• by Tanya Gazdik , Staff Writer, 5 hours ago

I’ll never forget the first time I drove the Kia Sportage hybrid vs. the non-hybrid back to back. 

All I could think was, why would anyone not go for the hybrid? The hybrid didn’t offer AWD. That’s a bit of a sacrifice if you are an off-road enthusiast but let’s be honest, most people don’t actually take their SUVs off-road. 

It doesn’t matter; now you can get both hybrid and AWD together, which was the case with the X-Line model I test drove. 

So that brings us to today's test drives: the Kia Carnival Hybrid SX Prestige and the Sportage PHEV X-Line Prestige AWD. (Prestige means these vehicles include EVERY available option and spare no expense.)

While the bells and whistles are abundant, it’s the gas mileage that makes my heart swoon. 

The Sportage hybrid is the best of both worlds. It delivers 34 miles of pure electric power before the gasoline engine kicks in. The combined electric/gas field economy is a whopping 83 mpg. 

It takes a mere two hours to charge on a 240 volt plug — so nothing fancy needed at home.  If you don’t want to be bothered with recharging, the gas mileage alone is 36 mph. Still not shabby! 

My favorite feature (if you can call it that) was the distinctive matte finish (shadow gray matte), which really highlighted the striking roof line on a side view.

The Carnival hybrid doesn’t offer the pure electric component, but still delivers 31 highway, 34 city for 32 mp combined. 

I was shocked when I got in the car and saw I had 608 miles of range. I had a 200 mile round-trip planned, and that barely put a dent in it. 

Despite its sliding door  the automaker declines to call it a minivan. Instead, according to Kia, it's a multipurpose vehicle, or MPV. Indeed it is, and it was the cargo space to hold all the gear you can imagine.  

Kia recently launched a spot highlighting its six hybrid models, including the Carnival and Sportage. 

“People don't give us credit for that,” Kia America's vice president of marketing, Russell Wager, tells Marketing Daily. "They know one or two, but they don't know that we've got a full lineup of SUVs and a Carnival and a Niro, and so that's the purpose for this communication. That's why we started here, to let people know that we whatever you need, we've  probably got an offering that's a hybrid.”