The Optima remains a strong competitor with impressive safety and an infusion of Stinger DNA.

Kia hasn't drastically updated the Optima for the 2019 model year, but clearly the Korean brand was proud of this new model because it flew us out to the factory where the car is built in West Point, Georgia to drive it. The Korean automaker is calling the 2019 Optima a mid-cycle refresh, so the car doesn't differ greatly from the 2016 SXL model we loved back in 2016. The changes are more than just skin deep though, as Kia tries to remain competitive in the midsize sedan class - one of the most crowded segments in the automotive industry.

It would seem Kia is fighting an uphill battle against the recently redesigned Honda Accord and Toyota Camry. We've driven both, and we can confidently say that Kia has a few tricks up its sleeve to stay competitive.

For starters, Kia has historically bested its Japanese rivals on price, though full pricing information is not yet available for the 2019 Optima to confirm this for sure. The Optima will be available in four trim levels: LX, S, EX, and SX. Those first two trims are powered by the base 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine producing 185 hp and 178 lb-ft of torque going out to the front wheels through a six-speed automatic transmission. The EX trim receives a smaller 1.6-liter turbo four-cylinder producing 178 hp and 195 lb-ft of torque going to a seven-speed dual-clutch transmission. We drove the top-trim SX, which is powered by a 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder producing 245 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque.

The SX trim also brings in sport tuned suspension, paddle shifters, 18-inch alloy wheels, LED headlights with auto leveling, red brake calipers, a black rear spoiler, panoramic sunroof, turbo badges, a 4.3-inch color trip computer, black leather seats with red stitching, 12-way power seats with four-way lumbar, two-position memory seats, ventilated seats, heated steering wheel, Harman Kardon 10-speaker audio, and more. The 2018 Optima SX starts at $30,600, which puts it dangerously close to the Stinger's starting price of $31,900. Ultimately, the decision comes down to whether you value RWD and a larger trunk, or more features and a better deal on the purchase price.

Many people have come to us asking whether they should buy a fully-loaded Optima or a base Stinger, and the decision isn't as easy as we thought. The base Stinger has more power from its 2.0-liter turbo four-cylinder (255 hp), but lacks almost all of the luxury features found in the Optima SX. Buyers will also likely be able to get a better deal on the Optima, increasing the gap between the two cars. The Stinger is a great car for enthusiasts, but the Optima caters to a much wider market. Kia's greatest weapon in the war against the Camry and Accord is the Optima's standard suite of safety features across all trim levels.

Every Optima comes standard with blind-spot warning, park distance warning, forward collision warning, forward collision avoidance assist, lane change assist, lane keep assist, and lane departure warning. Our loaded SX trim even added adaptive cruise control, which made the Optima even easier to drive. All of these systems combine to make the Optima one of the safest cars in the class, which should be a huge selling point. Most of the Optima's competitors charge extra for features like blind spot monitoring and lane keep assist, or make you buy a higher trim level. Kia's "on the house" approach to safety should win favor in this competitive segment.

In terms of driving, the Optima should win even more brownie points with buyers. We only sampled the 2.0-liter SX trim and found it to be a highly competent mid-size sedan. The steering feel is not on the level of the Mazda 6, but feels in line with the latest Camry. We came into our drive thinking the Optima would suffer with its dated six-speed transmission, since the Camry and Accord have moved on to eight and 10 speeds respectively. To our delight, the six-speed automatic ended up being a joy, shifting eagerly when on the throttle and smoothly during relaxed driving. Likewise, we thought the 245-hp engine would feel slow compared to competitors like the Camry, which now produces 301 hp from its V6 engine.

Thanks to the quick downshifts from the six-speed transmission and the punchy 260 lb-ft of torque, the Optima never felt slow from behind the wheel. Kia has somehow managed to implant a bit of Stinger DNA into the Optima, making it a perfectly enjoyable car to toss around on a back road. The car has four drive modes: normal, eco, sport, and smart. Changing between the modes doesn't create a sizable difference, but we noticed slightly quicker upshifts in sport mode and marginally heavier steering. Smart mode continues to be an interesting feature on Kia models - it switches between sport and normal modes depending on how you drive in real time, keeping the car always suited for the occasion.

