is 1 of two hybridised choices accessible globally, along with the Sportage Plug-in Hybrid. Kia also sells 48V mild-hybrid versions of the small-wheelbase Sportage in Europe and the Uk as nicely.

But why simply cannot we have it? Certainly, Australians are slow to bounce on the EV bandwagon but Toyota has been advertising hybrids in meaningful quantities for years. We quizzed the brand’s community boss for products arranging, Roland Rivero, at the recent start of the up-to-date Kia Seltos crossover.

“It’s essentially just R&D and letting it to be created in suitable-hand drive out of the Gwangju manufacturing unit [in South Korea],” Mr Rivero advised CarExpert.

“So, remaining-hand push is ticked and all going on. Naturally, if we preferred a short-wheelbase model out of Slovakia there’s a prospective appropriate-hand drive resource there, but we really do not want to go limited wheelbase and we really do not want to have to go to Slovakia exactly where there’s no cost-free trade arrangement as well.”

“We’re doing the job on the Korean-created edition, and ideally we have an update on that in the near function.”

More to Mr Rivero’s reviews, hybrid (HEV) and PHEV versions of the Sportage for North The usa are also created in Gwangju, inspite of petrol versions remaining assembled domestically.

So, when the US’s go to create Sportages regionally aided absolutely free up manufacturing spots for other very long-wheelbase marketplaces like South Korea and Australia, evidently there’s ample need for the hybrids that Kia’s worldwide parent is not prepared to instrument the facility to make appropriate-hand travel Sportage Hybrids as but.

The Kia Sportage Hybrid is driven by the exact 1.6-litre turbocharged hybrid program as the larger Sorento, as very well as the Hyundai Santa Fe and Tucson. Procedure outputs are quoted at 169kW and 350Nm, with both of those entrance- and all-wheel push selections obtainable.

Meanwhile, Australia helps make do with an entry-level 115kW/192Nm 2.-litre MPi obviously-aspirated petrol with FWD, a 132kW/265Nm 1.6-litre T-GDi turbocharged petrol with AWD, as nicely as a 137kW/416Nm 2.-litre CRDi turbo-diesel with AWD. All area powertrains have on Kia’s latest efficiency-concentrated Smartstream branding.

CarExpert understands that Australia’s latest absence of gas performance and emissions benchmarks puts considerably less tension on Kia’s global head office environment to prioritise more economical and electrified powertrains for our sector.

For reference, South Korean designs run Euro 6 powertrains with cleaner exhaust techniques and tech like idle prevent/commence – Australian styles keep more mature, less state-of-the-art EU5 emissions control techniques.

The most up-to-date Kia Sportage is proving mighty well known with Australian new motor vehicle purchasers.

In its initially complete calendar yr on sale, the Sportage has found 15,497 registrations in 2022 as of 31 October, marking growth of 141.1 per cent compared to 1 Jan-31 Oct 2021.

Even further, the Sportage reset its all-time Australian regular monthly profits document in June 2022 with 2044 models, the to start with time the nameplate has accomplished around 2000 income in a single thirty day period. Oct 2022’s every month consequence of 1877 registrations was a enormous 404.6 per cent advancement on the exact same thirty day period the previous year.

The Sportage is now fourth in the medium SUV annually sales race, powering the Toyota RAV4 (30,370 units), Mazda CX-5 (23,476 models), and narrowly tailing the Mitsubishi Outlander (15,619 models).

Provided the Toyota and Mitsubishi offer hybrid and plug-in hybrid choices respectively, there’s no doubt a Sportage Hybrid could incorporate good volumes to set Kia in the segment’s Top rated 3.

Additional: Everything Kia Sportage