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Kia launches Sportage facelift to accelerate SUV boom

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The new Sportage (Courtesy of Kia)

Kia Corp., South Korea’s No. 2 automaker, on Monday unveiled a facelift of the Sportage to further boost the sport utility vehicle (SUV) craze in the country.

Kia introduced the new Sportage, an enhanced model of the compact SUV with updated styling, overhauled interior and better performance in Seoul.

“The new Sportage actively reflects customer opinions to improve its marketability and add new convenience features,” said a Kia official.

The affiliate of Hyundai Motor Co. has sold 7.7 million units of the Sportage since its launch in 1993.

The SUV was the No. 3 best-selling model in the first 10 months of the year, helping Kia claim the top three spot on the country’s popular car list.

The new Sportage (Courtesy of Kia)

The new Sportage is available with three trims in South Korea – a 1.6-liter turbocharged gasoline engine model with an eight-speed automatic transmission, a hybrid version with such an engine and a 2.0-liter liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) engine model.

For the hybrid model, Kia improved its motor power while allowing a driver to control the regenerative brake with a paddle shifter.

DRIVING MONITORING SYSTEM

The new Sportage is Kia’s first model launched in South Korea equipped with a driver monitoring system.

The safety feature with a camera monitors a driver’s behavior and warns or alerts him/her when he/she becomes distracted or drowsy for a period of time long enough to lose situational awareness or full attention to the task of driving.

The new Sportage (Courtesy of Kia)

The SUV is also equipped with other safety functions such as a heads-up display, advanced highway driving assist and lane following assist, smart cruise control and forward collision-avoidance assist.

The enhanced model of the fifth-generation Sportage launched in 2021 has a new front fascia with restyled light-emitting diode (LED) headlights inspired by the flagship electric SUV EV9, revised bumpers and new LED tail-light signatures.

The new Sportage’s interior emphasizes a horizontal layout to maximize the vehicle’s spaciousness. It has a 12.3-inch panoramic curved display equipped with the connected car Navigation Cockpit (ccNC), Hyundai Motor Group’s new infotainment system.

The new Sportage (Courtesy of Kia)

Kia also adopted a fingerprint authentication system for its console.

By Jin-Won Kim

jin1@hankyung.com

 
Jongwoo Cheon edited this article.

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