Kia produces car of the year

THE Kia Sorento (right) has been named Carsales’ Car of the Year with the South Korean-made SUV beating out the Porsche Taycan and Land Rover Defender.

Each car in the awards series was scored using expert opinion and data generated by automotive data specialist RedBook.com.au. Finalists and winners were decided by a combination of RedBook data, safety system bonus points and judges’ scores.

Judges evaluated the cars across categories including safety, technology, design, innovation, dynamics, comfort, practicality, quality and presentation.

The seven-seat Kia Sorento — geared for families — won Car of the Year due to its stylish design, generous features and safety.

“These include an advanced autonomous emergency braking (AEB) system, adaptive cruise control, blindspot monitoring, driver attention warning, lane following assist and rear cross traffic collision avoidance assist,” according to a description on the carsales.com.au website.

The Sorento starts from $45,850 plus on-road costs up to $64,990 for the flagship Sorento GT-Line.

Porsche offers the all-electric Taycan from $190,000 for the 4S model and tops out at $338,500 for the Turbo S.

The Land Rover Defender, priced from $70,000 to $95,000, plus on-road costs, was the other runner-up.