Here at The Autopian, we liked the old Kia Carnival. Not only was it a great van, it was great value, so you can imagine our excitement when a facelifted, hybridized version was announced. Well, pricing is now out, and the cheapest Carnival Hybrid costs $41,895 including freight, which is $2,815 more expensive than the cheapest Toyota Sienna. It might seem weird that a Kia is more expensive than the equivalent Toyota until you look a little deeper and realize the cheapest trims of both vans aren’t quite equal.
In case you aren’t familiar with the new Kia Carnival Hybrid, here are the basics: Instead of a 3.5-liter V6, it features a 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine mated to a permanent magnet synchronous drive motor and a 1.49 kWh lithium-ion battery pack, all driving the front wheels through a conventional six-speed automatic transmission. Total system output? An oddly specific 241.7 horsepower and 270.5 lb.-ft. of torque. You don’t normally see car manufacturers publishing output down to the tenths. Regardless of how unusual those figures might be, they’re good enough to earn this 4,852-pound van a maximum towing capacity of 2,500 pounds and a maximum payload capacity of 1,652 pounds, so it ought to get you, your family, and your pop-up trailer to the campsite more economically than a van with a big V6 would. Anyway, let’s get back to pricing.
Instead of building the Carnival Hybrid off of the base LX trim, Kia took things up a notch by making the LX-S trim the entry point to its electrified minivan range. That means you get leatherette upholstery, heated front seats, and a leather-wrapped steering wheel, among other creature comforts. That puts the cheapest Carnival Hybrid in direct competition with the Sienna XLE, which starts at $44,390 — $2,495 more than the Carnival Hybrid LX-S.
However, as you go up the range, a funny thing happens — the Carnival Hybrid inches closer and closer in price to an equivalent Sienna. Let’s say you’re looking at the top trims of both vans without any options, the Sienna Platinum and the Carnival SX Prestige. Both feature heated steering wheels, branded premium audio systems, wireless smartphone charging, and leather seats. However, the Kia stickers for $53,995, only $535 less than the equivalent $54,530 Sienna Platinum.
Elsewhere in the respective ranges, it’s a war of inches. The $46,630 Sienna XSE gets sporty styling bits, sports seats, a moonroof, and some extra USB ports that the $44,095 Carnival Hybrid EX doesn’t get, but the Carnival matches it everywhere else while costing $2,535 less. Moving one level up beyond that in the Carnival range gets you to the $48,995 SX trim, which adds some sporty appearance bits, a fully digital gauge cluster, a 115-volt inverter, ventilated front seats, and reverse parking collision avoidance, and dual moonroofs, but it slots in between the aforementioned Sienna XSE and the $51,340 Sienna Limited, which doesn’t have a rear moonroof or a standard inverter, but does add second-row captain’s chairs with ottomans, and a branded JBL audio system.
However, there’s one big thing that could tip the scales in the Carnival’s favor — availability. Despite peak car market craziness having already passed, Siennas are notoriously hard to get, with regular reports of waitlists and markups affecting actual transaction prices. So long as Kia keeps supply of these vans flowing, people will be able to buy them off dealer lots, and so long as dealers don’t mark them up, we could be seeing radically different all-in prices for Carnivals compared to Siennas. With some Sienna buyers still reporting $5,000-plus dealer markups in some areas and months-long waitlists nationwide, Kia seems willing to roll the dice.
The 2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid may be pricey compared to what last year’s pre-facelift gasoline-powered van sold for, but it’s still one of the less expensive hybrid minivans in America, and it’s ready to steal some market share from Toyota at just the right time. However, hinging on dealerships delivering these vans at MSRP is a risky game. Oh, and we also don’t yet have official EPA fuel economy figures. Make that two things we’ll be keeping a close eye on over the coming months.
(Photo credits: Kia)
Support our mission of championing car culture by becoming an Official Autopian Member.
-
The 2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid Makes The Best Family Hauler Even Better
-
The 2024 Kia Carnival Is Low-Key The Best Family Car You Can Buy
-
Here’s Mercedes-Benz’ Other Funny-Looking Doorstop-Shaped Car: The Vaneo
-
This 20 Year Old Toyota Sienna HVAC Design Is Garbage And I’m Not Having It
-
Minivans Have The Hardest Life Of Any Car, So It’s Time To Stop Calling Them Uncool
Got a hot tip? Send it to us here. Or check out the stories on our homepage.
