2023 Kia Niro Hybrid Owner’s Manual

When Kia unveiled their HabaNiro concept car at the New York Auto Show in 2019, it was the ridiculous-sounding Real-time Emotion Adaptive Driving feature (amongst a host of other futuristic add-ons) that immediately captured the attention of all who heard.

This unique forward-thinking system will supposedly "read the driver’s emotional state then modify sensory elements of the cabin to facilitate a more enjoyable experience."

However, an element that had more consequences in the here and now was the introduction of a new exterior design type for Kia, featuring a lot of new motifs for the brand, the most prominent of which was a reimagined front fascia, replacing the familiar tiger-nose grille with a more aggressive shark-snout-style.

Four years later, the all-new Kia Niro, which is switching to its second generation with this release, inherits elements from the concept HabaNiro’s styling, featuring an abundance of futuristic aesthetic elements that will immediately impress fans of this nameplate.

Inside, the 2023 Kia Niro Hybrid sports a new ambiance to match the novel exterior, completely with highly sculpted lines, upscale ambient interior lighting, and abundant eco-friendly natural fibers and recycled materials. The new cabin, which maintains the exact dimensions and roominess as the old one, also replaces the lever-style gear selector from the previous model with a new rotary gear shift knob.

Under the hood, the new Niro Hybrid provides decently-powered options considering its price point. The base model is a 139-horsepower 1.6-liter four-cylinder hybrid setup. In contrast, a beefier plug-in hybrid 180-horsepower unit combines the same gasoline engine with a more powerful motor and an 11.1-kWh battery pack that provides up to 33 miles of electric driving range on a single charge.

The 2023 Kia Niro Hybrid also introduces a newfangled 'Green Zone' drive mode that automatically switches the SUV into EV mode in select regions based on navigation data.