2020 Kia Niro Review

The 2020 Kia Niro is a fuel-sipping hybrid that seats five. Equipped with a rear hatch and moderate ride height, it’s somewhere between a wagon and an SUV, but you can consider it a competitor to the Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid and Toyota Prius. For 2020, it gets a comprehensive refresh.

While the body of the Niro is the same as before, the front clip is all-new, with redesigned headlights, an enhanced grille, and a more aggressive bumper with distinctive double-arrow lighting elements on each side. Out back, it’s the same thing, with new lights and a new bumper. The whole design is set off by new standard 16-inch and optional 18-inch wheels. Inside, you’ll find a new instrument cluster and revised tech.

Kia offers the Niro in LX, LXS, Touring, Touring Special Edition, and Premium trims. All Niros come with a 1.6-liter inline four-cylinder engine, six-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, 42-kilowatt battery, and 43-horsepower electric motor. All in, there’s 139 system horsepower and 195 pound-feet of torque. The Niro is exclusively front-wheel drive (FWD). That combo rewards you with stellar fuel economy: up to 52 mpg city, 49 highway, and 50 combined, along with 595 miles between fill-ups. But that’s for the base LX trim. The higher trims, like the Touring and Touring SE, dip considerably, to 46, 40, and 43 mpg.

The LX trim comes standard with 16-inch wheels, projector-beam headlights, LED daytime running lights (DRLs), LED taillights, a 4.2-inch instrument cluster LCD, LED interior lighting, cloth upholstery, 60/40 split-folding rear seats, a redesigned 8-inch infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, and keyless entry. From there, the various higher trims get you new leatherette upholstery, 18-inch wheels, a new 10.25-inch infotainment system, keyless access and start, paddle shifters, a power driver’s seat, a wireless phone charger, and a Harman Kardon sound system with eight speakers and a subwoofer.

As before, the Niro comes standard with Kia’s Drive Wise safety suite. It incorporates forward-collision avoidance and a rear-view camera. Blind-spot monitoring, rear cross-traffic alert, high-beam assist, advanced forward-collision avoidance, lane-keeping assist, driver attention warning, adaptive cruise control, rear park assist, and new lane-following assist are all optional. The Kia Niro family as a whole received near-perfect scores from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

The Kia Niro is perhaps one of the most economical cars on the market.