“so it ought to get you, your family, and your pop-up trailer to the campsite more economically than a van with a big V6 would”
Pretty sure you have that backwards. Around town moving people and some stuff, the hybrid drivetrain will handily beat the v6 on economy. Buuuut load that sucker down at max payload and towing and take it on the highway and the v6 will easily beat the hybrid. I would bet even just at max payload on the highway the v6 will at least be even if not slightly better, plus being more pleasant to drive.
Not saying you shouldn’t get the hybrid, just know your use case. Most minivans spend most of their time schlepping people and stuff around town, so the hybrid will be great. Even if it’s your primary road-trip vehicle, which minivans are also great for, few people spend that much time road tripping compared to the rest of their life.
Turbo Gas Engine + Full Transmission + Battery + Electric < NA Engine + direct drive + Battery + Electric.
Sienna wins reliability.
It may be “better value”, but I susp3ct once one factors in depreciation, the Toyota works out cheaper long-term.
If you can get one.
My Dad used to work for a company with a fleet of Siennas, Grand Caravans and Carnivals (all wheelchair converted) and the Siennas were by far the nicest of the bunch with the older Grand Caravans up next and the Carnivals far behind. They were constantly having issues with them to the point that the fleet manager had enough and was phasing them out early to get more Siennas. Long story short I would be concerned about the long term reliability with these.
Curious if they fixed the sliding doors. We looked at these last fall, and the force required to stop the automatic doors was quite surprising, enough it would definitely hurt if you got a limb/finger trapped. They had a recall, but it didn’t actually fix the issue. Considering we were buying it to ferry little kids around this was actually a big reason we went with the Odyssey.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-recalls-defects/kia-carnival-minivan-recalled-after-sliding-door-injuries-a5422251546/
While I’m glad this exists, this misses the mark in some ways.
241 hp in a 4900 lb vehicle is adequate. But, that’s a tiny battery. This seems more of a mild hybrid system. Fine for around town but isn’t going to help a lot on highway trips. No AWD is another miss. Especially for towing it’s helpful in getting going.
That said for the main uses it’ll be fine. It doesn’t cover the edge cases as well as Sienna.
It’s a perfectly normal size in a non-plug-in hybrid vehicle. The Sienna only has a marginally larger 1.9kWh battery. A F150 hybrid has a somewhat smaller 1.5kWh. An Accord hybrid only has 1.3kWh worth of storage. Putting massive batteries in hybrids doesn’t net a huge improvement in efficiency. You basically want enough battery storage to be able to harvest a handful of typical, full stop regen braking scenarios, plus some static load while “ideling”, plus some headroom. Hybrids are continually charging and discharging, that’s how they improve efficiency; continually putting what would be wasted energy back to good use. I’d wager, doubling the battery size wouldn’t even net a 10% improvement in efficiency.
Thank you for the explanation! Looks like I confused a regular hybrid with a PHEV.
I’m still pissed at all get out with Kia right now. Look, I have a Soul, love it, my 3rd one, my Mom has a Forte I bought her in 2017. Both have been recalled for the theft thing. I’ve been fine. Mom has had over 4k in claims after 2 attempts to steal her Forte. They don’t steal it, just break windows and destroy the steering column. Apparently the dumb fucks don’t see the blinking “Hey thug, I’m alarmed” red light on the dash. Seriously, 2 times now. I love my Soul, but can’t say I’d ever buy another Kia (on my 3rd one now) over this theft thing. My sisters Tesla 3 got totaled out in the last hail storm. She doesn’t want another Tesla, not because she hates her car, she hates Elon Musk. She’s looking at a Kia K6. Its hard for me to recommend another Kia after the theft thing. I have been steering her towards a Mach E. Anyone out there have a Mustang Mach E? What are your thoughts? My family buys what I suggest so I can’t mess this recommendation up.
I have a Mach-E and I love driving it. I also love the mostly normal controls, lights, turn signals, wipers, and so on. What I don’t love is the number of times I’ve had it in the shop in the last 2.5 years, and not just for fancy new-model-new-drivetrain stuff, but crap Ford has been making for decades:
Driver’s window switch cluster
Driver’s airbag (the cover was cracking at the seams)
Driver’s seatbelt sensor
A short in the wiring for the top center camera that required the removal of the entire front half of my interior to fix. The instructions for the TSB were like 27 pages.
