The midsize Kia Sorento is already getting a refresh, and we’ll see it at the 2023 LA Auto Show.
“Accelerate your imagination” — those are the words Kia published ahead of its “mysterious” reveal this Thursday at the LA Auto Show. Thing is, there’s little mystery about what’s coming down the pike: It’s the facelifted Kia Sorento.
There are a couple caveats to mention about today’s announcement, though. One: We do already know what it looks like, as the automaker already revealed the car in South Korea back in July. Barring minor changes (or, even rarer, radical differences) from market to market, the car we’ll see here will be largely identical to what you may have seen this summer.
The other caveat: The electrified versions of the current Kia Sorento will carry over for the 2024 model year. So, while the exclusively gas-powered refreshed models may land sometime near the middle of next year, it seems like we’ll have some overlap between the Sorento Hybrid/PHEV models with the old body style and this revamped version. That’s not a given yet, though we may have some clarity once this car makes its North American debut this Thursday at 11:05 AM PST (if you think it’s weird that it’s 5 minutes after the hour, that’s because of the LA Auto Show press conference schedule).
Kia launched a new styling paradigm with the large, electric EV9 crossover, and that ethos is now filtering out to the brand’s other models. The updated Sorento gets a vertical headlight arrangement as well as daytime running lights that cut into the top of the reshaped grille. The tiger nose is still there, because Kia, though it is a little less pronounced than it used to be in past models.
Assuming Kia will largely carry over the Korean-market Sorento to the U.S., we’ll get a pair of 12.3-inch screens as the focal point, along with a few minor styling tweaks to the HVAC layout and switchgear.
Stay tuned on Thursday for our LA Auto Show coverage, where we’ll cover this news alongside all the other important updates from this year’s event. Apart from the styling changes, the Sorento should perform broadly the same as the current model, which you can check out below:
