New Kia Sorento facelift gets early reveal

Although Kia is focusing on expanding its all-electric range of SUVs with the EV6 and upcoming EV9 and EV4, the Korean firm hasn’t forgotten about its internal-combustion engined cars - evidenced here the facelifted Kia Sorento. 

These images come courtesy of Kia’s Korean social media team, unveiling in full the revised car's exterior design, along with the front of the cabin. The current generation Sorento was launched in 2020 and since then we’ve seen the new Sportage hit the roads, along with the similarly-sized EV9 more recently. It’s clear that the latter has influenced the Sorento’s new look.  

There are also elements of the new Kia Picanto city car in the Sorento’s facelift. There are now T-shaped headlights, a reshaped front grille, new foglights and a new bumper, all helping to bring the Sorento’s design in line with the newer Kia models. 

The changes to the rear are less substantial. The rear light clusters feature a new light signature, there’s a reworked bumper and the wide ‘Sorento’ badging has been shrunk and placed to one side of the bootlid. The reversing lights have been moved further down the rear. We expect to see a new selection of alloy wheels and paint finishes arrive with the facelifted model as well. 

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Moving to the inside, we can see that the dash has taken on a similar design to that seen in Kia’s EV range of models with a more minimalist look. The air vents are integrated into the dash and climate controls look identical to the ones in the EV6, the screens look like the dual 12.3-inch displays from the EV6 also. The physical shortcut buttons to the side of the central screen have been removed although the gear selector and various storage cubbies in the centre console look the same as before. 

Currently, the Sorento is offered with a 2.2-litre diesel with 190bhp, a 1.6-litre petrol hybrid with 226bhp and a plug-in hybrid with the same engine but mated to a 13.8kWh battery for 261bhp. We’re likely to see a similar lineup with the facelift, although the electric motors for the hybrid models might be revised for better efficiency and performance. The Sorento sits on Hyundai/Kia’s N3 platform so no pure-electric model will arrive. 

The Sorento will continue to be offered only with four-wheel drive, plus some driving modes such as ‘Mud’, ‘Snow’ and ‘Sand’ for extra off-road capability. 

There’s just one ‘Edition’ trim level to choose in the Sorento range currently, starting from £49,590. This is a relatively well-equipped model so the newly facelifted car may undercut this price with more basic versions when it goes on sale in 2024.

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