However, I am impressed with my dealership. All of these were done under warranty without hassle, and the interior has remained noise free despite the disassembly.
We’ve always had Fords because my dad sold them for over 30 years, and we’ve never had any trouble, but I’d have a hard time buying another one after this.
I’d be all for the Kia Carnival. It’s a swank car, and I find the Toyota Sienna’s cabin materials and general presentation deeply unimpressive. But now that my sister’s Soul has both had to get its engine replaced and then was recently stolen and crashed—both due to entirely preventable design defects on Kia’s part…I wouldn’t buy one of their cars if it was a dollar.
Nor would I be willing to pay a markup or give up an organ for the privilege of waiting a year on a Sienna.
I think I’d roll the dice on a Pacifica Pinnacle PHEV and a good warranty. There are deals to be had there, and that is *also* a very nice people-mover.
Pacifica is awesome, when it works. Such a shame reliability is so shit despite the PHEV being available for years now.
I guess things have changed, but in ’22 we were very interested in the Carnival, but they were complete unobtanium. Couldn’t even find one to test drive. I certainly wasn’t going to buy one (and pay over MSRP) without a test drive.
There was very little you could test drive back in 2022…
A 1.6 turbo in a 5k lb vehicle is crazy. Sure there’s the electric motor, but with that tiny of a battery I can’t imagine this thing moves very well. I think I’ll stick with my old Sienna. Seeing nothing here worth jumping at.
what the hell is Toyota doing with the lack of availability on so many of their cars/trucks?
It has to be costing them sales. Hell, I am pretty set on a Toyota hybrid, but the longer I can’t even get in to test drive one, the more I start looking elsewhere and rationalizing buying something else.
Yeah not everyone can/wants to get on a months long wait list.
It’s the popularity of the hybrids at the moment. There are a few classes/sizes where Toyota may have more than 1 competitor offering a hybrid, and not always competitors with a track record of reliability. Honda only offers 2-3 hybrids out of 8 ICE models while Toyota will soon have 14 hybrids out of 17 ICE models.
That said, Toyota’s dealer allocation process is strange and seems more dated than an original Prius.
At this point it has to be intentional, and it’s costing them sales. I currently own two Toyotas and a Lexus, and value the brand for its overall quality and reliability. But if I were buying new today, in most every vehicle category I would buy the competition and save thousands (and, you know, actually be able to buy instead of waiting months). Midsize pickup? I’d buy a Frontier instead of a Tacoma. Full size pickup? F150 instead of Tundra. Minivan? Odyssey instead of Sienna. And so forth. It’s a bit disappointing to me that Toyota has chosen the higher price/lower volume route to profitability, even though I understand the business rationale.
I think they learned from the pandemic to deliberately constrain production—especially on their hybrids—in order to avoid having to provide incentives and keep resale values high.
It’s the Ferrari M.O.
The Kia Carnival ALMOST makes me wish I had kids.
I love these things. I think they look great, and the interior options are fantastic.
You can always buy one as a GT car. I like the idea of MPVs, without the need to occupy all of the seats.
I have dogs.
Not enough to justify a minivan, but too many to stuff into a GT’s back seat.
Back in the day Ford made the “sports MPV”, the S-Max. I guess that would have fit the bill.
Even better would be the Renault Avantime, one of the most aptly named cars in history.
Ewww. It has megane butt.
But everything else is magnificent, including being a true hardtop.
That was the one car where the megane butt looked right.
I don’t like the S-Max. I lived in a townhouse condo for a while. My obnoxious neighbors had an S-Max. They would often park in the fire lane. On Sunday I opened the garage door and started my Miata to let it warm up a bit before heading to C&C. I ran upstairs and grabbed my wallet, ran back down and hopped into the car, backed out into the open rear door of that a-hole’s S-Max.
Ruined my day (never went to C&C) and cost me like $3500 to fix their car (just replaced the spoiler on the Miata for $75). I hope their kid gets bullied.
Such an unfortunate coincidence as the car drives really well. I don’t have direct experience with the S-Max, but yes with the Galaxy and for a big, tall and heavy car handled well and was really comfortable.
