Kia Sportage vs Citroen C3 Aircross

What's the difference?

Okay, this is pretty easy. That SX Hybrid is excellent - it’s fuel efficient, it drives really nicely, it’s practical, but it’s not great value when you consider it’s more than $8000 pricier than the SX petrol. If you want good value, get the GT-Line hybrid. It comes with more features for not that much more money compared to the petrol version. 

Oh, and if you’re reading this in three years time and thinking about buying a second-hand Sportage SX Hybrid, then do it.

It's a good car, no question. Individuality is key to Citroen's brand appeal and you get that, too. A comfortable cabin, plush ride and hot damn, it's way too expensive, which is a crying shame. You could argue - as Citroen's product planners probably have - that it doesn't help to offer one in the mid-$20K mark because it won't make much money because so few people will buy it. Drop it at a premium, only lose a few opportunistic buyers but make more money per unit with committed fans? Why not, I guess?

Like most French cars, I'm glad it exists for weird French car fans like me to consider.

The Sportage Hybrid SX is almost identical in looks to the petrol Sportage, which is why I mistook somebody else's car for mine. There’s a small badge on the tailgate of the hybrid which says HEV for Hybrid Electric Vehicle, but that’s really the only giveaway.

The Sportage is a more interesting looking SUV compared to less avant-garde rivals like the RAV4. I love the arrow LED running lights, the wide, mesh grille, and the tail-lights.

The cabin is also differently good looking and premium, apart from the blank panels on the centre console - the ones that remind you didn’t get the Sportage with heated seats…

Still, even with the blank panels it’s a premium-looking cabin with the 12.3-inch screen and black materials. It would have been nice if the synthetic leather seats were standard on this SX Hybrid instead of the cloth.

As you might imagine, it's an individual design. Lots of Cactus cues, like the roof rails, bluff front end and stacked headlights Hyundai, uh, appropriated for the Kona. Curiously, no 'airbumps' along the side despite the C3 hatch having them...

The 17-inch wheels somehow look tiddly given the airspace over the wheels and I can report that black is not really this car's colour, even with the contrasting white roof and weird Mazda 121 Shades special edition venetian blind treatment on the quarter window. Bit of an '80s throwback there for you.

Lots more Cactus inside though, starting with the brilliant front seats, squared-off steering wheel and funky air vents. The little tray on top of the glove box is good, but it isn't rubber-lined, so that's annoying.

The Top Gun handbrake is hilarious but apart from the texturing of the fabric on the seats, it's a tad dark below the windowline. 

The Sportage is a mid-sized SUV - it’s not as big as a Kia Sorento, but it is larger than a Kia Seltos. 

There’s plenty of room up front with storage in the centre console, cupholders and door pockets.

The second row has directional air vents and great legroom and headroom even for me at 189cm tall. My nine-year old son reckons the window sill is too high to see out of.

He’s out of his booster seat now but he’s a tall kid and doesn’t have this visibility issue very often as we move from test car to test car.

The boot is also big at 586 litres (VDA) behind the second row. It’ll fit the three-piece CarsGuide luggage set with room to spare.

Even for a little car, the Aircross could do better. The lack of a proper cupholder provision for the car - a solitary spot at the rear of the centre console - is mildly baffling until you remember that this car is from France. The French hate a cupholder but, obviously, you can fit wine bottles in the doors.

It's worth repeating just how comfortable and supportive the front seats are on any given journey. Broad but supportive and somehow perfectly sprung, I would cheerfully rip out most other front seats and replace them with these.

The rear seats are less of these things and anyone who forces anyone to use the middle seat should be ashamed of themselves. The headroom is good back there, though.

The boot is a big one for the size of the car, swallowing 410 litres and expanding to 1289 litres with both rear seat sections folded.

A perennial Citroen problem is the price - at $32,990, the tiny SUV is doing battle with cars that are really a size up, coming in closer in size to the Venue than, say, the ASX.

That Yaris Hybrid price (we're all still reeling from that number) scores you a 17-inch alloys, a six-speaker stereo, climate control, front camera, reversing camera, keyless entry and start, front and rear parking sensors, cruise control, sat nav, halogen headlights (yep, you read that right), head-up display, leather wheel and shifter, auto parking, auto wipers and headlights, wireless charging pad and a space-saver spare.

The central touchscreen is annoying in that there are almost no hardware switches for functions like climate control. The software is a bit on the slow side, too, but you do get Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. The stereo is fine.

Normally we cover the design and practicality before we get under the bonnet but you’re on a fact-finding mission and I’m your guide, your guide to cars. That would be a good website name.

Okay, the Sportage SX Hybrid has a 1.6-litre turbo-petrol sporty and fuel-efficient engine making 132kW and 265Nm. There’s also an electric motor producing 44kW and 264Nm. Their combined output is 169kW/350Nm.  

The hybrid variants are front-wheel drive only and have a six-speed automatic transmission. 

