2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid Review: For Parents With Taste

The SUV killed the minivan star. Look, it’s a dated reference for a dated car category. For the vast majority of families, a minivan is more practical and more useful than an SUV. But once people saw SUVs with their tougher styling and four-wheel drive capabilities, they saw a way to carry their personal band of humans and look cool at the same time. After that, driving a minivan looked like giving up in the name of convenience. They became automotive sweatpants. And most buyers still seem to feel that way. 

But the 2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid is different. It isn’t a pair of dark gray Kirkland Signature sweatpants with the scrunchy ankle band. No, the Carnival Hybrid is like a pair of Nike Elite sweats: comfy and practical but stylish, too. It’s the minivan that your friend’s cool parents drive.

When Kia first launched the Carnival (technically the fourth generation but the first to be offered in North America), it came as a shock to America’s soccer moms and dads. It actually looked good and had a nice interior, proving that minivans could be interesting, not just functional. Then, for 2025, Kia made it even better looking. Maybe it’s just because the Carnival is the newest minivan on the market, but it looks fresh and interesting, whereas its competitors from Honda, Toyota, and Chrysler all look stale in comparison. 

Perhaps more important than the ‘25 Carnival’s style and technology updates, though, is the addition of a hybrid powertrain. The hybrid system adds cost but more than makes up for it with fuel efficiency. Equipped as such, I’m not quite sure I could ask for anything else out of a family car. Put down the SUV keys and go test drive a Carnival Hybrid because it will almost certainly surprise you, as it surprised me.

The Basics

With the Carnival Hybrid, Kia joins a rare subsection of an already rare segment. Now that it’s here, there are only three hybrid minivans on sale in the U.S.: this, the dated Chrysler Pacifica PHEV and the Toyota Sienna. While I can’t speak for the Sienna, I can speak for the Pacifica and the Carnival does a much better job at being a refined, family hauling mpg-machine. 

Customers likely aren’t buying it for its powertrain, though. They want the Carnival because it’s the first U.S.-market minivan to look this cool since… well, maybe ever. The facelift improves its already sharp design, with newer headlights, a larger “Tiger Shark” grille, and stylish new wheels. The rest of it remains mostly the same as before, though, if it ain’t broke, right? 

What really surprised me was the interior, but not its looks or build quality, as Hyundai and Kia have been making stellar cabins lately. Instead, what I appreciated was its seat comfort, driving position, outward visibility, and ergonomics. Sitting inside the Carnival makes you feel like car enthusiasts designed it.

My only interior gripe is with the climate controls. There are two dials and a row of touch buttons. However, those touch buttons swap between climate and infotainment functions, via another touch button. It saves space, but if you last left it on infotainment mode, you have to press that switchover button to access things like air vent directions, which adds another unnecessary step that requires looking down from the road. It’s maddening.

Driving the Kia Carnival Hybrid

OK, now onto that hybrid. A 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinder pairs with two electric motors to make 242 horses and 271 lb-ft of torque. That’s fewer ponies but more torques than the 3.5-liter V6’s 287 hp and 260 lb-ft, so performance is about the same. However, performance matters little in a minivan. Where the hybrid far outclasses the old V6 lump is fuel efficiency, where it gets a combined 33 mpg rather than the six-cyinder’s 21. 

When I first sunk my butt into the Carnival Hybrid’s seats, I quickly realized why we car nerds like minivans so much. Despite its length and seat count, the Carnival feels more like a sedan from behind the wheel than an SUV. The seating position, forward visibility, and ergonomics make it feel like Kia’s designers would rather be designing sports cars than people movers. 

Light but accurate steering, great brake pedal feel, and a really smooth transition between electric and gas power make the Carnival Hybrid a delight to drive. One of its electric motors is just a belt-alternator starter to run the engine’s accessories. The other is sandwiched in between the engine and transmission, effectively replacing the torque converter. And it works mostly very well, with little to no disturbance when the system switches between fully electric and combustion propulsion and is mostly quiet and composed. It’s a touch sluggish, especially at the top end, but it’s more than enough punch for the average suburbanite. 

The Carnival is shockingly fun to chuck around too despite being so long and heavy, and its suspension is stiffer and sportier than I imagined it would be. Some customers might be turned off by its firmer ride, preferring a comfier family hauling experience. However, for the parents who used to own sports sedans, the Carnival will remind them that they don’t have to drive a snooze-mobile just because they have kids. 

