Alex Hevesy/SlashGear
Kia's current lineup of crossovers and SUVs is pretty stacked. Both the Sorento and Telluride have demonstrated themselves to be excellent family cars, with Kia having gone through the recent effort of making visually very interesting, affordable, and pretty painless to live with. Now, I am tasked with evaluating the one of the smaller offerings, the Sportage, and not just any Sportage but the hybrid model.
It's lesser in scale, but its full name makes up for that: the 2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX-Prestige AWD. Breaking down the taxonomy, the Sportage sits just above the Seltos and under the Sorento in Kia's SUV lineup. The SX-Prestige is the highest trim available, offering the maximum amount of bells and/or whistles you can fit in a compact Korean crossover. AWD, of course, indicates it's all-wheel drive. While it might not seem like it's worth enumerating, but all-wheel drive is not standard equipment on the base-model LX trim.
All that makes it sound like this Sportage is the best and brightest Sportage on the market, right? Well not quite, as there's a plug-in hybrid version for a considerably higher price (a little more than $8,000 more at time of writing).
Kia's hybrid wonder
Alex Hevesy/SlashGear
Making the second-most technologically advanced Sportage Hybrid tick is a 1.6-liter turbocharged four-banger that, through the help of an electric motor, generates 232 horsepower and 271 pound-feet of torque. Interestingly, as opposed to other vehicles in its class which typically opt for a CVT, the Sportage's transmission duties are accomplished by a 6-speed automatic. All of that works together to give the Sportage Hybrid 35 combined miles per gallon, although I found it possible to get upwards of 40 miles per gallon if you were being careful.
Assessing the driving dynamics of a crossover hybrid can be tough. It's not made to be a performance car by any means, and the presence of electric motors is for efficiency's sake and not acceleration. Still, the Sportage Hybrid could be athletic when you stomped the accelerator pedal. It's not particularly fast, mind you, but the electric motor does helps even just a little bit in making the Kia slightly more interesting to drive. Even though it has much less horsepower than it's bigger brother, the Sorento, the Sportage proved more enjoyable when I wanted driving to be a little more enthusiastic.
Prestige indeed
Alex Hevesy/SlashGear
On the more practical end, it's a comfortable and relatively quiet ride under normal highway conditions. Occasionally, some mechanical and electrical wizardry would happen under the hood and you'd hear the engine scream to life, but it wasn't any more noticeable than in your average crossover.
Given the luxury-adjacent SX-Prestige trim level, it was certainly a plush place to be. The seats aren't leather, the interior is instead upholstered with a material Kia refers to as "SynTex," but it sure felt close enough to leather/velour to me, so I didn't mind. The trim includes a Harman Kardon sound system, cameras everywhere, a 12.3-inch infotainment display, ventilated front seats, and a heads-up display.
I've driven compact SUVs from luxury brands that cost almost twice as much as this Kia, and the Sorento Hybrid's interior would give those cars a run for their money. Like I found with the Telluride, the highest trim Sportage is a very convincing luxury car. For the brand-agnostic, Kia's Prestige trims are worth a consideration if you want a mostly luxury car experience. It's not going to be as wacky as a Mercedes or BMW, but if you just want leather (or sort of leather) seats, a nice sound system, and a quiet ride, the Korean brands are hard to ignore.
Kia against the world
Alex Hevesy/SlashGear
Now, how does the Sportage Hybrid compare to the absolute king of crossover quasi-luxury hybrids, the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid Limited? Well, the Toyota inches out a victory in fuel economy at 38 combined miles per gallon. In other, very important categories, though, the Kia wins. The Sportage has a maximum storage capacity of 73.7 cubic feet, more than the Rav4's 69.8 cubic feet. The Kia has more horsepower at 232 horsepower, a tad more than the naturally-aspirated Toyota's 219.
The Kia also has a lower starting price at $40,390, pitted against the Toyota's $41,155. That's not a victory by a huge margin, but when you are shopping for a crossover you will have for the next several years, every dollar, mile per gallon, and cubic foot of storage matters. For clarity's sake, Toyota has not yet released pricing — or any other spec changes that might be incoming — for the 2026 RAV4 Hybrid Limited, only for the 2025 model year.
Since the SX-Prestige trim is already the highest level, the number of optional extras on this particular Sportage Hybrid was pretty minimal, consisting of a set of $200 floor mats. Even the very nice blue paint color — "Heritage Blue" — was included. Add in the unavoidable destination fee of $1,445 and you near-silently whir into your final price of $42,035. That price is not only competitive with the aforementioned RAV4 Limited but and another vehicle in the Kia's class, the Sport Touring trim of Honda's 2026 CR-V Hybrid. That starts a little higher at $42,250 before the destination charge and all that fun stuff. The Kia might be a price winner against the industry giants.
2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid verdict
Alex Hevesy/SlashGear
That ringing endorsement aside, it's not quite all sunshine and hybridized rainbows. As I alluded to earlier, it's only moderately interesting to drive: you aren't going to be burning very many tires when you are at the helm. Additionally, I am a tall person, over six-feet in height, and I felt a little cramped in the driver seat and I could never adjust it to where I was 100% comfortable with where I was sitting.
The 2026 Kia Sportage Hybrid SX-Prestige really wins in two categories: the cold hard numbers make it numerically more appealing over the Honda and Toyota counterparts, and in subjective terms it looks great to boot. A lot of online reviews will take competent Kias as a herald for the arrival of the brand as a serious contender for American driveway space. I think Kia is already here. The Sportage Hybrid is just a flat-out good car.