Barring that, the Avantime then. But it is now quite old. I guess the MPVs are really a dying breed…
My bad. It turns out neither are an option here. I don’t remember what my jerk neighbor drove, but it was a Ford wagon thing. It doesn’t look like the S-Max was a US thing (or at least the images that come up don’t look familiar) so that probably wasn’t it.
Maybe you’re thinking of the C-Max? Which we did get.
No, it was bigger and had a more traditional long roof profile. Would have been on sale around 2014. I thought it had Max in the name but I may be wrong.
Edit: I can’t find it. Now I’m even more mad that I hit a hallucination and still paid for damages.
Was it a Ford flex?
No. I would have remembered that. Taurus X? Was that a thing?
It was a Ford Taurus X.
Infinitely more interesting than my c-word neighbors.
Yes the Taurus X was a thing which was a lightly freshened and renamed Freestyle which was sold when the final Taurus was sold as the Five Hundred.
Those look like Travelalls to me.
In no way do I hope their kid has to live through being bullied. That is a deeply crap experience.
Virtue signal received, but unnecessary. It was obviously a joke.
If they habitually park in the fire lane what’s to stop you from turning them in?
I’m no rat.
I don’t know why this comment made me choke on my coffee. But it did.
The weather is crap and I have 17 meetings today, so thank you for the morning laugh.
That smacks of confusion with mvp.
Get a SWB Transit Connect.
That is a van that drives like a van. An MPV is a completely different experience, it is a car.
On our last trip with 5 friends they wanted to rent a van, but I insisted on an MPV. We got a Galaxy, which was great.
The Transit Connect is based on the Focus, except it has a real transmission and not the stupid PowerShit DCT.
The TC is just a Focus with more space inside, that’s all 🙂
It’s also smaller than the Carnival, Ody, Sienna, etc. That helps with driving dynamics, too.
The Toyota will certainly last longer than this.
I would agree, but most people aren’t really buying vans for longevity. They get ’em, use ’em for five to ten years, then get rid of them as soon as the kids are grown. Sucks for the second or third owners, but to be fair hybrids tend to be more reliable than non-hybrids for most brands.
Why would you get one over the Pacifica plug in? Now with $7,500 discount!
Because the Pacifica PHEV is a pile of unreliable refuse.
Yeah as much as I want to like the PHEV, there seems to be a strong consensus that the Pacifica (and Wrangler) PHEVs are junk.
Had a Pacifica rental for a week and with only 10k miles on the odometer and the ICE sounded like it was already done with life.
Exactly this, but it was 6k miles. She did get our bachelor party successfully through a long weekend in Austin, though. Thank goodness for the extra insurance.
Stellantis PHEVs are an embarrassment.
Expensive, but very likely driveable daily. The Stellantis PHEV, expensive, but there’s a rebate, and you get lots of dealership coffee for the many visits to fix the next thing that fails.
Why the hell would you not make this a phev?
Why the fuck would they put a turbo on the hybrid? Seems silly. Also too bad it’s not a PHEV. The plugin capability would be awesome.
Hyundai needs to sell the Staria over here.
Wait till you hear how many plug in hybrids have 2.0T engines
yeah, but this is Kia, remember, so still kind of scary. And it’s only a 1.6T in a big minivan.
In the K5, they recently replaced the base turbo engine with a non-turbo. However, the high-performance GT turbo is still available, but that’s the sporty model.
Aren’t turbo engines (potentially) more efficient than normally aspirated ones?
only in EPA testing 😛
The modern turbo shit is primarily to game the EPA ratings and doesn’t actually give you good mpg in real life.
Well actually… using exhaust gases to drive a turbine to get more power, which otherwise would just go to waste… should theoretically increase efficiency shouldn’t it?
In gentle driving the C300 in the motorway gets 7l/100km (that is around 33-34mpg) while the engine is a lot stronger than the old V6.
I miss normally aspirated engines as much as anybody else, but in terms of efficiency / performance it is hard to argue.
Well, in a hybrid, in *theory*, a turbo (or supercharged or wankel or turbine or 1:6th scale Napier Deltic or whatever) engine with a very narrow power band can be very efficient because it can sit at whatever RPM range it likes making electrons, while the electric side of things takes care of the business of making sure there’s actually enough torque to on top of that to move the car around.
“ 1:6th scale Napier Deltic”
Oh, can I have one?