Even parents who prefer softer rides will appreciate the Carnival’s long-distance cruising capabilities. That firm suspension and accurate steering pay dividends on the highway, where it tracks as straight as a German luxury car. I took my seven-year-old son to his first-ever New York Giants game with the Carnival and he relaxed in the test car’s “VIP Lounge” seats for the entire two-hour drive each way. Thanks to the first-class second-row seating, excellent highway manners, and quiet cabin, the long trip was a breeze. Even after we froze our asses off to watch my beloved Giants get whooped, he was more than content all the way home. Kids will be very happy that their parents chose this minivan when road trip time arrives. 

The Highs and Lows

As with all minivans, one of the Carnival Hybrid’s best tricks is interior space. Even with the enormous second-row VIP captain’s chairs, the third row still had plenty of space for medium-sized humans. And if you need to fold the third row into the floor, it’s incredibly simple and requires just the pull of one lever. It’s the easiest third-row folding operation I’ve used in a minivan, and it folds truly flat. With the third row up, the trunk is a bit small but the floor lifts open to provide more space. Those VIP lounge seats can also slide side to side, to provide more elbow room for passengers and make getting into the third row easier. 

But it isn’t all sharp steering and comfy seats. The relatively choppy ride can really turn some people off, as I was the only one in my family who didn’t mind it. If you opt for the awesome VIP lounge chairs, their seatbacks don’t fold flat, so you lose a bit of practicality. And the annoying climate controls drove me mad throughout my week with the Carnival. 

Kia Carnival Hybrid Features, Options, and Competition

You don’t need fancy first-class lounge seating to enjoy the Carnival Hybrid, though. Right out of the box, it comes with eight seats, two-tone 17-inch wheels, wireless Apple CarPlay, heated front seats, and Kia’s full suite of driver assistance aids, all for $42,235. 

My test car was a fully loaded SX Prestige trim, which means it came with cool “Dark Edition” black trim everywhere, snazzy leather seats, a head-up display, 19-inch wheels, and a… decent Bose audio system (No highs, no lows, must be Bose, amirite?). The fancy lounge seats come as a no-cost option on the SX Prestige trim but my test car also had the $2,500 rear seat entertainment system with big screens on the front seatbacks. All of that pushed my tester to $57,333. Not cheap per se, but really not terrible for a stylish do-it-all family vehicle. 

There are only two other hybrid minivans on the market, both are starting to show their age, and both are a bit more costly when similarly equipped. A loaded Sienna (which only comes as a hybrid) is $59,970 (although all-wheel drive is included in that, something the Kia doesn’t even offer), and the Chrysler Pacifica Plug-In Hybrid is even more expensive, with a previous test car ringing in at $61,685. So the Kia is not only the best looking and most fun to drive, it’s also the cheapest with all of the boxes ticked. 

Fuel Economy

With an EPA combined 33 mpg, 31 mpg in the city, and 34 mpg on the highway, customers will be very pleased with how efficient the hybrid Carnival is. However, since I thought it would be fun to take advantage of its relatively sharp handling, I put the big Kia to work and only saw about 28-ish mpg combined. But if you drive like a normal human, it will easily return what the EPA says it can. It isn’t quite as efficient as the hybrid Sienna (35 mpg combined), but it’s better than the Chrysler (30 mpg combined). 

Value and Verdict

Value can be tricky with a minivan like the 2025 Kia Carnival Hybrid. Nearly $60,000 is a lot of money for any car, especially one that’s supposed to be a fuel-efficient family hauler. But it could very well be worth the cost for many families, as few other cars will shuttle small humans around in this much comfort and style while also entertaining the driver just enough to keep them sane. 

Minivans aren’t traditionally cool, they aren’t what fun parents typically drive. That mantle has been taken up by SUVs. But I’d argue that the really cool parents want something that’s stylish, practical, handles well, and sips fuel. If you roll up to parent pickup in a, say, a Chevy Tahoe, you’ll just blend in with all the other soccer moms and dads who, shocker, also bought a Tahoe. But pull up in the Carnival Hybrid and you’ll prove that you have both style and good taste. This is the real cool parents’ car. 

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