Kia began production of the 2027 Sportage Hybrid at Hyundai Motor Group’s Metaplant in Ellabell, Georgia, on June 2, marking the first Kia hybrid built in the United States and pushing the brand’s combined U.S. manufacturing capacity to 550,000 vehicles annually.
The Sportage Hybrid is the third model to roll off the Metaplant line, joining the Hyundai IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 9 electric vehicles. It is also the first hybrid the facility has assembled, a shift made possible by the plant’s flexible architecture, which was designed to accommodate up to 10 different models across multiple powertrains. Kia’s existing West Point, Georgia, factory currently builds the Telluride, EV9, EV6, and gasoline versions of the Sportage and Sorento.
The Sportage is Kia’s bestselling nameplate in the U.S., with the SUV delivering the brand’s highest annual sales total for any single model in 2025. The hybrid variant, updated last year, has become one of Kia’s highest-volume configurations. The base Sportage Hybrid X starts at $30,490 and returns 42 MPG combined, positioning it against the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid, Honda CR-V Hybrid, and Hyundai Tucson Hybrid in the compact SUV segment.
Kia has not disclosed production volume targets for the Georgia-built Sportage Hybrid. The Metaplant adds nearly 2,000 employees to Kia’s Georgia footprint, which already includes more than 3,200 workers at the West Point facility. The two plants represent nearly two decades of Kia investment in the state.
The production launch follows what Kia described as extensive preparation. Team members traveled to Kia facilities in West Point and South Korea to train on Sportage Hybrid assembly procedures before the first units began moving through the Metaplant line. The ceremony included a display of the plant’s automation capabilities, with the first Georgia-assembled Sportage Hybrid arriving on stage via an Autonomous Mobile Robot. Governor Brian Kemp rode in the vehicle during the presentation.
The Metaplant’s ability to build hybrid, gasoline, and electric vehicles on the same line is the structural story here. Hyundai designed the facility to integrate different powertrains with minimal retooling, a capability that allows the company to respond to market shifts without dedicating separate production capacity to each propulsion type. Kia now has the flexibility to allocate Georgia output across five models spanning three powertrain architectures, a hedge against the kind of demand volatility that has characterized the EV transition.
Kia has not announced future model plans for either Georgia site. The 550,000-unit combined capacity figure suggests room for additional nameplates or trim expansions, but the company offered no timeline for what might fill that capacity beyond the models currently in production.
The Sportage Hybrid’s shift to U.S. assembly arrives as compact SUV sales continue to anchor the retail market and as automakers work to localize supply chains under evolving federal content rules. Kia’s ability to build the Sportage in both gasoline and hybrid forms at two separate Georgia facilities gives the brand geographic redundancy and the option to shift volume between plants if one powertrain variant outpaces the other in demand.
Whether 550,000 units is a ceiling or a midpoint will depend on how quickly Kia can move additional models into the Georgia pipeline and whether the brand’s U.S. sales growth can keep pace with the capacity it has now put on the ground.
2027 Kia Sportage Hybrid Photo Gallery
Source: Kia. Images courtesy of Kia.