It’s a great engine, smooth transmission and the way the motor interacts is almost seamless. 

This isn’t a plug-in hybrid, either. The batteries recharge automatically through regenerative braking. Really, for Australia, this type of hybrid is the way to go, offering superb range and no anxiety about charging.

One of the great engines in mass-produced road cars today has found its way under the bonnet of the Aircross. Peugeot-Citroen's 1.2-litre three-cylinder turbo is a cracking engine, serving up 81kW/205Nm through a six-speed Aisin-sourced auto to the front wheels.

While the 11.8-second dash to 100km/h is, uh, leisurely, the torque figure means that on the move it's not as sluggish as that number or its 1200kg kerb weight would suggest.

Kia says that after a combination of open and urban roads the Sportage SX Hybrid will use 4.9L/100km. The petrol SX with the 2.0-litre engine and front-wheel drive uses 8.1L/100km.

In our own fuel test we recorded 6.9L/100km which was mostly urban with a couple of motorway trips during the week.

Getting back to our earlier question regarding the money you’ll save in fuel. I’ve worked it out using actual maths.

So, using Kia’s official fuel economy of 4.9L/00km, that’s 3.2L/100km less than the 2.0-litre petrol SX and if fuel is $2 per litre you’re saving $6.40 for every 100km you drive in comparison.

Now, $6.40 goes into $8400 (the extra you’ve paid for the hybrid) 1312.5 times. Multiply that by 100 to get the number of kilometres you’ll need to travel. So, that’s 131,250km you’ll need to go to save the $8400 in fuel. 

Most Aussies do 10,000 kays a years on average. That means you’re looking at over 13 years. Tell you what, the person who buys it second hand will get the best deal because they really will save money on fuel. 

It’s true the Sportage Hybrid is fuel efficient and I’ve scored it very well for that, but if it was me I’d be looking to buy one second hand so I wasn’t getting hit hard with the new car hybrid price premium.

Citroen claims a handy 6.6L/100km on the combined cycle and my week with the fizzy Frenchie included a trip over the hills and far away as well as a lot of suburban running. 

The digital display on the dashboard read 7.3L/100km, which isn't bad going without stop-start. It does require 95 RON premium fuel, though.

The Sportage SX Hybrid is better to drive than the petrol SX with the 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine. It starts silently thanks to the electric motor and will coast away serenely until you need to move faster and come to a hill where you need the power of the engine.

The brake pedal feel is better than I’ve experienced in many hybrid cars and the transition from engine to motor is almost seamless.

The ride is comfortable, there’s no jiggle over potholes and handling isn’t bad for this type of family SUV. 

The only negative point to report is that because the hybrid Sportage is front-wheel drive, there can be a loss of traction if you accelerate hard from a standstill on a wet road or while climbing a steep hill.

If you’ve never driven a hybrid before, you’ll be absolutely fine - the only thing you'll need to get used to is turning the key and not detecting any engine noise.

French cars have a very specific audience in this country, which includes weirdos like me. I've owned Peugeots and Renaults and loved every second of it.

Top of my list after my darling baby boy wrote off our family car (which was bought for him to drive), the Cactus was close to the top of the list. This fandom isn't blind, though - I know what I'm getting myself into having to dispassionately assess their faults and foibles as well as their triumphs and tangible benefits.

If I'm being honest - and it's just you and I here - I didn't think I'd like the C3 Aircross, there was just something about its SUV pretensions. I can't say the looks grabbed me and the inexplicable exclusion of the airbumps made me irrationally cross.

But once you slip behind that square-ish wheel into the comfortable embrace of those excellent seats, you forget the aesthetics (which did grow on me, even in black). 

The 1.2 turbo is, as ever, eager to please and well-matched to the six-speed auto. The two work well together to get you moving, although the engine is the noisiest installation I can remember. In the Peugeot 308, it's virtually silent.

On the move, the lovely ride also impresses, soaking up the bumps (except those aggressive rubber speed humps in shopping centre car parks) while keeping body roll to an acceptable minimum.

It's perfectly fine in the suburbs, even with its limited power. Breaking into traffic can be a bit of a moment, but there are slower cars about.

Where the Aircross is really good is out on the freeway. It's quiet for such a small car and that torque figure makes joining the M4 freeway (west out of Sydney) fine, and it cheerfully kept up on the climb up the Blue Mountains and the brakes and transmission were great down the other side.

Citroen is unashamedly about comfort over handling, but the trade-off for the comfort is pretty good in that it still handles despite a plush ride and being up on stilts.

Along with six airbags, ABS, stability and traction controls, the Aircross has low-speed AEB (up to 30km/h), blind-spot monitoring, lane departure warning, driver attention monitoring and speed sign recognition.

Three top tether anchors and two ISOFIX points complete the picture with a five-star Euro NCAP rating dating back to 2017. There is no corresponding ANCAP score, despite the agreement between the two agencies.