Upgraded 2023 Kia Sorento coming

The Kia Sorento will score a major mid-life refresh in 2023, bringing upgraded design, equipment and tech amid rampant ongoing demand for the award-winning large SUV.

Three years on from the fourth-generation Kia Sorento’s release, the 2020 carsales Car of the Year found more than 1000 homes in Australia last month and continues to command long (albeit shrinking) delivery waiting times.

Speaking with carsales this month, Kia Australia product planning boss Roland Rivero confirmed the Sorento would receive a mid-life update in the second half of 2023 without giving specific details.

“The next few years are going to be very exciting for us but a couple of cars are reaching the mid-point of their lifecycles,” he said.

“The Sorento is approaching the middle of its life, so expect a facelift for that later in 2023.”

Already offered with four powertrain options – two of them hybrid – the Sorento has won over droves of fans since the current model’s arrival.

Of particular interest in the past 12 months has been the highly specified GT-Line hybrid and plug-in hybrid options, although both have been hamstrung by limited Australian production.

Rivero indicated the relatively minor hybrid mix would continue for the foreseeable future, and that Kia was unlikely to introduce more affordable variants of either.

“In terms of powertrain options, the Sorento is probably the most versatile in market. Because we can’t get many hybrids and plug-in hybrids – Europe gets the lion’s share and the hybrid production is out of South Korea, so North America’s demand for hybrid also comes out of there,” Rivero explained.

“For Europe in particular, the bulk of their Sorento range is hybrid because of CO2 regulation. That’s why it’s hard for us to roll out more variants than GT-Line – we’ve kept the range at GT-Line for now because we can’t get that much supply and we’ve already got a huge glut of backorders.”

Kia Australia chief operating officer Damien Meredith said wait times for the Kia Sorento had come down since their peaks earlier this year, when prospective buyers were having to wait almost a year for delivery.

“We sold another 1000 Sorentos last month. We could probably do 15 to 20 per cent more if we had stock. The demand has been incredible,” he said.

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