Australia's ever tightening emissions regulations have taken another scalp.
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Kia has ditched petrol versions of the Sorento large SUV and Carnival people mover, leaving diesel and hybrid power the only options available in the Carnival and the Sorento can also be had as a plug-in hybrid.
"Confirming that these variants will end sale in early 2026. Yes, this is due to NVES," a Kia Australia spokesperson said.
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No more vehicles are due to arrive in the country and remaining stock is expected to run out in the first few months of this year.
This means the price of entry into the Sorento line-up will jump from $51,630 (before on-road costs) to $54,630 for the base diesel variant. The cheapest hybrid is $2000 more and the most affordable plug-in hybrid is a further $14,500.
It’s a similar story for the Carnival, which now starts at $54,300 (before on-road costs) compared to $52,070 for the cheapest diesel. Petrol-electric hybrid power costs $1500 extra.
Both axed vehicles used Kia’s thirsty 3.5-litre V6 petrol engine. It drank a claimed 9.8L/100km or 9.6L/100km in the Sorento and Carnival respectively.
The real problem was the CO2 emissions. The engine emitted 220 grams of CO2 every km in the Carnival and 222 grams in the Sorento.
This is well above this year’s 117 gram per km limit set by the federal government’s New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES). This limit gets lower ever year until 2030.
The resulting fines, which are calculated at $100 per gram over the threshold, would make the vehicles prohibitively expensive.
These fines can be offset by credits earned from the sale of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles.
The move by Kia to dump purely petrol options in its passenger car line-up isn’t unexpected. Toyota ditched all petrol options in its passenger cars in 2024 and went hybrid only, including the large Kluger SUV that also used a very thirsty and high-emitting V6 petrol engine.
The worm is turning on petrol power Down Under, with Australian buyers increasingly shopping for hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
Almost 200,000 conventional hybrids were bought in 2025, which was a rise of about 15 per cent.
Plug-in hybrid sales increased by about 130 per cent, to more than 53,000.
Petrol-powered vehicle sales declined by about 10 per cent, but were still the most popular fuel type in the nation with more than 475,000 vehicles finding a new home.
