2022 Kia Sorento Hybrid EX FWD 1.6-liter turbocharged four with electric hybrid motor (227 hp, 258 lb-ft combined) Six-speed automatic transmission, front-wheel drive 39 city / 35 highway / 37 combined (EPA Rating, MPG) Base Price: $38,165 US As Tested: $38,820 US Prices include $1175 destination charge in the United States. Canadian market does not offer the FWD Sorento Hybrid.
1.6-liter turbocharged four with electric hybrid motor (227 hp, 258 lb-ft combined)
Six-speed automatic transmission, front-wheel drive
39 city / 35 highway / 37 combined (EPA Rating, MPG)
Prices include $1175 destination charge in the United States. Canadian market does not offer the FWD Sorento Hybrid.
As I and others on these virtual pages have noted time and again, electric vehicles are Not Quite Ready For Primetime in much of the country for most people. We don’t have a charging infrastructure ready to support the types of driving most do on a regular basis, nor do we have the collective will to change our driving habits to suit an all-electric lifestyle.
And yet gasoline prices continue to climb. I spotted regular unleaded at $4.99 per gallon this weekend – if that number seems quaintly laughable by the time this hits the presses, my apologies. I’m taking a hard look at the driving my family needs to do, and strongly reconsidering what best fits my driveway and my budget.
Some sort of electrification is coming sooner rather than later to each of us if we aren’t there already. Two-plus decades of hybrids have proven the reliabilities of the technologies involved. A roomy family-sized vehicle, much like this 2022 Kia Sorento Hybrid, should take the sting out of what had once been a realm reserved for Spartan subcompacts.
Notably, my test crossover eschews a feature not often found on most family sedans – all-wheel drive. Depending on the trim, driving all four wheels on the Sorento Hybrid will cost an additional $2,000 to $2,500 above the Monroney for the front-drive version. All-wheel drive will cost another two miles per gallon in fuel economy – front-drive yields a 37 mpg combined estimate (roughly accurate in my testing) while all-wheel drive drops to 35 mpg. Still solid economy figures, but not everyone needs the additional drive wheels. In central Ohio, I know that I could live without AWD save for that one massive storm we get every 3-5 years. In New England, maybe not – and our friends and corporate overlords in Canada don’t have the opportunity to buy a front-drive Sorento Hybrid. Up there, it’s AWD or nothing.
Driving the Sorento Hybrid isn’t exhilarating. The 227 horsepower combined from the 1.6-liter four and the electric motor is enough to get up to freeway speeds from a dig reasonably well, and the six-speed automatic with real gears does nicely when needing to make a pass – something with which a CVT in many other hybrids can struggle. Ride quality is unremarkable – a fair bit of road noise can come through, but sharp impacts are well muted and controlled.
Of the seven distinct crossover/SUV/minivan-that-cosplays-as-a-crossover vehicles in the current Kia lineup, three of them (this Sorento, the larger Telluride, and the Carnival minivan) have standard three-row configurations. While the Telluride is tolerable for adults in that third row – and the Carnival is clearly the best due to the low floor – the Sorento is not quite workable for anyone older past fifth grade. If you’re carpooling, this will work for peewee football, not high school.
That cargo hold when the third row is erected for passengers isn’t going to handle much more than water bottles for the team – those kids won’t have room for their pads or helmets. Kia quotes 12.6 cubic feet with that third row upright – it’s a shallow space that will manage but a couple of backpacks. I can see that third row being useful perhaps for a road trip with an infant – lower one of the second-row chairs, strap junior into the other second-row seat, and have a caregiver or two in the third row ready to attend to the spit-ups and bottle tosses.
No, I rather doubt most people shopping the Sorento will choose it specifically for the third row of seating – rather, it’s best considered as an emergency backup plan rather than a full-time large-brood carrying solution. With that back row stowed, the cargo area can manage 45 cubic feet of stuff, making the Sorento Hybrid a perfectly capable family hauler for four or five. Seat comfort both front and rear is excellent, with good leg and headroom and plenty of shoulder space between.
For those cross-shopping, the Sorento slots in dimensionally an interesting tweener size – for those shopping the Big Two Japanese marques, right between the CR-V/RAV4 and the Highlander/Pilot classes. The Sorento Hybrid gives a bit more interior room than the smaller vehicles for nearly the same sticker prices – a caveat, of course, comes with our new reality of limited availabilities and additional dealer markups.
