Fifth-generation Kia Sportage? Yes, it is—as we’ve confirmed, it’s making a comeback to the Philippine market. And if Nissan finally follows through on all its hints to bring back the X-Trail, that’ll be two OG nameplates returning to the compact-SUV segment this year.
Quite. This model debuted in 2021, looking nothing like it does now, especially at the front. The fifth generation was already a beneficiary of Kia’s ‘Opposites United’ design treatment, but the ‘star map’ lighting signature didn’t come until 2023, so this Sportage had boomerang DRLs when it first launched.
The 2024 facelift took a figurative scalpel to the front end, revising the outline of the grille along the outer edges, changing up the mesh, then adding vertically stacked LEDs for the front lights as well as those ‘star map’ DRLs. The new wheels have the geometric-pattern design worn by current Kias. It’s the rear end that has been left mostly the same, save for slight taillight and rear-bumper tweaks.
The X-Line trim of this Korean-spec test unit—with blacked-out emblems, all-black wheels, gloss-black accents—was also introduced in 2024.
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It’s a 1.6-liter turbocharged gasoline engine mated to an electric motor. The Korean-market spec sheet we were provided lists power and torque separately—178hp and 265Nm for the engine, 64hp and 264Nm for the motor—but the combined output shouldn’t be far off the Sorento hybrid’s 232hp and 367Nm of torque.
As with the bigger Sorento, the transmission is a six-speed automatic.
With this turbo-hybrid setup, this is definitely quicker from a standstill than the three-row Sorento, which carries around 200-300kg of extra mass depending on the drivetrain. It picks up speed steadily in the default driving mode. With three adults on board, power feels ample, throttle response is prompt, and gear changes and power delivery are smooth and consistent. The acceleration won’t blow you away, and personally, I was always aware of the car’s heft while driving, but the Sportage shouldn’t have any issue getting up to speed with a full load of passengers and cargo. It just kept assuredly on its way, even on the steep sections of our route.
Sport mode opens up the taps more freely, with quicker throttle response and more urgent acceleration. The system brings the engine into play more often in this setting, obviously, and you will hear it, too, when you ask for more power. Otherwise, the shift from electric and hybrid drive is pretty seamless.
The name and the looks are sportier to me at this point. More than excitement and athleticism, the Sportage is characterized by sensibility and balance. I found the ride to be firm without being unyielding, easily smoothing out speed bumps and rougher patches of tarmac. But again, I drove this in Korea, which has a well-maintained road network.
The country has very strict speed limits, too. Every time I encountered a nice, flowing ribbon of twisty road, it always came with a 30kph restriction. Gentle curves on highways and interchanges weren’t enough to challenge the chassis at speed, so while the Sportage was very stable and composed throughout our day trip—which took us to Imjingak, around 7km from the DMZ—the true test of ride and handling will happen here, once we get local units.
If you’re familiar with Kia’s latest releases, there are certainly design elements here that give away the Sportage’s age. I mentioned the taillights earlier: While new Kias favor vertical rear lighting units, the ones on the Sportage are more horizontally oriented. The side, particularly around the D-pillar, also deviates from the floating-roofline appearance of the newer EVs and the second-gen Seltos.
The interior, at least of the high-spec unit I drove, is still modern enough to mix in with competitors. It retains the original curved, driver-oriented dashboard architecture from 2021, but the reprofiled cockpit is sleeker and cleaner, especially now that the upright center A/C vent is gone and the remaining ones sit in a neat line below the center display. The curved glass panel houses twin screens—again, very much consistent with the Sportage’s newer stablemates. The center stack bisecting the front row is chunky and cluttered, so it’s for a good reason Kia has been opting for a column-mounted gear selector these days, to unlock more usable space in that part of the car. The door pulls are also a bit last-season.
The rest of the interior, however, feels reasonably up to date, with simple, classy woodgrain garnish that’s smudge-proof, and a mix of suede and leather for the upholstery. The panoramic sunroof livens up this test car’s drab black interior, which is otherwise spacious and reasonably well-appointed. We’ll have to see which of the features actually make it to the Philippine spec.
E-Ride and E-Handling are also part of this hybrid package under e-VMC, or electrification–Vehicle Motion Control. Both use the electric motor to deliver instant torque or regen to individual wheels, improving cornering stability and ride comfort through turns and over speed bumps.
Kia Philippines has only shared the confirmed powertrain for our market, but we shouldn’t have to wait long for more details since the carmaker dropped the first teaser in mid-May, so the local launch should be happening soon.
It’ll be interesting to see if the Sorento variant strategy will be applied here—at P2.188 million, the barebones front-wheel-drive base spec of this midsize crossover is sold for P700,000 less than the top all-wheel-drive variant, making it more affordable than the Sportage’s traditional peers in the compact class. On the outside, it doesn’t look drastically different from the range-topper and even gets 19-inch wheels, but the cost-cutting might be too extreme for some, since there’s no ADAS and the driver seat gets manual adjustment only.
Having an entry-level Sportage with fewer features and a higher variant with a longer equipment list should help lower the asking price. That said, strip it down too much and it will look too bare and watered-down against the newer, more affordable tech-packed competitors from China—crossovers that have capitalized on the Sportage’s absence and gained much popularity in the past couple of years.
How much do you think the price tag should be?
