Kia Sportage vs Kia Stonic

What's the difference?

Okay, this is pretty easy. That SX Hybrid is excellent - it’s fuel efficient, it drives really nicely, it’s practical, but it’s not great value when you consider it’s more than $8000 pricier than the SX petrol. If you want good value, get the GT-Line hybrid. It comes with more features for not that much more money compared to the petrol version. 

Oh, and if you’re reading this in three years time and thinking about buying a second-hand Sportage SX Hybrid, then do it.

All in all, the Stonic is a satisfactory daily driver, it’s just nowhere near ideal as a modern urban conveyance.

Sure, it’s reasonably priced in an increasingly expensive market, but it is very sluggish off the mark which is a solid negative against its overall rating. It also feels cheap inside and lacks contemporary driver-assist tech, such as adaptive cruise control.

The Sportage Hybrid SX is almost identical in looks to the petrol Sportage, which is why I mistook somebody else's car for mine. There’s a small badge on the tailgate of the hybrid which says HEV for Hybrid Electric Vehicle, but that’s really the only giveaway.

The Sportage is a more interesting looking SUV compared to less avant-garde rivals like the RAV4. I love the arrow LED running lights, the wide, mesh grille, and the tail-lights.

The cabin is also differently good looking and premium, apart from the blank panels on the centre console - the ones that remind you didn’t get the Sportage with heated seats…

Still, even with the blank panels it’s a premium-looking cabin with the 12.3-inch screen and black materials. It would have been nice if the synthetic leather seats were standard on this SX Hybrid instead of the cloth.

I spend the lion’s share of my time in large and upper large 4WDs, so spending quality time in something like this little hot hatchbac… er, small SUV, is a revelation and a lot of zippy fun. Like driving a go-kart without the fumes and the prangs.

The 2025 Kia Stonic Sport is 4140mm long (with a 2580mm wheelbase), 1760mm wide and 1520mm high. It has a listed kerb weight of 1227kg.

This is a slick-looking hatchbac… er, light SUV, and it looks suitably sporty. 

Though ground clearance is unlisted, it stands well clear of the road surface, giving this hatchbac… er, compact SUV, more presence than it otherwise might have.

The Sportage is a mid-sized SUV - it’s not as big as a Kia Sorento, but it is larger than a Kia Seltos. 

There’s plenty of room up front with storage in the centre console, cupholders and door pockets.

The second row has directional air vents and great legroom and headroom even for me at 189cm tall. My nine-year old son reckons the window sill is too high to see out of.

He’s out of his booster seat now but he’s a tall kid and doesn’t have this visibility issue very often as we move from test car to test car.

The boot is also big at 586 litres (VDA) behind the second row. It’ll fit the three-piece CarsGuide luggage set with room to spare.

The Stonic Sport’s interior is a practical space but it feels a bit dated and underdone in a car market increasingly packed with well-equipped, cheaper and more contemporary SUVs.

The most obvious factors working against the Sport are its the 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia (too small), the absence of wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto and wireless phone charging and multiple hard plastic surfaces.

Sure, the touchscreen is easy enough to operate, but it sometimes takes a few finger stabs to hit the sweet spot you’re after, and thankfully there are dials and buttons off-screen as alternatives for air con controls, etc.

There’s a satisfactory number of storage spaces in the front including two cupholders between the seats, a few little receptacles for your everyday carry gear, and bottle holders in each of the front doors.

The back seat is short on cupholders – there are none – but there are bottle holders in the doors, and the passengers back there get a USB-A port, a map pocket (in the back of the front passenger’s seat) and flip-down grab handles. There are no directional air vents.

Back-seat room is satisfactory for an adult without being spacious, but fine for kids. What do you expect in a small SUV?

In terms of packability, the cargo area (with the rear seat up and in use) yields a listed 352 litres of space. The rear seats are in a 60/40 split fold configuration and with them folded down there is a listed 1155 litres of useable room.

The rear cargo area has bag hooks, a storage space in the left-hand inner wall, and tie-down points at each corner of the floor.

A steel space-saver spare wheel is under the cargo area floor.

The Kia Stonic is available in three grades – the S ($25,460), our test vehicle, the mid-spec Sport ($28,590) and the GT-Line ($31,780), all prices excluding on-road costs. All have five seats.

Standard features include an 8.0-inch touchscreen multimedia system (with wired Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), satellite navigation, digital radio, two USB charging ports, single-zone climate control, six-way manual driver’s seat adjustment, a premium shift knob, premium steering wheel, and Tricot cloth trim seats.

It also has 17-inch alloy wheels, push-button start and rear privacy glass.

Standard paint is 'Clear White', but premium options including 'Sparkling Silver', 'Astro Grey', 'Aurora Black Pearl', 'Signal Red', 'Sporty Blue', 'Honeybee' and 'Snow White Pearl' cost $520.

Normally we cover the design and practicality before we get under the bonnet but you’re on a fact-finding mission and I’m your guide, your guide to cars. That would be a good website name.

Okay, the Sportage SX Hybrid has a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol sporty and fuel-efficient engine making 132kW and 265Nm. There’s also an electric motor producing 44kW and 264Nm. Their combined output is 169kW/350Nm.  

