Car&Driver: Tested 2022 Kia Sorento PHEV Needs More Motor

Car and Driver has published, … “the 2022 Kia Sorento PHEV is EPA rated at 32 miles of electric range, which might be enough to take care of your daily driving. But its electric motor makes only 90 horsepower, and therein lies the problem. The whole point of a plug-in hybrid is to use it as an EV as much as possible, but in EV mode the Sorento’s power-to-weight ratio makes a Yugo look like a Ferrari SF90 Stradale.”

“So then why would you pay an extra $6,800 over an AWD Sorento EX Hybrid? Well, first of all because you can get most of that money back, in the form of a federal tax credit—the PHEV’s 13.8-kWh (11.8 kWh usable) battery qualifies it for a $6,587 tax credit. But the other reason is because you plan to plug it in as often as you can and take advantage of the EV mode’s 79 MPGe EPA efficiency estimate. Because once the gas engine is running, the PHEV is no more efficient than the regular hybrid, and in fact a little bit worse—34 mpg EPA combined, to the hybrid’s 35 mpg. Over 600 miles of mixed driving, we averaged an underwhelming 26 MPGe.”

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