Even with the pricey fuel we’re seeing now, a seventeen-gallon fill-up will be cheaper than four airline tickets to get the family on vacation over the summer. No cramped seats, no crying babies, no Mike Tyson about to punch you for being obnoxious. I’m not trying to damn the 2022 Kia Sorento Hybrid by simply saying it’s better than flying – because these days walking might be better than flying – but it can be a solid solution for many families, and it’d be a welcome addition to my driveway.
Become a TTAC insider. Get the latest news, features, TTAC takes, and everything else that gets to the truth about cars first by subscribing to our newsletter.
Sounds like another solid effort from Kia, another step in getting away (actually, having long gotten away) from the “junk Korean cars” attitude held anymore only by the most hidebound and determined to slag Hyundai and Kia at any opportunity.
Only disappointment from what I’ve ready is that it’s only a hybrid, and not some form of plug-in hybrid, thus freeing owners from gasoline usage completely in terms of the average daily commute.
That’s just it. They have both a hybrid and a PHEV version of the new Sorento. But the base-price of the Hybrid (per Kia’s website) is $34,090, while the base-price of the PHEV is $45,190. That’s a steep premium.
Not being in a CAFE squeeze, Kia has little reason to subsidize the PHEV. Doubly so given it’s increased exposure to unpredictable battery prices and availability. So if you want one, Kia likely figures you’re the one who should, as quickly as possible, shoulder the risk burden of developing it.
Hybrids and plug in hybrids are the only reasonable path to curbing oil use.
Investing or providing legislation that encourages investment in any other technology (EVs) is a complete waste of time and money.
There was a commenter here that drove thousands of miles in his SUV on 6.8 gallons of gasoline. He averaged 312 MPG. THAT is how you reduce dependence on oil. Not with planet ravaging EVs that have a range of 200 miles and need to be recharged at broken battery chargers all the time.
This review is another example of how superior hybrids are. This is a large SUV and the worst mileage it gets is 35 MPG. That was Honda Civic mileage 5 years ago.
My brother had a hybrid Porsche Cayenne, in weekly commuting he got around 70 MPG because he could charge at home and work. The gas engine would only turn on for about 3 miles of his commute when the batteries finally drained. When working from home during lock-down and just running quick errands (groceries, dropping off the kids, etc) he managed something like 600 miles between fill ups.
It’s experiences like your brother’s that make it so abundantly clear that the current push for EVs (legislative and from the manufacturers) is so misguided and frankly, fraudulent. All the time, energy, and money that has been completely wasted on EVs (and resulted in severely compromised cars and even trucks that lose 25% of their range by hauling 1500 pounds or 50% of their range towing a small trailer) should have been dumped into no-compromise plug in hybrids.
If the big 3 are able to produce a 1/2 ton pickup with 250-400 mile ranges, then it would be laughably easy to make a pickup with a 50 mile electric range thats supplemented by a gasoline engine for long trips/towing/hauling/etc. You literally get the best of both worlds with zero compromise.
Not EVERY SINGLE possible use for a car, suffers from it being a pure BEV. In some cases, such a powertrain makes sense. Generally, the smaller the car, the lower the speed and load, and the shorter the range. A pure second-car city commuter is a good example. Lots of people will have a second car regardless. In at least some of those cases, a BEV would likely serve them better. No gas stations and fully charged every morning. And, with rwd and no engine between the front wheels, the turning radius of a mountain bike. Which is pretty nice in a city car.
The true horror resulting from the coalition of look-at-me-how-green-I-am indocrinates and the we’re-too-incompetent-to-compete-at-making-real-cars-so-lets-change-the-playing-field lobbying profiteers, is that such city cars, as well as more rational Hybrids/PHEVs for longer range usages, both become needlessly expensive, since they have to compete with politically advantaged 3 ton testaments to childish silliness for batteries, lithium and other scarce inputs.
Conceding for the moment (although I don’t always buy it) that PHEVs are a better solution for long-distance travel, what percentage of cars in America are used for long trips?
About a third of households with cars have only one car. That translates to a bit less than 20% of the cars in the country. We’ll assume all those are used for trips from time to time.
