Kia Niro: Practical, economical and diabolical

Kia has brought a new hybrid model to market, but the Niro is unexciting to drive, says Declan Colley.

Believe it or not, but Kia and its’ sister brand Hyundai have been tricking around with all sorts of alternative fuel sources for quite some time, but it is only recently we got to see their first serious hybrid cars — the Niro in the case of Kia and the Ioniq from Hyundai.

This week we test the Kia version and, frankly, we wish we hadn’t. It is not that the car is terrible or anything, but one gets the feeling that this is something of a stopgap thing from the Koreans and that they may just have a lot of better stuff in the pipeline.