New Kia Sportage teaser reveals drastic styling change

• Mid-life facelift for the Kia Sportage
• Will adopt headlight design from Kia EV9
• Expected to arrive next year

You’re looking at the first teaser images of the new Kia Sportage, the updated version of one the UK’s best-selling SUVs. The Nissan Qashqai rival is now in its fifth generation and has been on sale since 2021, so this update arrives around halfway through its expected lifecycle.

The shadowy teaser images don’t give away too many clues, but there are some key styling changes that will help to modernise the Sportage and keep it competitive against the Hyundai Tucson, Volkswagen Tiguan and Peugeot 3008.

What can we see in the Kia Sportage teaser images?

The handful of teaser images aren’t hugely revealing, but they do highlight the key styling change for this facelift. Up front, we can see that the Sportage will adopt a new set of headlights, replacing the somewhat polarising design of the current car.

The new lights show a clear resemblance to those fitted to the Kia EV9 electric SUV, which has served as the design flagship for the South Korean brand in recent months – its design language has also filtered down to the new Sorento, EV3 and Picanto. The slim ‘Star Map’ LED daytime-running lights give the face a more angular look, and sit either side of a new front grille. The two nostril-like air intakes above the grille appear to remain, while the tail-lights have been given a new lighting signature to match the front.

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The image of the new Sportage’s silhouette shows that its overall size and shape hasn’t changed, but the new lights are clearly visible front and back. It’s worth noting that the car in these images is the Sportage LWB (long-wheelbase) which isn’t sold in Europe, but the styling changes here are expected to find their way to SWB (short-wheelbase) cars, too.

We don't expect there to be any changes under the bonnet for this facelift. The current car’s 1.6-litre petrol engine should still be offered with three degrees of electrification – a mild hybrid, a self-charging hybrid and a plug-in hybrid – and all but the most affordable models will get an automatic gearbox. Four-wheel drive should still be offered for top-spec models, too, and we could even see a small range increase for the plug-in hybrid variant. The current car tops out at around 40 miles of range, which is some way off the 80-mile range of the latest Volkswagen Tiguan.

How much will the new Kia Sportage cost?

Official pricing will be confirmed after the new Sportage is fully revealed, but we’d expect a small price increase over the current car. That could see the starting price rise from around £29,000 to £31,000, with range-topping models costing around £47,000.

The Kia Sportage has some serious rivals – read about the best mid-size SUVs on sale…