Then there’s about another 40% of households with cars that have 2 cars, making up about 35% of the cars in the country. We’ll assume that one of each of those is regularly used for trips, making another 15%-20% of total cars.
Finally there’s the <30% households with 3+ cars, which is the last third or so of the cars. Knowing many such households I don't think many of them use more than one car for trips. We'll call that another 10% of total cars used for trips.
That adds up to roughly half of the country's cars being used for long trips, in very general terms. Many of the other half would be better as pure EVs than PHEVs, because of better packaging, cheaper maintenance, lower energy use, and better driving characteristics.
One of my cars has an ICE, but the other one is a BEV, and turning it into a PHEV would be nothing but downside for me.
1. The 1/3 of households (which is still a lot of people) with one vehicle are unlikely to switch to BEVs without improvements to battery tech and charging infrastructure, which won’t occur for some years in the future. I expect the biggest PHEV advocates on here are single vehicle households.
2. The 2 vehicle households are likely still keeping an ICE vehicle around from what you laid out, which means if both vehicles are being frequently used (like a couple commuting to different places) you’ll be burning gas on a day-to-day basis.
3. Households with multiple PHEVs should only require multiple standard outlets for charging while households with multiple BEVs may require electric system upgrades.
4. Battery supply and manufacturing is a big problem right now and hybrids use smaller capacity batteries.
I don’t think BEV development should stop but I also think PHEV and conventional hybrid development is languishing.
“Conceding for the moment (although I don’t always buy it) that PHEVs are a better solution for long-distance travel, what percentage of cars in America are used for long trips?”
PHEVs are the only type of vehicle that is leaps and bounds above what we have right now. You seem to think that the benefits of a PHEV are only realized during long trips. But in reality, it the other way around. The benefits are realized during your daily driving activities when you can go weeks without using gasoline. When you take a long trip you’re just driving a hybrid at that point.
PHEVs are like Heinz ketchup while EVs are like the off brand ketchup you get at a dollar store. Laughably bad and a complete waste of money.
“You seem to think that the benefits of a PHEV are only realized during long trips.” Compared to EVs, that’s correct. Compared to gas cars, it’s not. But I’m not comparing to a gas car in my comment, which you would have figured out if you had more than the reading comprehension of a below-average potato.
I actually own an EV that I don’t use for long trips, but do use for city driving almost every day. There is literally not a single way it would be improved for my usage if it were a PHEV. Meanwhile, it would require more maintenance, not be as smooth or quiet to drive, and still require an occasional stop at the gas station. This is not hypothetical: this EV actually replaced our previous PHEV, and we are much happier with the EV.
” Compared to gas cars, it’s not.”
As we’ve come to expect, you are completely wrong.
“More maintenance”. Yes that once a year oil change is really taxing isn’t it?
“not be as smooth or quiet to drive”
Yes it would. Modern ICE vehicles are very quiet and smooth.
“and still require an occasional stop at the gas station”
OH GOD NO!!!! Whatever will we do without those three minutes?
Meanwhile people sit around EV chargers that charge at 80-120 miles per hour…in a vehicle with a 200 mile range….so hours wasted.
Drive an EV for a while, and even new ICE cars no longer seem smooth and quiet. This is especially true when you want to accelerate faster than a 50cc moped and any ICE car roars. Your adored PHEVs make the contrast especially jarring – a Volvo XC90 with air suspension in electric mode is a magic carpet ride, and then the ICE comes to life and you feel like you’re in a 1985 Ford Tempo.
I bought my Bolt and my Highlander at almost exactly the same time in 2019. Since, then, here’s the list of maintenance items:
BOLT Tire rotation Cabin air filter Software update under recall
HIGHLANDER 5 oil changes (45K, 50K, 55K, 60K, 65K) New front pads and rotors New PCV valve Tire rotation Cabin air filter Engine air filter Replaced coolant, brake fluid, PSD fluid, and rear diff fluid New 12v battery
I’ve had the Highlander in 6x for maintenance visits and the Bolt 2x, even though we’ve driven them pretty similar total mileage, and many more of the Bolt’s miles are hard city miles.
And, in those three-plus years, I’ve never sat at a charger once. Not once. Nada.
