You may be familiar with the km77.com team by now – the guys take various modern cars and test them for evasive capacities. This Kia Sportage PHEV may be running on the same tech as the plug-in hybrid version of the Hyundai Tucson, but, unlike that one, it fares really poorly at lane switching.
For starters, the team conducted a slalom test. The driver was able to avoid hitting any traffic cones and completed the run in 24 seconds, just like he did driving a Hyundai Tuscon several days ago. Both cars were shod in Michelin Primacy tires inflated to their recommended pressure. The Kia Sportage was even praised for its better perceived handling.
Things went downhill from there, as the Sportage proceeded to fail two moose tests in a row, hitting multiple cones every time. It never made a clean run at 77 km/h (47.8 mph), the acceleration required to pass the test. It ultimately barely managed to pass the test at 71 km/h (44.1 mph), considerably below the 74 km/h (46 mph) of the Hyundai Tucson. It also made the second and the third lane shifts at 60 and 38 km/h (37.3 and 23.6 mph), respectively, both worse speeds than the Tucson showed during its recent test.
It remains unclear just why two technically similar cars showed such different results, km77.com concluded. The crew had no harsh criticisms to share regarding its handling and noticed no excessive ESP activations. In the end, the driver urged the viewers not to choose between these two cars solely based on the results of this seemingly odd test.
