You Should Look at This 2028 Kia Sportage Concept Before Buying Any Other Compact SUV

Digital artist channel AutoYa just released unofficial rendering concepts mapping out what a future, sixth-generation 2028 Kia Sportage might look like. Even though the real-world Sportage only recently received its mid-cycle facelift, these illustrations explore a design direction that I personally think Kia should adopt immediately.

Exterior Design

• The Front Fascia: In this rendering shows replacement of boomerang daytime running lights with vertical headlights on the edges of bumper. This also looks much cleaner, in my opinion. The signature “Tiger Nose” grille featured in previous iterations also looks to be redesigned.
• The Side Profile: What seems to be a sleek design feature are the door handles of the model. They have been positioned flush to the side of the car and now look to slide in and out. I have always thought the side profile of a crossover should look as clean as possible, and this does. The wheel arches look to be more pronounced and contain the original size alloy wheels. I have to say I appreciate that the artist did not select comically oversized wheels.
• A Shifted Roofline: In comparison to the current model of the Sportage, which has a more aggressive, tilted coupe-inspired design of the rear end, the concept is using a more horizontal roofline. This is by far the best change. This horizontal design allows the rear windows to be larger and more enclosed, thus, reducing the amount of sloping the rear end of the design does. In my opinion, it serves to increase the cargo area, and gives the design a more traditional SUV profile.

Interior Layout

The cabin is designed to have a digital instrument panel and an infotainment touchscreen set behind a continuous curved display. Both screens are 12.3 inches. Both screens are in front of a climate control panel set in front.

Setting controls behind a touch screen (which I think is a terrible design) is much more difficult to use while driving compared to maintaining physical switches and buttons. I think it’s a good call to make touch climate controls more user-friendly. The more physical switches and buttons, the more intuitive the controls.

Rather than deleting physical switchgear in favor of all-touch menus—a trend I personally hate—the concept retains plenty of tactical buttons on the center console. I want to praise the artist for keeping a traditional, sturdy mechanical gear selector rather than a rotary dial.