Kia Ireland have completed their all new Sportage line-up with the arrival of the PHEV variant of the new car, writes Trish Whelan. Since its launch early this year, the Sportage has been Kia Ireland’s best-selling car with sales to date of over 2,300 year-to-date.
Kia’s PHEV models comprise over 11pc of Kia sales so are very important to the company. Kia Ireland MD Ronan Flood said at yesterday's launch of this new addition to the Sorento range ‘adding this to our 22pc EV volume means that one in every three Kia cars sold in Ireland comes with a plug’.
He said that some customers, especially in one car households, want to make the switch to EV but are not confident in the charging infrastructure and for these customers, a PHEV is an ideal choice.
With a home charger, most of the daily driving can be done on EV power with the flexibility of making anxiety-free weekend and holiday travel when required. The car has an all-electric range of 70kms.
Two trims for this PHEV are K3 at €46,000 and a K4 model at €48,000. The K3 comes with 19-inch alloys, dual zone climate control, smart cruise control, highway driving assist, heated front and rear seats, power adjustable front seats and a 12.3-inch infotainment screen with Kia Connect (UVO Connectivity). The K4 model adds full leather trim, drivers’ memory seat, ventilated as well as heated front seats, 12.3-inch driver cluster and phone charger. Luggage space is 540 litres expandable to 1,715. Both models come with All Wheel Drive.
The high-voltage battery is placed centrally between the two axles under the body of the SUV, ensuring a balanced weight distribution and practical and versatile interior space. Power is from Kia’s 1.6 T-GDI 4-cylinder petrol engine matched to a six-speed automatic transmission. With the Sportage Plug-in Hybrid, the compact turbo engine is part of an advanced powertrain package that also features a 66.9kW electric motor and a 13.8kWh battery pack. This combination delivers a total system power output of 265hp with 180hp originating from the engine. Maximum torque is 350Nm.
