I Got Incredible Mileage From The New Kia Carnival Hybrid

It’s possible I was already in the bag for the Kia Carnival. It’s been my favorite of the American minivans, though I’m overdue to drive the newest Toyota Sienna. I’m a huge fan of the way it looks, the way it’s packaged, the whole idea of it. The only qualm I had was with its efficiency.

If the headline and topshot were not a big enough giveaway, it seems like Kia fixed this problem. I took a Carnival Hybrid around New England for a big road trip. I loaded it with camping gear, drove it up a mountain, and did all the things you’re not supposed to do if you want good fuel economy out of a hybrid.

I didn’t get good fuel economy. I got great fuel economy. Unbelievable, blink-twice fuel economy. In theory, this Korean sips fuel at a rate of about one gallon per 33 miles (combined). I did way better than that, and with mostly highway miles.

[Full disclosure: Kia let me borrow this Carnival Hybrid for a week, so long as I reviewed it and didn’t cover it in sunscreen. I cleaned off the sunscreen, so there. – MH]

The Basics

Engine: turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four

Electric Motor: Single A/C motor

Combined Output: 242 HP, 271 lb-ft of torque

Battery: Lithium-ion, 1.49 kWh

Transmission: six-speed automatic

Drive: FWD

Curb Weight: 4,967

Fuel Economy: 33 mpg combined, 34 mpg city, 31 mpg highway

Body Style: Minivan

Price As Tested: $57,255 (SX Prestige)

Why This Exists

As a car company, it would be anti-social and, frankly, unfortunate not to offer a minivan. Just like it would be un-American not to offer a pickup truck. Kia’s parent company decided to split the difference. Hyundai gets a truck in the form of the peculiar Santa Cruz, and Kia gets the minivan.

If you were curious, both the Santa Cruz and the Carnival are built on the same N3 platform that also underpins a bunch of the company’s products, including the Sonata, Tucson, and the Mufasa (a real car, I did not make this up).

Kia has been selling a minivan in the United States for nearly a quarter of a century, but it was mostly an afterthought. Almost no one bought a Sedona because they thought it was the best. They bought it because it had a lot of seats and was less money than other vans.

With the introduction of the Carnival in 2022, Kia got itself a new body and decided to distance itself from its older, less good self with a new name. I’m pretty sure this is the plot of The Substance, but I’ve been too afraid to watch it.

You’re Going To Love The Way You Look (In The Carnival)

While every crossover started to look the same a few years ago, it’s hard to say the same about minivans. Each one has its own style, ranging from the elegant traditionalism of the Pacifica to the Bosozoku-lite of the Sienna.

I think the Kia is the most attractive, but most attractive in a strange way. Normally, when an automaker tries to toughen up a crossover or a car with SUV-like tricks, I am appalled. Not everything needs to be an SUV.

It’s been argued that the Kia Carnival is the most SUV-like of the modern minivans, and I have to agree. This has been achieved with a couple of key styling cues that fool the eye. Right up front, the wide grille and the upright nose give a harder edge than most minivans. Another trick is the darkly-colored lower fascia and indented rocker panels. It makes the vehicle feel like it sits up higher, even though it’s nice and low like you want a minivan to be.

The little kink in the DLO behind the C-pillar also narrows the appearance of the car a bit without lowering visibility in any obvious way. It’s all a bit ridiculous if you think about it too much. Don’t think about it at all, and it works.

It Does All The Minivan Things Well Enough

If I’m going car camping, I’m going to put as much stuff into the car as I can possibly fit. It doesn’t matter if the campsite I was taking the family to was in Acadia National Park, some 500 miles away. That inflatable boat my daughter has probably outgrown? Toss it in! Telescope. Why not? 400 s’mores sticks. Why do we have 400 s’mores sticks? Oh well, better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

I didn’t weigh the Kia Carnival Hybrid before setting off on this 1,000-mile round-trip adventure, but I did carry all the stuff, and it felt like 3,000 pounds. Somewhere between 50 pounds and 3,000 pounds.

The Prestige model comes with the fancy captain’s chairs that recline fully and pop up a little footrest. My family loved this the last time I had one of these, which involved an even longer drive with less stuff to Michigan. This time, the lack of a stowable or removable second row (the third row folds down) was a little more noticeable.

It is, overall, a comfortable place to be, with power sliding doors to make sure the kids don’t bang them into a nearby Altima while excitedly bolting from the van in order to look at a cool crab, or whatever.

As I recounted in my last review, it is neither the most nor the least minivan in terms of pure storage, flexibility, or size. If you want the most minivan for your money, you’re probably better off with the cheapest Voyager or Pacifica you can find.

One Big Annoyance And A Few Small Ones Before I Lavish More Praise On This Van

I camped for three days and two nights at the Blackwoods campsite deep in Maine’s Acadian National Park. It’s a uniquely American park, with gorgeous lakes, mini ecosystems that seem to change every few yards on every path, and stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a place of both absolute serenity and complete frustration if you get stuck in traffic waiting for a bus.

