My first encounter with a Kia Niro was a brief affair. What should have been a very short drive stretched to half an hour after a wrong turn or two. But being late to return didn't seem as important as enjoying the Maryland countryside and the little hybrid's relaxing and economical performance. After all, when was the last time I managed to get 40mpg driving anywhere, in anything?

The Niro I got lost in at the Washington Automotive Press Association's annual rally intrigued me, so I was glad to schedule a week with one with the hope of finding out if that first impression was accurate. As it turned out, the answer was: mostly. Along the way, it made a very convincing case for itself.

It looks like a crossover—a vital attribute if you want to find a buyer in 2018—but it's not lifted up into the air, so the handling is completely car-like. The interior isn't particularly luxurious, but it is well-appointed and spacious. With prices starting at $23,340, it's not particularly expensive either, and it doesn't use much gas—although in a diet of mainly city driving, I was unable to match that initial surprising result.

Kia

Kia

Kia

Kia

Kia

Kia

Kia

Kia

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Is it a crossover?

The taxonomy of an automobile can be a fraught affair. First there was the sports utility vehicle. Arguably invented with the Range Rover, they tend to be big and boxy, with agricultural roots (and drivetrains and suspension). And for some of us, this term was good enough of a hold-all to contain all those vehicles that weren't trucks but also weren't sedans or coupes or station wagons, either.

But then taxonomists started getting picky. Some SUVs feature body-on-frame construction. But others are derived from monocoque chassis car architectures. Some don't have permanent all-wheel drive; some are even (dare I say it) front-wheel drive. And so we got the crossover (more formally the Crossover Utility Vehicle or CUV, but no one calls them that). With as pejorative a use of quotation marks as I've ever seen, Wikipedia describes the crossover thus:

Crossover vehicles are described by "automaker marketing departments"[1], but are "generally a tall, four-door hatchback, which may have all-wheel drive along with extra ground clearance resembling an SUV"[2].

The reason I got into this whole digression is that I'm still not entirely sure if that description leaves room for the Niro. It's just over two inches taller than a Volkswagen Golf but only rides about an inch higher. That and how the Niro is styled would argue in favor of it being a crossover. But how do we account for the fact that I sit much closer to the ground in a Niro than I did in a recent Kia Soul rental car? (Car and Driver measured both h-points; the Niro is at 23.1 inches, the Soul is 25.6 inches.) Perhaps this is all unimportant.

What does matter is that it's perfectly roomy on the inside. There's adequate room in the back to put full-size adults, and the cargo space is plentiful with the rear seats up (19.4 cubic feet/549L) or flat (54.5 cubic feet/1,543L). The cabin plastics won't give Audi a scare any time soon, but the ergonomics are sound, and the controls on the multifunction steering wheel have been intuitively placed.

It’s a hybrid, but the plug-in comes later this year

The heart of every Niro is a 1.6L, four-cylinder engine. It's a rather clever little unit, made from aluminum with double overhead camshafts (so four valves per cylinder), gasoline direct injection, and cooled exhaust gas recirculation. It has been designed with a long stroke (how far the piston travels within the cylinder) and a narrow bore (the diameter of the cylinder) and will run in the Atkinson cycle.

On its own, the internal combustion engine delivers 104hp (78kW) and 109ft-lbs (146Nm). But this is a hybrid, so between the engine and transmission, there's a 43hp (32kW), 125ft-lbs (169Nm) electric motor/generator unit. Total output is never as simple as just adding all those numbers together, but Kia quotes maximum power and torque at 139hp (104kW) and 195ft-lbs (264Nm), respectively.

But take note: this is not a plug-in hybrid! (That comes later this year and will cost about $4,300 more.) So you don't need anywhere to plug the Niro in, as it will charge the 1.6kWh lithium-ion polymer battery as you drive around, regenerating electricity under deceleration. Truth be told, there are advantages to carrying only as much battery as one needs; the cells add just 85lbs (39kg) to the Niro.

On the road, the combination of internal combustion, permanent magnets, and six-speed dual clutch gearbox work well. You have to rev the engine to get the most performance out of it—it's naturally aspirated, so peak torque doesn't arrive until 4,000rpm, with peak power a further 1,700rpm above that—and leaving it in Sport mode helps. But this isn't a Stinger GT, and treating the Niro like a GTI seems beside the point.

However, I was never able to match that initial fuel economy. The change of surroundings was most likely to blame; instead of cruising at 40 to 55mph for good stretches, the bulk of my driving was at low speed and in stop-start traffic. After a week, I had dropped the Niro's average down to 27.9mpg. For the record, the EPA rates it at 51mpg city, 46mpg highway for a combined 49mpg. (But only on the smaller wheels. Go for the more expensive Niro Touring and its 18-inch wheels, and that number drops to 46/40/43mpg.)

As you might expect for a Kia, it comes quite well equipped. The infotainment's 7-inch screen won't be the talk of the neighborhood, but it has Android Auto and CarPlay as standard, and if you just want to connect your phone (or whatever) by bluetooth, USB, or line-in, that works great, too.

Our test car (an EX, MSRP $26,150 for the MY2018) was fitted with the advanced technology package. (A $1,950 option on the EX, or a $1,450 option on the LX that doesn't include a 10-way power-adjustable seat for the driver.) That pack gets you automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, forward collision warning, smart cruise control, and lane-keeping assist. Luckily, I didn't have cause to try out the first two. The smart cruise control worked perfectly well, but because our tester was actually a MY2017 car, it didn't have the lane-keep assist, so I can't comment on how that one performs.

What I can comment on was life with the little Kia hybrid, which was painless. It was easy to get into, easy to see out of, and practical enough to be someone's only car. Driven right, it should get more than 500 miles (800km) between visits to the gas station, and it proves you don't have to spend $60,000 or more to find a good car.