Kia Sportage vs Volkswagen Touareg

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.

A car as impressive as it is frustrating, the Touareg R is a vehicle for a very specific buyer. Someone whose daily commute consists of limited distances, someone who can always charge at home overnight and someone who appreciates the subtlety of the performance and luxury the Touareg brings.

For everyone else - there are better options. Performance-focused PHEVs can be tricky to charge and extract the full benefit from, and at this price you have access to some serious performance-oriented combustion SUVs or the choice of going fully electric.

While this R-badged VW might be the most mind-bending of the lot then, it also has the most 'specific' appeal.

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.

The Touareg, as always, screams big Volkswagen. It’s more subtle than the Porsche Cayenne and Audi Q7 with which it shares its underpinnings, yet looks as slick as either up close.

It’s defined in its face by a massive black grille, integrated light fittings, and as usual with Volkswagen, some pretty subtle highlights and tail-lights in attractive LED patterns.

The wheels sell the vibe of an R. They’re enormous and gloss black, matching the theme and style of its smaller siblings, black highlight trims replace chrome or body colour bits to set it apart from the rest of the range.

It doesn’t look quite as modern as something like Kia’s Sorento or EV9, and it doesn’t look as elegant as the Volvo XC90 or as defined as the Land Rover Defender, all in the same price bracket.

This helps the Touareg maintain a certain mainstream appeal, and a sporty edge, without being too egregious.

Still, some might want some more overt visual flourish to indicate they’re driving a vehicle which is capable of sprinting to 100km/h from a standstill in 5.1 seconds.

Perhaps I’m in a different camp, one which appreciates the ‘sleeper’ nature of a giant family SUV capable of incredible driving feats when pushed.

Inside is always a pleasant surprise in a Touareg. While it might be the most affordable of the giant SUVs on this platform, it maintains the air of luxury and plush nature of its more expensive counterparts from Audi and Porsche.

You’re met by nicely trimmed leather seats and a chunky VW R steering wheel, massive screens and lavish amounts of padded leather surfaces everywhere. It feels every bit the luxury SUV the price indicates, in case you were worried you’d be getting something which feels more like a T-Roc than an Audi. For what it’s worth I quite like all the Volkswagen switchgear.

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.

It’s a big SUV with big interior dimensions. It feels spacious and wide on the inside with a large centre console area for spreading out and a highly adjustable driver’s seat.

The seats are plush and comfortable, and visibility is pretty solid out of the cabin. Again, you're greeted by excellent touchpoints, from the steering wheel to the door cards and there’s even lashings of padded leather trim down the sides of the centre console for your knee to rest on.

Volkswagen’s screens are usually some of the best in the business and that continues here. They’re bright, sharp and served up with attractive and mostly functional and easy-to-navigate software.

The hardware behind them is also enough to keep them lightning fast when reacting to inputs, with satisfyingly smooth animations, too.

The one thing I like a bit less is how a few of the menus can be confounding. It took me a while to figure out I needed to set the default battery level higher than its current charge to get the engine to stay on, and I’d also love a button to simply switch between EV and hybrid mode.

In fact, the lack of buttons is one of the major issues in this car. Sure, the enormous centre screen is an impressive feature, syncing up with the dash design nicely, but you’re also forced to negotiate with touch elements for key climate functions. No matter how fast or slick the software is, there’s no compensating for a toggle or dial you can easily reach while you’re focused on the road.

For what it’s worth, the wireless Apple CarPlay worked seamlessly with the car in my time with it (and looked good too) while the wireless charger is rubberised and in a good location so your phone will be able to at least maintain its state of charge on the go.

Storage is plentiful up front, with large pockets with integrated bottle holders in each door, a large dual cupholder set-up in the centre console with variable edges and a large armrest console box.

In the back seat I have enough room for myself behind my own driving position at 182cm tall. It’s plenty wide and tall, but I don’t feel as though I had an enormous amount of legroom considering the size of the vehicle.

Still, the width will give you space for three adults across in relative comfort. Yes, there’s a large raise in the floor in the centre position to accommodate the all-wheel drive hardware underneath, but the width of the floor should allow a centre passenger to put their feet on either side.

Big door openings and the wide cabin make for easy child seat fitting, and there's even built-in window shades alongside two rear climate zones with physical controls, large bottle holders in the doors and a drop-down armrest, with some flimsy nets on the backs of the front seats to round things out.

Boot space is allegedly enormous at a quoted 810 litres, but the shape of it is less than ideal. Sure it’s nice and wide and oblong shaped at the base, but the rake of the boot quickly eats into the amount of height available, making it tricky to fit larger objects.

The space accommodated our CarsGuide three-piece luggage set with ease, but it didn’t leave much room to spare. It doesn’t feel like it’s double the 400 litre space typical of a one size-down SUV. 

There’s also a needlessly complex two-piece shelf, which lifts with the tailgate, but the boot wouldn’t completely close with the luggage set present unless you removed it. To the Touareg’s credit, the second row seats hinge forward significantly to expand space by a fair bit.

Under the floor there’s only a repair kit, as the huge PHEV battery takes up the rest of the space. A decidedly less than ideal flat tyre option.

Is the Touareg R good value? Seems like a silly question doesn’t it?

One school of thought says, of course it isn’t. Nobody needs a giant $129,990 (before on-road costs) SUV which is this fast. What the halo Touareg variant has always offered is excess with a modest exterior wrapper.

On the other hand, the Touareg R is great value when you consider you’re getting much the same hardware as a Porsche Cayenne S E-Hybrid ($188,600) with a Volkswagen badge.

In its size and price-bracket, the Touareg R directly rivals the Land Rover Defender 110 PHEV ($126,184), Lexus RX HEV ($127,434), Range Rover Velar PHEV ($131,536) and Volvo XC90 Ultra T8 PHEV ($128,390).

I see two problems with this. Firstly, all of those price rivals are premium brands, and secondly, at the circa-$130K price-tag there’s also the awkward reality you could be choosing one of a few very appealing fully-electric options, from the Kia EV9 GT-Line ($121,000), to the Polestar 3 ($131,054), Mercedes-Benz EQE ($134,900) and BMW iX ($136,900).

So, it’s great value from one perspective, but not so much from a few others. Then again, this is the biggest, baddest Volkswagen you can currently buy, so whether you’re in the market for an R-badged car or a PHEV of this size, you’re likely familiar with a six-figure price-tag.

Do you at least score good equipment for the money? Aside from all the complex drivetrain hardware, this VW is an impressive place to be, with extensive plush leather interior trim in the seats and doors, power adjust for the front two positions with heating and ventilation, a 12.0-inch digital dash with Volkswagen’s slick-as-ever digital cockpit software, a head-up display, a massive 15.0-inch multimedia touchscreen (with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto), matching wireless phone charger and quad-zone climate control.

Outside, there’s the brand’s signature matrix LED headlights, massive gloss black 22-inch alloy wheels, enormous ventilated disc brakes and a sports exhaust with air suspension hiding below.

It’s a lot of kit for a mainstream SUV, and performance, which we’ll talk about later, is impressive (with a few caveats). 

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 Touareg offers a performance-focused plug-in hybrid (PHEV) drivetrain. Usually this means a little turbo four-cylinder engine and an electric motor, but instead this big SUV offers a 100kW electric motor and a 3.0-litre V6 turbo-petrol engine which combine for a whomping “total system power” of 340kW/700Nm.

This allows a 0-100km/h sprint time of just 5.1 seconds. Power is sent to all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission and Torsen central differential. Up to 70 per cent of power can be sent to the front wheels, with up to 80 per cent of power going to the rear.

It is capable of driving at up to 135km/h under electric power alone, with the V6 kicking in beyond that speed.

It’s a rare set-up for two reasons. Firstly, it’s a plug in which maintains a large six-cylinder engine, and it runs even electric power through the transmission to all four wheels.

Some PHEV rivals, for example, use front combustion-drive only with no mechanical connection between the engine and the rear axle, which is driven purely electrically.

When it comes to towing specs, the Touareg offers solid official figures of 750kg for an unbraked trailer and 3500kg braked, although the maximum towball download is 220kg.

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.

Like other plug-in hybrids, the official combined (urban/extra-urban) cycle fuel efficiency number for the Touareg R is an eyebrow-raisingly low figure which you know won’t be achievable in the real world, but is probably technically feasible in lab-style conditions. 

In this case, it’s 3.3L/100km. When I picked up the car it had a low charge level, and the next day I was able to top it up to just 50 per cent because I don’t have a power point in my garage, and the achingly slow 3.6kW maximum AC charging speed is severely limiting if you need to rely on the public network, as the 17.9kWh battery is relatively large.

This should bring you to the obvious conclusion the Touareg R is not a good hybrid if you can’t charge at home, as you’ll never extract the full benefit of the electric set-up. Perhaps adding evidence to this is its official energy consumption which comes in at a painful 21.1kWh/100km.

As for hydrocarbons, in my week of driving (in which I tried to pick up charge wherever I could) I saw over 14L/100km. Makes sense for a heavy petrol V6 SUV. I’d say you’re likely to see a figure like this on a longer journey or if you drive it with enthusiasm as the R badge encourages. To add additional pain, it requires 98RON premium unleaded fuel.