The hybrid variants are front-wheel drive only and have a six-speed automatic transmission. 

It’s a great engine, smooth transmission and the way the motor interacts is almost seamless. 

This isn’t a plug-in hybrid, either. The batteries recharge automatically through regenerative braking. Really, for Australia, this type of hybrid is the way to go, offering superb range and no anxiety about charging.

The 2025 Kia Sonic Sport has a 1.0-litre three-cylinder turbo-petrol engine – producing 74kW at 4500-6000rpm and 172Nm at 1500-4000rpm – and that’s paired with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission. 

This pairing is a mostly punchy one, although definite lagginess is evident from a standing start often enough that it’s a disconcerting characteristic rather than a mildly annoying one.

This turbocharged engine used to only be offered in the top-spec GT-Line, so it’s a welcome addition to the other grades.

Kia says that after a combination of open and urban roads the Sportage SX Hybrid will use 4.9L/100km. The petrol SX with the 2.0-litre engine and front-wheel drive uses 8.1L/100km.

In our own fuel test we recorded 6.9L/100km which was mostly urban with a couple of motorway trips during the week.

Getting back to our earlier question regarding the money you’ll save in fuel. I’ve worked it out using actual maths.

So, using Kia’s official fuel economy of 4.9L/00km, that’s 3.2L/100km less than the 2.0-litre petrol SX and if fuel is $2 per litre you’re saving $6.40 for every 100km you drive in comparison.

Now, $6.40 goes into $8400 (the extra you’ve paid for the hybrid) 1312.5 times. Multiply that by 100 to get the number of kilometres you’ll need to travel. So, that’s 131,250km you’ll need to go to save the $8400 in fuel. 

Most Aussies do 10,000 kays a years on average. That means you’re looking at over 13 years. Tell you what, the person who buys it second hand will get the best deal because they really will save money on fuel. 

It’s true the Sportage Hybrid is fuel efficient and I’ve scored it very well for that, but if it was me I’d be looking to buy one second hand so I wasn’t getting hit hard with the new car hybrid price premium.

Kia's official fuel consumption figure for the Stonic Sport is 5.4L/100km, on a combined (urban/extra-urban) cycle. And on this test I recorded 8.2L/100km.

The Stonic Sport has an 45-litre fuel tank so, going by my on-test fuel figure, you could reasonably expect a driving range of about 548km from a full tank. 

Fuel requirement is 91 RON 'standard' unleaded.

The Sportage SX Hybrid is better to drive than the petrol SX with the 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine. It starts silently thanks to the electric motor and will coast away serenely until you need to move faster and come to a hill where you need the power of the engine.

The brake pedal feel is better than I’ve experienced in many hybrid cars and the transition from engine to motor is almost seamless.

The ride is comfortable, there’s no jiggle over potholes and handling isn’t bad for this type of family SUV. 

The only negative point to report is that because the hybrid Sportage is front-wheel drive, there can be a loss of traction if you accelerate hard from a standstill on a wet road or while climbing a steep hill.

If you’ve never driven a hybrid before, you’ll be absolutely fine - the only thing you'll need to get used to is turning the key and not detecting any engine noise.

The Stonic Sport is a handy urban conveyance, but it is far from perfect.

It’s a small, light vehicle so it’s nimble for navigating through car-packed streets and convenient for tricky parking manoeuvres.

Steering is well weighted and precise.

And the turbocharged petrol engine is a welcome addition to the Stonic package, introducing a handy amount of power and torque which is sensibly harnessed and delivered – most of the time anyway – via the mostly clever transmission.

However, in stop-start, inner-city traffic or even a busy suburban area, the Stonic Sport struggles to get off the mark from a standstill, so much so that this one characteristic threatens to spoil the rest of the driving experience. 

Once the Sport is out on the open road, it’s a pleasant cruiser as this compact SUV simply rolls along.

Ride is firm – 17-inch wheels and low-profile tyres are the culprits here – and handling is impressive.

In terms of refinement the Stonic is mostly, um, fine but there is some tyre noise, especially over rougher roads out of the city, but it’s not terrible.

Every Stonic has three drive modes – 'Normal', 'Sport' and 'Eco' – each of which tweaks throttle response, engine output and transmission settings to best suit the driver and conditions. 

The Stonic is generally a reasonable daily driver, but the absence of adaptive cruise control is a let-down when it comes to highway running.

Not that you’ll be buying a Stonic with the aim of skull-dragging a 3500kg caravan along the highway, but it’s handy to know this Kia SUV’s towing capacities are 450kg (unbraked trailer) and 900kg (braked).

The Kia Stonic has the maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating as a result of testing in 2017, but that rating is set to expire in 2025.

Standard safety features include six airbags (dual front, front side and full-length curtain), as well as a suite of driver-assist tech, including AEB (with forward collision warning, car, pedestrian and cyclist detection), lane-keep assist, front and rear parking sensors and blind-spot collision avoidance. But it doesn’t have adaptive cruise control which is disappointing in this day and age.