2023 Kia Sportage Hybrid Review: Going The Distance

One weird thing I noticed, while driving on the interstate, was a strange pulsing sensation from the drivetrain when cruise control was activated in the 70mph range. It feels as if the powertrain can’t decide whether to be using electric or gasoline propulsion, so it toggles back and forth. A workable solution for some is to consider setting the cruise at a higher speed, but I live in Ohio, a place where famed journalist Brock Yates suggested might have the death penalty for speeding. The pulsing did seem to settle down around 75mph, but I felt it imprudent to risk orphaning my children by testing this higher speed for long.

Chris Tonn/SlashGear

At first, I thought the adaptive cruise control might be encountering and accounting for traffic; however, my tester wasn’t equipped with what Kia calls Highway Driving Assist, a mixture of adaptive cruise and lane-keeping. It takes a step up to the SX Prestige trim ($36,190 plus destination fees) to add adaptive cruise control to the Sportage Hybrid. 

It’s a big step from the $27,290 LX trim to add that single feature that I so appreciate and, at $32,645 plus destination as tested on this EX AWD trim, I’d have hoped HDA would have been fitted as standard. Alas, we are long past the days of one-off options — imagine fitting adaptive cruise on a car with wind-up windows, an AM-only radio, and a three-speed column-shifted manual — so we have to play with the options packages we are offered.