Kia Niro Isn't Love At First Sight, But It Makes A Lot Of Sense

Despite not being its maker’s first hybrid, the Kia Niro has the task of being the one that gets it right.

Kia, and its parent and collaborator Hyundai, aren’t a byword for electrification despite being in the game for the better part of a decade with a pair of hybridized family sedans, the Optima and Sonata, respectively.

And yet the Korean brands make no secret of exploring alternative propulsion and setting sights on the hybrid leader, Toyota.

The Kia Niro, therefore, is one car with the unenviable task of convincing the world it can out-hybrid the hybrid that made hybrids a thing. Yet it isn’t about to shout or complain about it. Instead, it tries to seduce with logic.

Kia would like to think the Niro is some kind of answer to the subcompact crossover boom it has only partially answered so far with the funky Soul. The Niro, while larger and more contemporary looking, is no more than a tall Forte wagon.

It's based on the same platform as the Hyundai Ioniq, a compact platform the two share for their electrified vehicles right now. But 171.5 inches (4,356.1 mm) long, it’s smack in the Honda HR-V and Mini Countryman territory.


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Even though the doors themselves feel tall, the Niro isn’t perched as high off the ground as even some of the lowest SUVs, something I realized when I somehow managed to smack my head into the tailgate latch the first day I had it.

Before I did that, the Niro seemed clean, but fairly anonymous in the way it looks. It might actually be trying too hard to be normal, especially painted in the Silky Silver paint like my test car. If anything, it looks like a slightly squished version of Kia’s own Sportage compact SUV, which isn’t a bad thing if you find the Sportage too weird in front.

But a crossover? I don’t see it, even after being hit on the head.

2018 Jaguar E-Pace First Drive

Although adjacent alphabetically in lists of major automakers, Jaguar and Jeep are polar opposites, but that isn’t keeping Jaguar from following in Jeep’s footsteps. Jeep is a pioneer in minting money with overlapping crossover offerings: Its Renegade, Compass, and Cherokee span less than 16 inches of overall length and are all available with the same 2.4-liter Tigershark four-cylinder, and each somehow pulls its weight on the sales charts without stealing (too many) customers from the others.

As it wades into the crossover arena, Jaguar is taking note. The F-Pace—a name contrived from F as in -type, that super-sexy roadster, and Pace as in . . . well, how much time do you have to delve into some heroically contrived marketing bullshit?—launched just last year, and already it nearly matches the combined sales of every other Jaguar model. So, for its second SUV, Jaguar introduces the E-Pace, which is just over 13 inches shorter and also falls between the Range Rover Evoque and the Land Rover Discovery Sport, which means JLR is out-crowding even Jeep.

The biggest distinction between the F and the E, though, is the latter’s front-drive roots. Like the Evoque on which it’s based, the E-Pace’s chassis consists of struts up front and a multilink rear suspension, with a turbocharged inline-four hitched to ZF’s nine-speed automatic transmission. European markets will get both front-drive and diesel options, but U.S. buyers will choose only between two strengths of gasoline four. There’s standard all-wheel drive or an optional version dubbed Active Driveline that offers front- and all-wheel-drive functions. New Car 2018 Review

Forced Fours

For this first encounter, we were limited to the uprated engine, producing 296 horsepower and 295 lb-ft of torque. With output figures of 246 and 269, the entry-level engine promises to be capable of a fair, uh, pace as well. We’re told the sole difference between the two engines is in how much turbo boost they swallow. But these being members of Jaguar’s new Ingenium engine family, even the higher-output 2.0-liter is far more civilized than the Ford EcoBoost–derived unit that preceded it in the JLR portfolio. It’s vastly more linear at partial throttle, and the nine-speed is calibrated here for quicker, smoother action than we’ve noted in recent encounters with this transmission in Land Rovers. We found few opportunities for full-throttle acceleration on the narrow country lanes between London and Brighton, England, but with nearly 300 horsepower in a 4200-pound wrapper, the E-Pace should have no trouble keeping up with compatriots in the subcompact-luxury segment.