Kia Australia’s product boss wants a more affordable, entry-level Sportage Hybrid (HEV) variant to better compete with the top-selling Toyota RAV4, but he can’t confirm exactly when such an option will become available.
Speaking with CarExpert at the Australian media launch of the facelifted Sportage, Kia Australia’s general manager for product Roland Rivero said his team’s next priority for the upgraded mid-size SUV range is adding a cheaper hybrid grade, but getting it here could be an uphill battle.
“What we need to monitor first is this trim and powertrain strategy [the new all-wheel drive HEV variants in SX and GT-Line trims]. We want to see how this goes in the marketplace,” Mr Rivero told CarExpert.
“On top of that, we have to marry it up to how much supply we can get. Hybrid production [for Australia] is shared with the United States, so we sometimes don’t get the lion’s share of hybrids.”
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“We’re quite happy that… we’ve got enough supply to do SX and GT-Line across [Hybrid] all-wheel drive and front-wheel drive, and to ask for another variant means we’re going to need more supply.
“If the stars do align, we can bring [entry-level Sportage S HEV variants] in. It’s easy to create the variant, but not necessarily easy to get the supply of it. So we’ve got to juggle that right now and see how we go – timing wise… I don’t know,” Mr Rivero added.
Notwithstanding his desire for a cheaper S-spec version of the Sportage hybrid, Mr Rivero said supply of petrol-electric Sportage vehicles has improved slightly for the model’s mid-life facelift, and currently sits somewhere between 400 and 500 units per month compared to the 300/month total for the pre-facelift model.
During the Sportage media conference, Mr Rivero also indicated that initial orders are showing a 60:40 split between AWD and front-wheel drive Sportage Hybrid variants, which is unsurprising given AWD hybrids have previously been unavailable in Australia.
The most affordable Sportage HEV in Australia is the SX FWD, which starts from $46,450 plus on-road costs. A cheaper front-drive Sportage S hybrid would likely drop that figure to around $42,000.
Australia’s favourite SUV, the hybrid-only Toyota RAV4, is currently priced from $42,260 plus on-road costs for the cheapest GX 2WD variant.
The Kia Sportage lineup is currently the fourth best-selling mid-size SUV in Australia based on VFACTS new-vehicle sales data, with 8723 units registered between January 1 and May 31 this year.
Its 9.4 per cent share of the nation’s largest auto market segment is bested by the aforementioned RAV4 (with 21,613 sales in the same period), as well as the Mitsubishi Outlander (10,203) and Mazda CX-5 (9409).
For the 2024 calendar year, the Sportage line notched up 22,210 registrations (up 41.0 per cent year-on-year), again placing it fourth behind the same rivals in the same order.
Interestingly, the related Hyundai Tucson lineup (7940 sales YTD) trails the Sportage in terms of popularity, despite offering double the number of hybrid variants – eight versus just four for the updated Sportage.
Stay tuned to CarExpert for our first Australian drive of the facelifted Sportage on July 13.
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