On the inside, the Kia Optima falls short of being our favorite interior in the category. The Honda Accord and Mazda 6 still feel more upscale, but the Optima easily matches if not beats the Toyota Camry on material feel. The interior is very well laid out, and Apple Car Play and Android Auto are standard to help make the infotainment experience as easy as possible. Our lone complaint is a slightly tight 35.6 inches of rear leg room, which is less than most of the cars in this class. We'll have to wait for final pricing, but the 2019 Optima will likely be a value in its segment with some of the best standard safety tech available and we would have no trouble recommending it.

Say what you will about Kia designs of the 90s and 00s, but there’s no denying the company has upped its game in recent years with cars like the sporty Stinger, the funky Soul, and the Telluride family hauler. There’s more to come as the company has kicked off the teaser campaign for the new Optima by releasing hugely promising images of the K5 destined for domestic market South Korea.

As you can see in the adjacent shadowy pics, it looks nothing like the Optima on sale today and you’d be tempted to say it’s an entirely different car positioned above the midsize sedan. Have no doubt – it is the K5. We spotted the car several months ago, but the heavy camouflage did a good job of masking the revamped design.

From the gently sloped roofline to the wide “tiger nose” grille, the new Optima aims to be a far more stylish car than the current model, which isn’t even that old considering the fourth generation has only been around for approximately four years. The headlights have an interesting shape as they practically merge with the grille and feature LED daytime running lights shaped like a “Z” in the same vein as on the bigger Cadenza (K7 in South Korea).

The side profile shows a prominent curved character line right in the middle of the doors and has a clean look thanks to the absence of handles. However, keep in mind this is a rendering part of the teaser campaign to make the car look nicer than it actually is, but the real deal has been spotted with conventional door handles.

Other noticeable changes are the door mirror caps positioned lower on the front doors and a front quarter glass you won’t find on the current Optima. To give the sensation of a coupe silhouette, Kia’s designers have applied a thick chrome / metallic bar at the base of the A-pillar that continues above the greenhouse before gradually coming down at the rear pillar. The current car also has it, but its replacement will extend the piece of trim on the trunk lid at the base of the rear window

The full-width taillights have an interrupted LED pattern, while the slightly arched trunk lid appears to feature a chrome bar that goes from one corner to the other to further accentuate the Optima’s generous width. You can’t see them here, but the dual exhaust tips were completely visible on the aforementioned prototypes.

Kia has also dropped a teaser image of the interior, revealing the fully digital instrument cluster joined on the right side by an extra-wide infotainment screen. There seem to be fewer buttons on the center console, while the large gear lever of today’s car has been replaced by a tiny rotary shifter. Overall, the dashboard has a much cleaner look we’re eager to see in real life.

2021 Kia Optima Raises the Style Bar for Mid-Size Sedans

The new Optima looks as good as we'd hoped given the promising teaser photos.

Nov 12, 2019

Kia is constantly raising the bar in terms of its vehicles' striking designs, and the new Optima is no exception. Photos of the Korea-market K5, which is identical to the U.S.-market Optima, show a full view of the redesigned mid-size sedan's sleek new look, and we're intrigued to find out more.




Like we saw in earlier teaser photos that hinted at a rakish silhouette, the new Optima has a distinctly fastback-like profile, as has been the trend among both luxury and nonluxury sedans lately. A chrome strip runs along the window line and becomes more prominent at the C-pillar, sloping gently toward the trunklid. An interesting LED headlight surround and textured grille provide plenty of interest at the front, and a full-width taillight treatment should make the Optima's rear end very recognizable at night.




No specifics are available yet about the car's powertrain, and the styling may change somewhat for the U.S.-spec car when we see our version sometime next year. But we do suspect that the Optima will share many components with the also stylish 2020 Hyundai Sonata, which offers either a naturally aspirated 2.5-liter inline-four or a turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four. Kia has also yet to release any photos of the Optima's interior, which will be considerably more upscale if an earlier interior sketch is to be believed.




