- The refreshed compact crossover introduces a extra user-friendly infotainment interface
- Hybrid and plug-in hybrid fashions get a negligible spice up of horsepower
- The 2026 Sportage is going on sale within the spring of 2025
3 years next its forming, Kia is giving its Sportage compact crossover a mid-cycle refresh hour proceeding to do business in each hybrid and plug-in hybrid variants.
Debuting on the 2024 Los Angeles auto display, the 2026 Kia Sportage wears unused entrance finish styling, with stacked LED headlights and amber daylight working lighting fixtures homogeneous to the bigger Kia Sorento mid-size crossover and the Carnival minivan. It’s but every other dramatic glance to switch the only the Sportage has old since its ultimate redesign for the 2023 model year.
Hybrid fashions upload two unused grades—S and X-Form—which are amongst the ones supplied with a unused bent 12.3-inch touchscreen that contains wi-fi Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Simplest stressed variations had been up to now to be had with the bigger not obligatory display screen.
The up to date infotainment device is amongst a number of unused tech options for 2026. Others come with a ten.0-inch head-up show, virtual key capability that permits the motive force to significance a smartphone in park of the important thing fob, and up to date variations of Kia’s forward-collision ultimatum device and Freeway Riding Help 2 freeway driving force assistance.
Each the Sportage hybrid and plug-in hybrid proceed to significance a 1.6-liter turbo-4 and 6-speed computerized transmission, with an electrical motor sandwiched in between. Plug-in hybrids have a extra tough electrical motor and a bigger battery gather. Outputs stand via 4 hp for the hybrid, to 231 hp, and seven hp for the plug-in hybrid, for 268 hp.
Entrance-wheel power is same old with the hybrid powertrain, hour all-wheel power is not obligatory, and same old at the plug-in hybrid. X-Form fashions upload a Ground form for the all-wheel power device for 2026, with settings for Snow, Dust, and Sand.
It’s hazy if the miniature will increase in energy will have an effect on gasoline economic system. The Sportage hybrid is recently EPA-rated at 43 mpg blended with front-wheel power and 38 mpg blended with all-wheel power. The plug-in hybrid is rated at 34 miles of electrical territory, and 35 mpg blended next that.
Kia expects 2026 Sportage fashions to succeed in U.S. dealerships in the second one quarter of 2025, with costs to be introduced nearer to that era. When it arrives, the up to date Sportage will proceed to compete towards the Hyundai Tucson, and Toyota RAV4—all of which do business in hybrid and plug-in hybrid choices—in addition to the Honda CR-V and Mazda CX-50, which can be to be had as a hybrid however no longer as a plug-in hybrid.