“This is especially true when you want to accelerate faster than a 50cc moped” “and then the ICE comes to life and you feel like you’re in a 1985 Ford Tempo.”
Lol, c’mon with that.
The Volvo PHEVs can go 78mph in EV mode, the 330e is 87mph, and the 2G Volt could do 100mph in EV mode.
This is too loud compared to a Bolt? youtu.be/KaoV5G__VPo youtu.be/PnowvDDZDhU Granted, that is a bit slower than a Bolt but it is still quicker than a Subaru and “I need to go 0-60 in 6 seconds for city driving” is an emotional appeal in the first place.
EBflex is doing his thing but I don’t see the need to roll in the mud and sh*t on PHEVs.
It’s hyperbole, but you really do get used to silent operation and the ICE noise is unwelcome, especially on hard acceleration. Every ICE car sounds angry when pushed hard and EVs just… don’t. And when I’m trying to get the kid to school before the gate closes, the ability to more or less teleport silently from 0-30 without snapping every bystander’s neck is quite useful indeed.
That seems like a very specialized use case and I’m not sure the Volt’s or Clarity’s exhaust note would rise above ambient commuter noise.
However, all this is way off into the weeds of driver NVH preferences instead of what’s the optimal way to get the masses into more efficient vehicles in the shortest timeline.
The place you live has very wide roads and very few pedestrians. The place I live has narrow streets and, in many places I go on my everyday drives, many more pedestrians than cars. Angry full-throttle ICE noises scare them and make them angry. The same conditions apply in every city center.
That other guy is busily arguing that EVs are pointless because PHEVs are universally superior, and I’m disagreeing with his assessment.
Is it necessary to do much full throttle acceleration in places with narrow streets and high amounts of pedestrians? And we are talking about folks being startled/angry over the factory exhaust sound of something like a Honda Insight or Prius Prime?
I don’t think EVs are pointless and I don’t think PHEVs are universally superior. However, I do think PHEVs are an underserved market in the US. Right now Europe has a lot more options in that segment but even there manufacturers don’t seem especially interested in developing them further.
“You seem to think that the benefits of a PHEV are only realized during long trips. But in reality, it the other way around.”
For longer trips, a regular hybrid, and in some cases even a pure ICE, are beneficial over a PHEV. It takes quite a share of short, no-engine pure electric, driving, before a PHEV catches up with a regular hybrid. Dragging around all that extra battery and complication, is not free. You pay for it both in added weight, hence wear and tear on everything from drivelines to tires and suspesion; as well as in less and often less flexible internal volume.
At higher speed steady state driving, a properly sized hybrid “synergy drive” ICE, no longer has _that_ much greater losses, than those of the combination of a remote power station combined with wire losses combined with battery charging/recharging/management and e-motor losses. And higher speed driving is what strictly requires much energy. So even if the percentagewise added weight and size isn’t _that_ huge, it doesn’t take much such driving, before that part is what dominates total energy expenditure.
The case is at least as clear, but now favoring pure BEVs, at the opposite end. There is very little gain from dragging around an ICE and all the hybrid complexities, in a 75-mile range city commuter.
For an only car, or any other car which needs to be good at everything, PHEVs may be leaps and bounds ahead, but once you can specialize a bit, things are no longer so cut and dry.
“I’m not comparing it to an ICE car”….immediately compares it to HIS ICE car.
Your pretzel logic won’t work dude. You’re comparing a used ICE vehicle that you bought with between 40k and 45k on it to a Bolt.
You chose to do that level of maintenance. And again, the discussion is about PHEVs. You can’t base a maintenance schedule on strictly miles with a PHEV. Because the vast majority of the miles are going to be electric miles. If I owned a PHEV I’d do an oil change once a year. That’s it.
That’s not an inconvenience. You are really reaching here. PHEVs offer every single benefit of EVs and every single benefit of ICE. They are truly the only reasonable answer and have zero downsides.
“ but I don’t see the need to roll in the mud and sh*t on PHEVs.”
He doesn’t have an argument. So that’s all he can do. And yes, I am doing my thing….showing how superior PHEVs are compared to ICE only vehicles or pure EVs.