Look for Kia Korea to release more information about the K5 in the next few weeks, and for U.S. details to come sometime early next year ahead of the Optima's launch as a 2021 model.

Kia’s new sedan could adopt the global K5 moniker in the U.S.

Update: A Kia spokesperson provided a statement on the report, saying "KMA has made no official announcement regarding the all-new Optima and I can’t comment of future product offerings. Regardless of the badge, Optima remains an important component of Kia’s award-winning lineup of vehicles."

The new Hyundai Sonata is hot, by most accounts. And its sibling, the Kia Optima, promises to be just as sultry when it debuts in the U.S. in a few months. Design sketches previewing the Kia sedan's updated look hit the web in October and November, but we won't see the brand-new Optima in the sheet metal until 2020... and it might not even be called the Optima at all.

Korean Kia officials say the company is dropping the Optima nameplate entirely. That's according to a report from TheKoreanCarBlog. In the Optima’s place, Kia might use the Korean K5 nameplate globally for the sedan. And there is some evidence to support those claims.

We learned that the company filed and was granted a trademark for the term "K5" in the U.S. in 2012 and kept the trademark active for six years. Kia re-filed for that same trademark this year (September 2019) to keep the term "K5" a property of the company, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the company the wordmark in November.

But there's been a lot of logo and nameplate talk from Kia as of late. Just this week the company filed a trademark in Korea for a stylized new logo. The filing shows red or black text mimicking the same text found on the Imagine by Kia concept, which debuted at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. The new Mohave SUV, meanwhile, wears a custom badge unique to the lineup. It's too early to speculate on Kia's future branding plans, but this could be part of an effort to change the company's image among consumers.

What we know thus far about the upcoming Optima/K5 is that it goes on sale in its home market of South Korea this month. We don't know when the U.S. model goes on sale officially, but it should be early in 2020. And when that model does go on sale, it will be identical to the Korean spec pictured here.

As far as engine options go, the Optima/K5's options should align with those found on the Sonata. Hyundai's product uses either a base 2.5-liter engine, 191 horsepower (142 kilowatts) and 181 pound-feet (245 Newton-meters) of torque, or a more powerful turbocharged 1.6-liter engine, capable of 180 horsepower (134 kilowatts) and 195 pound-feet (264 Newton-meters) of torque. We'll know more for sure when the Optima/K5 shows up in the U.S. early next year.

The Hyundai Sonata has been in the United States for more than a year now, enticing us with its aggressively-executed styling. Its mechanical twin, the Kia Optima, seems to be lagging behind for quite some time. However, we might need to forget about the Optima and start getting used to it having a different monicker.

Last year, a report came out that Kia will adopt the K5 global nameplate for the Optima, supported by multiple trademark filings in the country. This report, however, has been solidified by these photos sent to us by a Motor1.com reader.

Spotted in Irvine, California, a new Kia Optima has been seen driving around with a K5 badge at the back. The unit, which already carries a Californian license plate, also wears the blue color that we've seen in the official press images of the sedan.

Although Kia neither confirmed nor denied the previous report, this sighting of an Optima could very well be a clear indication that a nameplate change will happen upon its launch. But then again, no official announcement yet but we won't be surprised if that's the case.

The Kia Optima or K5, sorry, is slated to make its North American debut this year, although, the current delay we're experiencing isn't surprising at all because of the pandemic. Nevertheless, expect the sedan to look identical with its KDM counterpart, which we had the chance to drive in Korea last year.

As for the engine, the 2021 Kia Optima/K5 will host two options: a base 1.6-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with 178 horsepower (132 kilowatts) and 195 pound-feet of torque (265 Newton-meters) of torque, and a 2.5-liter turbocharged motor good for 286 hp (213 kW) and 311 pound-feet (422 Nm) of torque.

