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There’s a lot of buzz around electrification in new cars and there’s a number of ways that can be achieved hybrid cars are perhaps the most accessible of those take a regular petrol engine add a small electric motor to help reduce load and then feed that using energy harvested in stop start traffic that might otherwise be wasted toyota is probably the master of
The hybrid game with a variety of models powered by what’s known as a closed-loop hybrid system but they’re not the only brand doing so the kia you see behind me might look like a normal sorrento suv but this one is the newest addition to the range and it is powered by a closed-loop hybrid in what might be one of the most complex ranges of any family suv in
Australia the sorrento is now available with a petrol v6 a diesel four-cylinder a four-cylinder plug-in hybrid and a four-cylinder closed-loop hybrid this new model bridges the gap between the normal petrol and diesel sorrento range and the flagship plug-in hybrid where the plug-in hybrid model has acclaimed 68 kilometres of pure electric range before bringing
The petrol engine into assist the hybrid uses either petrol or electric motivation in short bursts depending on the driving conditions unlike the plug-in hybrid which can be charged from a wall outlet the hybrid can’t be plugged in at all charging up at smaller on-board battery from recovered energy or using the petrol motor like a generator whether petrol and
Diesel sorrento are available in four trim levels the hybrid comes as the top spec gt line specification only that means it’s not cheap starting at just under sixty seven thousand dollars for the front wheel drive hybrid up to sixty nine thousand seven hundred and fifty plus on road costs for this all-wheel drive variant other than that though the sorento hybrid
Aims to deliver all of the family functionality of a regular sorrento just with smaller fuel bills attached so let’s see how it stacks up there is a heap to cover off inside the sorrento for starters there’s the design the hybrid shares its interior with other members of the range so that means you get this blocky centre stack lots of metallic trim and heaps of
Storage the seats are trimmed in quilted nappa leather which is pretty plush and the front seats come with heating and ventilation the driver gets 14 way power adjustment and two position memory and the steering wheel is heated too the driver faces a color head-up display and a 12.3 inch fully digital instrument cluster which changes depending on your drive
Mode this sits alongside a 10.25 inch infotainment screen loaded with navigation digital radio apple carplay and android auto but connection requires plugging in there’s no wireless carplay yet you get 12 speaker bose audio and kia has incorporated an in-car intercom so you can broadcast messages to the back seat instead of having to yell beneath the screen
There’s buttons for the dual zone climate control system and then beneath that there’s a lidded bin which houses three usb-a ports and a wireless charge pad the center console carries the rotary gear selector and cupholders plus there’s littered armrest personally i like the cool ambient lighting details kia has included but i’m not a huge fan of some of the
Instrument graphics like the eco display and its alarm clock typeface which just looks a bit old-fashioned still with heaps of included equipment and a nicely functional user interface the driver and co-driver should be pretty happy here into the second row and the first thing you notice is how much space there is back here that’s because of this sliding second
Row which means you can stretch out all the way back or slide forward a little to make more space for passengers in the third row again you get the same quilted napa leather seats the outboard rear seats are heated and the windows come with these blinds built in there’s air vents in the back of the center console and there’s another three usb ports one in the
Console and one on the side of each front seat making them easy to access the doors have built-in cup holders there’s a fold-down armrest in the middle and you can recline the backrest making for a pretty comfy place to take a longer trip access to the third row is really easy there’s two one touch buttons here and here press them and the seat will fold and
Slide forward and you can easily jump into the third row it’s not a badly proportioned space back here but that said it’s not as roomy as the first two rows passengers still get quilted seat trim but no seat heating this time amenities include air vents and a separate booster fan plus a usb port on each side these third row seats have isofix child seat mounts
Too to go with the two in the second row the big ticket item that’s missing however is curtain airbag coverage in the third row behind the sorrento’s powered tailgate you’ll find this much space with the third row up that’s 179 liters and just enough for a couple of backpacks or shopping bags normally there’s a storage space under the floor but in the hybrid
Model that’s where the 12 volt battery lives meaning storage space is reduced and as a result the cargo blind has to live on top of the floor not under it if you’re wondering the hybrid battery with a one kilowatt hour capacity lives under the second row of seats you can fold away the third row seats via these straps and expand the cargo space to 608 litres
