Kia Sportage gets turbocharged engine

The Kia Sportage has yet to be launched in the Philippines after the rest of the world received their respective variants of the compact sport-utility vehicle nearly a year ago. While we're mourning over our poor predicament, the Korean carmaker has decided to tease us even further by introducing a turbocharged variant.

The Sportage's new flagship engine is a 2.0-liter turbocharged Gasoline Direct Injection (GDI) inline-four powerplant. While Kia neglected to mention the power output of the engine, the carmaker did say that it has the power of a V6 mill "while achieving the fuel economy of a four-cylinder engine."

According to Kia, this is made possible by injecting highly-pressurized fuel directly into the cylinder instead of the intake tract, resulting in a more complete combustion that produces the aforementioned benefits. The turbo, meanwhile, is a twin-scroll design which greatly reduces the turbo spool-up lag time and gives the engine a desirable flat torque curve.

"The introduction of the 2.0L Turbo GDI engine to the Kia lineup is extremely exciting and is intended to showcase Kia's dedication to developing and utilizing state-of-the-art technology in Kia's design-led vehicle evolution," Kia said in its statement. "Technology such as GDI and Turbo allow Kia to design vehicles that achieve top tier performance, produce fewer emissions and opens the door to extraordinary fuel economy numbers. These powertrains will be the staple to designing future vehicles that utilize this combination of impressive technology."

If only this engine will make its way to the country--that is, once Kia's authorized local distributor, Columbian Carmakers Corporation, finally puts the all-new Sportage on sale in the market.