It looks like Kia is abandoning the Optima name for its next-generation mid-size sedan, according to an EPA filing for the new 2021 model. The redesigned version slated to arrive later this year will instead be called the Kia K5 to match the name it uses in Korea. When we drove the Korea-spec K5 late last year, Kia had hinted that this name change could happen, citing global marketing reasons. In the U.S., Kia has offered a mid-size sedan named Optima for four generations over two decades.
The official EPA fuel-economy ratings, first spotted by Motor Trend, also confirm that the 2021 Kia K5 will offer an all-wheel-drive option in the U.S. The single model listed has a turbocharged 1.6-liter inline-four, an eight-speed automatic transmission, and all-wheel drive. This same engine makes 180 horsepower and 191 lb-ft of torque in the related Hyundai Sonata sedan, which does not offer AWD (yet).
Kia has not yet confirmed the name change for the U.S. market, and also isn't saying if other U.S. models will be renamed to match the K5. In Korea, Kia's other sedan offerings use K names, too: what we know as the Forte is called the K3, the Cadenza is the K7, and the K900 is the K9.

We expect to hear more about the new K5 within the next few months, as Kia should release more U.S. information ahead of its launch here by the end of the year.

The world is a weird place. Somehow, the Kia Optima has become the K5, and it looks awesome. Not only that: It offers a 290 horsepower, 311 lb-ft 2.5-liter turbocharged engine bolted to a dual clutch transmission, and it can apparently go from zero to 60 mph in 5.8 seconds. Just look at this thing.

Damn Kia has been crushing it lately, which is a phrase that I’ve heard uttered many times over the past decade. Just last week, I called the new Kia Sedona minivan “gorgeous.” When the Kia Telluride came out, everyone sang the SUV’s praises. And the Stinger? Everyone agrees that, among sports sedans, it’s the real deal. So, given that kind of momentum, I shouldn’t be surprised that the new Kia K5 looks as good as it does.

My coworker Jason has already sung the new Kia K5's praises in his story “Holy Crap The New 2021 Kia Optima Looks Really Damn Good,” so I won’t really get too far into the design side of things. I’ll just say that I dig the “Tiger Nose” fascia (with grille texture that Kia says was inspired my shark skin) and the “Heartbeat” daytime running lights.

Let’s get into the hardware: The standard motor is a 1.6-liter turbocharged inline four (with continuously variable valve duration) making 180 HP and 195 lb-ft of torque, which is sent through a conventional eight-speed automatic to either the front wheels or all four wheels.

The highest trim-level, the GT, gets a 2.5-liter turbocharged inline-four making 290 HP and 311 lb-ft of torque, sending it all through a standard dual wet clutch transmission and then to the front wheels. The outgoing optima made up to 245 HP and 260 lb-ft, in case you were curious, and sent that power through a six-speed auto (though a seven-speed dual clutch was available on 1.6 models).

“For now, all-wheel drive is just going to be offered with the 1.6,” a Kia representative told me over the phone about the K5. It’s a bummer that it seems like all-wheel drive is mostly there to aid with winter driving, and not so much for performance reasons; a high-horsepower all-wheel drive model could have been cool. But hey, maybe the front-drive GT will be a lot of fun? The 1.6-liters weigh in at only about 3,200 pounds; if the GT sits anywhere near that, I bet it could be quick around a track.

The K5 sits on a new platform that Kia calls “N3.” The vehicle is two inches longer than the outgoing Optima, an inch wider, 1.8 inches longer in wheelbase, but 0.8 inches lower. Kia claims the K5 is quieter than the Optima, and that its MacPherson strut front suspension and multilink rear have been “optimized for sporty handling, responsiveness and stability.”

The interior also looks damn good, especially on the GT. The standard infotainment screen is eight inches across, while a 10.25-incher is optional. Apple carplay is standard, as is dual-zone temperature control, in case you were curious.There are also a bunch of standard and available safety features, with Lane Keep Assist, Forward Collision Avoidance Assist, and High Beam Assist coming as standard, and Navigation Based Smart Cruise Control (which slows the car down in turns) and Highway Driving Assist (which acts as adaptive cruise control and also adjusts speed based on speed limits) as options.

The Kia K5 goes on sale this summer, with all-wheel drive models coming later in the year.