Which is a bit more like what you’d need for a big family shop carting prams or a weekend away if you need to maximize space for bigger items you can use these buttons to fold the second row and unlock 1996 litres of space all up in each case the boot of the sorrento hybrid is just a touch bigger than that of the plug-in hybrid but a little bit smaller than either
The petrol or diesel sorrento looking at hybrid cars there’s usually a lot of numbers to decipher in this case the sorrento hybrid claims 44 kilowatts and 264 newton meters from its electric motor and 132 kilowatts and 265 newton meters from the 1.6 liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine that’s the same petrol engine as the sorrento plug-in but the electric motor
Is just a little less powerful combined kia rates maximum outputs at 169 kilowatts and 350 newton meters that’s not too far off the 184 kilowatt combined claim of a toyota kluger hybrid although toyota doesn’t quote combine torque it’s also down just a little on the 200 kilowatt v6 sorrento but beats that engine’s 332 newton meters of torque perhaps the most
Important figure for a hybrid though is its claimed fuel consumption and in this all-wheel drive sorrento hybrid the claim consumption is 5.8 liters per 100k that’s a near bang on match for the toyota kluger hybrids 5.6 litre claim in the real world the sorrento hybrid hasn’t quite lived up to its claim and at the moment i’m sitting on 7.4 liters per hundred k’s
Which is still pretty decent now i’m going to mention toyota hybrids a lot here because let’s face it it’s the system that people are most familiar with we’ll have all been in a toyota hybrid camry corolla rav4 kluger as a work car as a taxi or as a ride share car kia system is a little bit different however where toyota tends to use a bigger petrol engine and
A more powerful electric motor to help it along kia’s system uses the electric side of things a lot less and the petrol a lot more this means for instance it’ll always start out in electric mode but it’ll revert to the petrol engine really early on usually between 10 and 20 k’s an hour in a kluger you’re probably going to get that change over at 30 or 40 k’s an
Hour there is still a lot of electric assistance though like it’s always running in the background it’s always helping if you’re at freeway speeds it’ll shut down the petrol engine and just go fully v for minutes at a time this means that at the end of the day consumption stays low and while the two systems are philosophically different they kind of get the same
End result another difference between the two is that toyota doesn’t physically connect the rear axle to the engine but in the sorrento it does it still operates like a normal all-wheel drive system does it make any difference not really in this car you get a six-speed auto and you still feel some of the gear changes in the kluger you get a cvt you don’t notice
Them so much like i say these are all little step changes but at the end of the day you get the same result you may notice that if you were to drive this car back to back with either the v6 or the diesel it doesn’t quite have the same urge when you put your foot down around town that makes minimal difference you kind of just glide around and everything is fine
But if you did want that big power or you had a need for towing or overtaking i reckon you’d probably be better off with the diesel other than that though this thing really feels comfortable and quiet around town it has locally tuned suspension like a lot of keyer vehicles and that means it deals really well with poorly maintained streets speed humps little
Bumps and dips and it feels quite settled on the freeway the one difference that the hybrid models in the sorrento line have compared to the petrol or diesel gt lines are their wheels this car rolls on 19-inch alloys and normally you get a set of 20-inch alloys under the combustion cars it makes things maybe just a little bit softer and squishier under the
Tyres again not a dramatic difference but just enough that this is probably the pick for comfort on the hybrid side of things there’s no special user input required you just jump in press the start button put it in drive and away you go the car works out what it needs to do in terms of powertrain if you’re the owner i reckon it’ll probably be maybe a week of
Hybrid novelty you’ll be monitoring what it does and how it behaves after that though it’ll all just become really normal and you’ll drive it like you would any traditional car the package itself is a pretty impressive one the sorrento was drive’s 2021 car of the year and with the new hybrid variant it continues everything that made it good in the first place
Really comfortable really well equipped really tech laden but now it’s also really frugal on top now that we’ve had a look through the new kia sorento hybrid be sure to let us know what you think will this be the car to erode toyota’s hybrid supremacy i reckon it could be but right now supply is severely constrained and kia says they’re only able to get their
Hands on around 20 cars per month for australia although that should improve over time it does deliver the kind of fuel savings you’d expect for something as big as this to return under 10 liters per 100ks around town that’s pretty remarkable and this comes in a fair way under something else that’s pretty remarkable a lot of you haven’t subscribed don’t miss
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2022 Kia Sorento Hybrid Review | Impressive Real-World Fuel Consumption | Drive.com.au By Drive.com.au