With a realistic maximum pure-electric range of closer to 40km compared to the official WLTP-rated 51km (more on this in the driving section of the review), the R is also best for people whose daily commute is relatively short.

I can’t imagine, for example, the best benefit of this car will be extracted from someone who lives in the urban sprawl and commutes to the city every day with distances in excess of 50km for a return journey.

Additionally, the hybrid mode is very EV-heavy, draining the battery relatively quickly unless you manually put it in preservation mode.

For nerds who could be bothered, this mode is potentially a nifty feature allowing retention of some EV range at the end of a long freeway journey. But it takes a certain buyer to even be bothered with this.

Can you see why plug-less hybrids are the Australian new car buyer’s electrification configuration of choice?

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.

Here’s where things get a bit frustrating, and your experience will vary dramatically depending on how you use this car.

One thing we can get out of the way immediately is the Touareg is deeply technically impressive when you attack a few corners. Its immediate electric thrust is capable of propelling this large object forward with eye-widening speed, and the air suspension, wide grippy tyres, Torsen centre differential and tidy steering tune conspire to make it mind-bending to carve corners in.

It’s flat, stable, and far more accurate and agile than expected. The only hint as to the sheer physics of wrangling the Touareg around bends is the tyres screaming out in agony as the suspension and all-wheel drive system work their magic to keep it all under control.

Once the electric torque pushes you out from the corner, the deep satisfying thrum of the 3.0-litre petrol V6 quickly takes over as you lurch forward on the almost fluid-feeling suspension. It’s laugh-out-loud satisfying and certainly enough to capture passengers' attention.

In this sense, the R fulfils its mission of transforming the big Touareg into a handling and acceleration hero, but despite all the cleverness it doesn’t feel as sharp or lean as the Golf R, T-Roc R or Tiguan R.

There’s still a massive battery, as well as huge complexity and weight to deal with, no matter how technically fast it is. There’s always the unsettling feeling of this amount of weight moving around, and the occasional slight delay from the transmission as it figures out what’s going on between the electric motor and big engine.

Then there are the compromises. Normally, I’m a huge fan of how plush and luxurious the Touareg feels. It’s usually such a step above its station in the VW Group, occasionally even feeling preferable to its platform relations, but the R has some issues.

For a start, the enormous 22-inch wheels and low-profile tyres ruin the day-to-day ride quality, crashing over bumps and road imperfections, despite the fact there’s also air suspension supposedly providing a buffer between you and the tarmac.

Even in the more comfort-oriented drive settings you can hear and feel every bit the moment the wheels contact a pothole or bump. Clearly, it’s tuned more toward handling than maintaining the same luxury feel as the rest of the range.

The transmission is also occasionally hesitant, either from a standing start or when switching between electric thrust and the engine. This is much better when the battery is charged up from the reserve level, as there isn’t enough charge when driving around as a hybrid to push a big, heavy (and always) all-wheel drive very far.

But hybrid driving is also frustrating, for reasons mainly related to the software. With the battery charged, the 51km of claimed driving range feels a tad ambitious. I was able to charge it to about 50 per cent (the battery is huge, at 17.9kWh, and I could only pull about 3.5kW from a local AC charging unit) and scored about 20km of driving range.

It drains quickly, even in the hybrid driving mode, as it relies on the electric motor a lot for initial take-off.

This means unless you set the battery preserve mode manually in the hybrid settings screen, it will likely run the battery dry before you’re even able to get it somewhere where it can take full advantage of the extra electric thrust.

As an electric vehicle it’s also only alright. The short time I was able to spend in full EV mode proved the battery will drain faster than advertised, and the regen is so-so for assisting in braking.

Other more performance-focused PHEVs suffer the same issue. For example, I felt largely the same way about the much-maligned four-cylinder PHEV Mercedes-AMG C63.

While hybrids like this may be impressive when conditions are ideal, they’re ultimately frustrating to use in reality. It’s a shame, because I wanted to like it more but it doesn’t quite capture the same magic of its R-badged forebears and siblings.

All of the safety kit is standard and present on the Touareg R, including autobahn-speed auto emergency braking, lane keep assist with lane departure warning, front and rear cross-traffic alert, blind spot monitoring, road sign recognition, driver fatigue detection, a surround view camera and adaptive cruise control.

The best part is these systems not only work, but they’re well calibrated so they generally don’t interfere with the core driving experience.

Additionally, the Touareg has a suite of eight airbags and maintains a maximum five-star ANCAP safety rating achieved in 2018.