My real frustration came, however, when the damn van’s battery discharged overnight. Not the Lithium Ion battery, which had plenty of juice. The 12-volt one. The weakest part of any electric car or hybrid is the regular old battery used to power the accessories (and starter motor, if applicable), which doesn’t just automatically steal energy from the huge battery in the floor of the car.

Electrons, electrons everywhere, but not a particle to charge.

The van was off, which seemed fine, though we did go into the rear of the van and use the power door a few times to grab various items we forgot to put into the tent before going to sleep. With a regular van, I don’t think this would be an issue, but what happened next shouldn’t have surprised me. I went to get something from the car, and the lights didn’t signal to me that the van was unlocked, which immediately told me it was dead.

To make matters worse, the Kia’s battery is in the console between the seats, so to jump it you have to find the post in the engine bay (for the positive terminal) and a negative post… that’s… where the hell is it? The manual doesn’t say.

The little negative terminal nipple is actually hidden, deep in the engine bay, and has no obvious markings. If I hadn’t found a YouTube video explaining the problem, the van might still be there. To make matters worse, as soon as I got the car started, it wouldn’t turn the van’s motor on, so I couldn’t be sure if the 12V battery was charging, which meant I had to drive around the campsite randomly accelerating to recharge the battery (and, before you ask, sport mode doesn’t keep the motor running as in other hybrids).

So annoying! The van also beeps like crazy when you use the ADAS system or, frankly, just about anything. You can go into the settings and turn the beeps off, which is something I eventually had to do to spare my family the time and effort of throwing me off Cadillac Mountain.

It Drives Like A Big Car, Just Like The Non-Hybrid Version

I was sort of expecting the replacement of the regular Carnival’s 3.5-liter V6 with a smaller inline-four and hybrid system to feel a lot different. The gas version benefits from a better-than-decent eight-speed auto, but rather than a planetary-type eCVT, the Carnival utilizes a more traditional six-speed box.

It works. While the Carnival is not quick, it’s not demonstrably slower than the V6 version. Because it shares a platform with most Kia and Hyundai vehicles, it feels like most modern Kia and Hyundai vehicles. The steering is a little better than you’d expect, the ride is muted, and if you want to hustle it around Cadillac Mountain, it’ll quickly remind you that it weighs almost 5,000 pounds.

This is a first year for the hybrid, and the one dynamic shortcoming is its brakes. While you can control the degree of regeneration, every mode I tried was a bit more obvious and a bit less progressive than what I’d expect. Even after hours in the Carnival, I’d find myself applying a little too much (or not enough) pedal pressure for the situation. This is a calibration thing, and something I suspect will be addressed in later model years.

It does make me appreciate my Honda CR-V Hybrid, which has extremely well-tuned regeneration.

How Did I Get 38 MPG?

In life, what you don’t notice is almost as important as what you do see. Perhaps your eye wanders over to the lifted Jeep Liberty on Ford wheels nearby, and you miss the whale breaching the surf out in the harbor (worth it).

What I didn’t notice at first when driving the Carnival was that it didn’t seem to need fuel. Our trip took us from NYC up to Connecticut to drop the cat off with the grandparents, through Massachusetts, and finally up into Maine. This was the first 250 or so miles of the trip, and I was so distracted by other things (and the hope of eating a lobster for dinner) that it didn’t occur to me that we hadn’t stopped for fuel until my wife mentioned we should probably gas up for the next day.

Pulling into the gas station, it was obvious that I hadn’t even used half of the fuel in the tank. I still put gas in to be safe, but a quick calculation was confirmed by the Carnival’s internal MPG gauge, which showed I was doing better than 37 MPG. That’s on the highway! This is much better than expected. I should have gotten somewhere around 32 MPG, and that’s without all the crap in the back. Car and Driver got 29 MPG in their unladen highway test.

Maybe I was driving downhill this whole time? I did get a fun, temporary three-digit mileage by resetting one of the trip meters while driving back down Cadillac (MPG dropped while driving up the mountain).

Nope. Throughout the whole trip, I stayed above 37 MPG. This is just one long trip, but even being conservative, this does so much better than the regular Carnival and any non-hybrid vans. I was seriously impressed, especially when we stopped for the last night, and I was up above 38 MPG.

Is This The Best Van?

I need to drive the latest iteration of the Sienna Hybrid, which I’ll hopefully do during my annual Christmas minivan review. For the moment, the Carnival surpasses the PHEV Pacifica for me, as well as the regular Carnival.

If I were less concerned about fuel economy and more interested in driving dynamics, it doesn’t stand up to the Honda Odyssey in terms of pure speed and handling, but those aren’t the most important factors for me when it comes to minivans.

While I wouldn’t fork over the extra cash for the full Prestige package, a base LX hybrid with the excellent dark Flare Red paint has an MSRP of around $42,000, and that feels like a great deal in this space.

Also, go to Maine! Maine is great. I’m extremely pro-Maine now.