Chery Omoda E5 vs Kia Sportage

What's the difference?

Okay, this is getting crazy. It feels like barely a week of 2024 is going by without another value-focused, pure-electric SUV hitting the Australian new-car market. 

And this is the latest, the Chery Omoda E5, a compact, five-seater with the performance and range to challenge some other relatively recent arrivals.

It joins the internal combustion Omoda 5, variations of which have proliferated in the roughly 18 months it’s been on sale here.

This is CarsGuide’s first look and we’ve assessed everything from value and practicality to safety and driving performance. So, stay with us to see if this EV could be your entree into the world of battery-electric SUVs.

An updated Sportage is a big deal for Kia. It's the brand's best-selling model in Australia and around the world, and arguably has never faced more and stiffer competition.

There's a new Mazda CX-5 around the corner, this time with a hybrid, and Toyota has just whipped the covers off its new RAV4. And that's before you mention Hyundai, Volkswagen, Honda or the litany of Chinese newcomers all here for slice of the pie.

Kia tells us this mid-life update is designed to look better, drive better, offer better tech, better safety and better equipment right across a vast range that includes petrol, diesel, hybrid, two-wheel drive, all-wheel drive, turbo and non-turbo alike.

So the question is, is all of that enough to keep the Sportage fresh in the face of all this new competition? Let's go find out.