New 2025 Kia Sportage facelift makes public debut at LA Motor Show

The new Kia Sportage has made its public debut at the 2024 Los Angeles Motor Show, just a few weeks after its surprise reveal in Korea. The fresh-faced version of Kia’s best-selling family SUV will arrive in UK showrooms next year, sporting a new look inside and out, new technology and a fresh hybrid offering.

The fifth-generation Sportage arrived in 2021 and has been a regular fixture in the top 10 list of best-selling cars here in the UK. Kia is now looking to make the Sportage even more appealing with this mid-life update, which it’ll need to be, given its range of rivals includes our reigning Mid-size SUV of the Year, the Hyundai Tucson, plus the Ford Kuga, Volkswagen Tiguan and Toyota RAV4. 

So far we’ve only seen American and Korean-market examples of the new Sportage, but we expect the UK model to look almost identical. European versions have a shorter wheelbase more appropriate for our roads, but the platform tech buried within is unchanged.

Design-wise, the Sportage now features the ‘star map’ daytime-running light arrangement introduced by the flagship Kia EV9 that is also found on the Kia EV3, Sorento and even the Picanto city car. The mid-size SUV has also received a new set of vertical headlights, plus a new grille and bumper to go with additional foglights in the lower section. 

Further changes can be seen down the side of the Sportage with new alloy wheels (in a choice of 17, 18 and 19-inch sizes), while the rear pillar has been completely restyled for the new model. The side skirts have been updated for the 2025 car, too, and at the rear there are fresh lights and a redesigned bumper. Overall, it’s a more extensive facelift than Hyundai gave the mechanically similar Tucson earlier this year.

Inside, the twin 12.3-inch curved screens are carried over from higher specification versions of the outgoing Sportage, although the positioning of the air vents and overall dash design is much simpler now. The familiar panel of dedicated switches for the climate control and media are still located in the lower portion of the dashboard. 

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Elsewhere, a two-spoke steering wheel design with the offset Kia logo has been taken from the similarly sized all-electric EV3, and Kia has removed the piano black material from the centre console – presumably to boost perceived quality and make it better equipped at dealing with the rough and tumble of family life.

While the aforementioned platform will be carried over unchanged, Kia has fiddled with the Sportage’s powertrain line-up for 2025. There’s still an entry-level mild-hybrid, but power has been boosted from 157bhp to 178bhp. The Korean car comes with a six-speed automatic transmission sending power to all four wheels, although the popular front-wheel-drive car with a manual gearbox will most likely remain for the UK and Europe.

Above this is an LPG offering that won’t come to the UK; interest in this fuel type has seen a steady decline over the past two decades, with infrastructure continuing to dwindle.

A full-hybrid Sportage will continue to be offered, however. Currently, this version uses a 1.6-litre petrol engine mated to a small battery and electric motor for modest electric running – when parking or creeping along in traffic, for example. US specs reveal that the e-motor is a little more powerful than before, which should help make acceleration smoother, while this particular powertrain continues to use a six-speed automatic transmission.

The current Sportage is also available with a plug-in hybrid powertrain, which has been carried over for the new car in the US. The focus for this particular version is fleet customers, who want low CO2 emissions for favourable Benefit-in-Kind (BiK) tax rates. The outgoing Sportage PHEV sold here produces 248bhp, which is unlikely to change, but we may see a boost to the battery size for a slightly longer EV range.

We’ll know more when the European version (which will continue to be built in Slovakia) is revealed, but that’s not likely to happen until the middle of 2025, with sales pencilled in for a little later in the year.

Pricing hasn’t been discussed at this stage, but expect a slight increase over the current Sportage’s starting point of £29,390. We should see the usual 2, 3, GT-Line and GT-Line S trims offered, with top-spec cars getting luxury-car kit like big wheels, leather trim and a panoramic roof.

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