Honda HR-V vs Kia Soul

Honda’s subcompact SUV gets a makeover inside and out. Previously based on the Fit, the new HR-V shares the global architecture that also underpins the Civic.

Honda continues to narrow trim options: There were once as many as five, but the Touring trim level got the axe for the 2022 model year, and the EX has now left the lineup as well. The three remaining trims for 2023 are LX, Sport, and EX-L. We drove the top trim, EX-L, through the mountains of Washington's Columbia River Gorge.

New styling plus the newly standard Honda Sensing suite of safety features put this latest HR-V back at the front of the pack it led when it debuted in 2016.

The Kia Soul demonstrates that good ideas mean nothing without good execution. Launched for the 2010 model year, the Soul instantly drew attention with its distinctive boxy styling, but unlike the similarly-styled Honda Element and Scion xB, the Soul has managed to stick around.

That’s because the Soul has style and substance in equal measure. It’s both a practical car and a good value, just one that happens to be more interesting to look at than most other vehicles sharing those traits. Now in its third generation, the Soul is an excellent compromise between car and crossover, boasting the tidy proportions of the former and the upright driving position of the latter. So it makes sense to cross-shop it against both small hatchbacks and the gaggle of tiny crossovers that have hit the market since the Soul first appeared.

The current-generation Kia Soul was introduced for the 2020 model year and gets a number of notable updates for 2023, including more standard driver-assist features, small styling tweaks, and a revised lineup of trim levels including base LX, S, EX, and GT-Line models; the X-Line and Turbo variants have been discontinued. We drove a Kia Soul GT-Line for this review.