1:6 scale would be 1/216 the volume, 88 liters would be about 40cc
Hmm, 1/4 scale would be a litre and a half, that sounds more like it.
Keep it out of using excessive boost and they can be very efficient. My turbo Cruze has averaged about 40 mpg the last several tanks with the AC cranked. It gets driven fairly gently most of the time.
On a modern small displacement turbo engine the turbo is always active. Even if it’s helping boost the air pressure to a little higher than atmospheric. That’s not getting into positive boost but it’s not just loafing waiting for the next foot full of throttle.
So about that name. Do they mean carnival like the rejection of the flesh, or like full of clowns?
Obviously the clown thing.
It’s flesh-less clowns, obviously.
Don’t google that, or its obvious variations.
Still not a PHEV? Still don’t give a Phu…
I thought I hated the “tablet stuck on top of the dash” fad, but I wasn’t prepared for what was to come. Ugh.
Designers who didn’t finish designing the inside are thankful.
It’s way cheaper than a Sienna. The 2 Toyota dealerships here in San Jose are charging $10k over msrp!
Kia (and Hyundai) are not bargain-basement brands anymore (and haven’t been for a long time). They can compete with anyone else and come out on top.
Except in the realm of dealership experience. They may offer an amazing warranty, but you will be punished for using it.
I have to argue with this statement.
I’ve owned a number of H/K vehicles. Not once have I run into issues as long as the following were true:
We have several Kia and Hyundai dealers nearby. The service teams seem to genuinely try to do a good job. Facilities vary from lightly refreshed to really damn nice.
Granted, this is my own experience, but I don’t understand the punishment statement.
Side note, my last vehicle was a 2018 Kia Sorento SX, loaded up with options. Beautiful and well-made too. I sent an email to the “contact us” box with Kia America, and actually received a reply from the PR team at the West Point, GA plant inviting me to visit and tour. They are proud of their staff and what they do, which is build some pretty nice vehicles.
I have a Hyundai and a Kia, I haven’t brought the Kia in to the dealer yet, but my general dealership experience hasn’t been great. It’s a long story but they covered the repairs under warranty which took 6 months. Wouldn’t give me a loaner for the first 4 months, then, when they did they got me a rental car. 6 months later Hertz charged me for the rental because the dealership never paid them. During the time it was in the shop it was impossible to get updates, they didn’t answer the phone, basically had to march in there to get any information. Now, I’m out $2800 and struggling to get reimbursed. Hyundai corporate has generally been helpful but because it turned into an issue with Hertz(caused by the dealership) I’ve been out nearly $3k for almost 2 months.
I’m sorry, that really is a crap experience. It makes one wish the manufacturers could exert their will a bit more on some of these dealerships.
Hertz has their own issues (having people arrested for car theft when the car was actually returned properly). Seeing that they got pantsed on their Q1 results ($392 million loss) does not make me feel sad.
I wish you luck, perhaps get a local attorney to send a letter asking them in the nicest legalese to get this sorted, post-haste?
Do resale values reflect this? I’d be interested in some research on this. Tellurides and Palisades are everywhere around here so some solid data should be available in the coming years.
Their cars are priced in the ballpark of their competition and I consider them equal value.
I know the dealer experience is different, but I’ve never loved my Toyota or Subaru dealer experience (4 hours for a scheduled oil change? Up yours, Toyota) so I don’t consider that a big difference. Anything I can reasonably fix without going to the dealer, I will.
Eeehhhh……. They’re certainly better than they were 10+ years ago.
They have been good for more than 15 years…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyundai_i30
I’m also counting mastering white paint in my assessment.
I think what you meant is that they can compete with anyone on price by cutting corners with engineering and then adding features that other manufacturers charge extra for as a way to get people to buy vehicles that are almost certain to end up in a junkyard by 150,000 miles.
Cars built without engine immobilizers, the Theta II engine problems … every time someone says “this isn’t the Hyundai/Kia your parents drove” we find out about some new way they managed to cost cut things to ensure that these cars are disposable.
My grandmother has a 2010 Azera that recently got its engine rebuilt (so stupid) and it STILL clatters on startup and burns oil, and I had a neighbor that had to ditch their 130k mile 2012 Sonata because its engine was on the way out. Hyundais/Kias are Korean VW’s reliability-wise and no one can convince me otherwise.