Agreed. I have a PHEV (2022 X5), and it works great for me. I often don’t hit the 30 miles of range, or am able to charge somewhat in the middle of the day. The only thing is that it only has a 3.6 kW charger, so it takes 5-6 hours to charge. If it had a beefier 7.2 kW charger, it could charge in half the time, and you’d be able to do multiple complete charges in the day. But that seems to be the case for most PHEVs. Start putting heavier-duty chargers in them.
I would have liked the option of a PHEV on my hybrid Maverick but it wasn’t available. I have been averaging 41 to 50 mpg city driving and one time I got 61 mpg but then I am not an aggressive driver. I can live with that mileage.
Ah your daily post informing the entire internet that you own a cheap ford “truck”. Day is still young though, I’m sure you can get your daily count up to 5-6
Longer trips doesn’t have to make up all that great a share of your total mileage, before the added weight and complexity of the PHEV addons, make them a net negative vs. a regular hybrid.
While no longer the latest and most fashionable, the Prius (and similars) is still the standard for most, often unpredictable, usages. PHEV, BEV and pure ICE all being more special case optima.
“Longer trips doesn’t have to make up all that great a share of your total mileage, before the added weight and complexity of the PHEV addons, make them a net negative vs. a regular hybrid.”
…when viewed individually as a single entity.
When viewed as only HALF of your available transportation, the other half being an ICE vehicle, the PHEV that can do it all and which keeps you from having to have two separate vehicles wins hands down.
Weight of the bigger battery, OK, but what additional complexity are we talking about here? Pretty much only the charging port and related hardware, which isn’t much. Otherwise a PHEV and a full hybrid have pretty much the same components.
“Weight of the bigger battery, OK, but what additional complexity are we talking about here?”
Packaging, often bigger electric motors, more sophisticated battery and thermal management. Ensuring the ICE parts don’t completely seize up from long term lack of use, more complex logic to manage the much greater variation in possible loads….. It’s not as simple as just adding a port and wiring in a few more batteries. For some, probably fairly common among city dwellers, use cases, it may be worth it. But far from for all cars.
Yes I think we have made a major mistake in going “EV or bust” when hybrids offer a tremendous benefit without really affecting the driver’s usage in any way. Think of the change in gas dependency if even by 2017 most vehicles sold new were hybrid.
This merits a look. I find Kia to have a better image and more interesting product than Hyundai, and the “just-right” size and fuel economy here interests me.
“Yes I think we have made a major mistake in going “EV or bust” when hybrids offer a tremendous benefit without really affecting the driver’s usage in any way. Think of the change in gas dependency if even by 2017 most vehicles sold new were hybrid.”
It’s becoming clear the push for EVs was politically driven which, makes it legitimate.
Not doing anything was a better path forward than pushing EVs. People just don’t want them, we are not ready to support them, and the technology isn’t there for widespread adoption. Hybrids and PHEVs are the only reasonable solution right now but automakers refuse to invest in them.
2022 Hybrid Sorento gets 37 mpg combined (35 highway).
OK, but a non-hybrid 1986 Ford Escort gets 38 mpg combined (and 44 highway). https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/1986_Ford_Escort.shtml
The biggest problem for the Sorento Hybrid is probably the existence of the Highlander Hybrid and Sienna. Pricing range on the Toyotas is very close. And each offers far more passenger and cargo space while getting indistinguishable gas mileage. Plus, for those who care, my impression is Toyota still has more brand cachet, whereas a Kia in your (driveway may still get funny looks though I think Kia has deservedly made up a lot of ground there). Still, picking the Kia still means having to deal with a Kia dealership.
The Toyota hybrid system is proven reliable at this point, whereas Kia’s system seems to have more fault points, cramming a DI engine, an electric motor, a turbo and plumbing, and a six-speed transmission under the hood. I know Consumer Reports has given the Sorento low reliability ratings, though I believe much of that stems from problems with the 10-speed transmission in the non-hybrid models.
The only reasons I can discern to get a Kia over one of the Toyotas are if overall footprint is a major concern (e.g., you live in a city and often park parallel), as the Sorento is more than a foot shorter than a Sienna, or if you’re stressing sportiness, to the extent possible in this segment: I understand the six-speed lets the Sorento Hybrid drive more like a “regular” car, and, with similar power numbers, it weighs something like 600 lbs less than either of the Toyotas.
You must be logged in to post a comment.