The Kia Sportage is staging a Philippine market comeback soon as a turbo-hybrid entry in the compact SUV space. But how much longer will the wait be until we see it in dealerships and on the road? It’s hard to say, but its appearance in the Department of Energy’s list of recognized electric vehicles might mean an arrival sooner rather than later.
Two trims are currently registered on the list: SX and EX, both front-wheel-drive variants. While a technical specification document is attached, it doesn’t specify any features exclusive to a higher trim (likely the SX based on Kia’s variant naming scheme for its local lineup).
The document lists the Kia Sportage’s measurements at 4,685mm long, 1,865mm wide, and 1,660mm tall. Different height measurements are also listed to account for an equipped roof rack. An X-Line Sportage (as driven by our executive editor Sharleen in South Korea) with a roof rack is 20mm taller than standard, for example.
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Given these numbers, the Kia Sportage is virtually the same size as its Hyundai Motor Group cousin, the Tucson—makes sense, since they share a platform. Next to counterparts from Japan and China, however, the Sportage is slightly smaller than the Toyota RAV4 and the BYD Sealion 6.
The turbo-hybrid setup’s combined system output has been left blank in the specs document, so we can only state power output from individual components. The 1.6-liter turbocharged engine makes 178hp and 265Nm of torque, while the electric motor makes 64hp and 264Nm of torque.
From this, we can still expect combined system power similar to the hybrid Kia Sorento’s 232hp and 367Nm of torque. If we’re right and the Sportage makes around that much power, we can also expect it to be on the frugal side with fuel consumption (in mixed conditions, the Sorento was able to hit 15km/L).
All in all, the available spec sheet doesn’t reveal as much as we would like. Looks like we’ll need to wait a bit more until more information officially reveals itself. In the meantime, Kia will be present at the 2026 Philippine International Motor Show. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more about the Korean brand’s plans.
