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2021 Kia Sorento caught completely undisguised at a commercial shoot

Remember when Kia just sold cheap warranties wrapped in sheetmetal? After looking over these fresh spy photos of the 2021 Sorento crossover, we'd forgive you for saying no, as those days are clearly well behind the Korean automaker.  Not even a week ago, we saw leaked images of a finished example hiding out underneath a sheet, but this week's unveiling is far more comprehensive. Our spies weren't crafty enough to position themselves for any interior shots, but we have just about every angle of the new Sorento's exterior, and quite frankly, we like it a lot.  Like most newer cars, the 2021 Sorento is rocking an almost full-width grille, but we'll forgive this unfortunate bit of trendy convention because the rest of the design looks clean, contemporary and practical.  While there are plenty of details and nuances to the sheetmetal, the overall shape is fairly minimalist. It's a classic SUV silhouette with only a slight taper to the rear glass, which should allow the new Sorento to hold a good bit of cargo even with the second-row seats intact.  Also in the rear, we see that Kia has taken a page out of some European designers' playbooks with a widely spaced "SORENTO" made up of individual letters across the bottom of the tailgate. Kia has also gone for a split vertical tail light design that places interior housings on the tailgate itself and exterior housings in the quarter panels.  This Sorento also shows what appear to be integrated exhaust finishers that are mirrored by reflector housings above them, giving the whole lower rear bumper a very futuristic look.  A Kia executive confirmed that hybrid and plug-in variants are planned for the redesigned crossover, however it's not clear yet whether (or when) those variants will come to the U.S.  We're expecting to learn more about the new Sorento soon, as we've just learned it will be revealed at the Geneva Motor Show in March.  Related Video:

Audi, Jag, Kia and Tesla top Strategic Vision 2014 Total Quality Index

A couple weeks ago, J.D. Power released its latest Initial Quality Study, which gave high marks to Porsche, Hyundai and General Motors, with the latter earning more individual IQS awards than any other manufacturer. Now, it's Strategic Vision's turn, and it's doling out its praise not to Porsche, but to Tesla, which wasn't even included in the JD Power IQS.
The Model S was named the best vehicle overall in total quality, while Porsche's corporate brother and endurance-racing rival, Audi, was named the best premium brand, alongside Jaguar. Strategic Vision cited the Q5 and the ancient Q7 for individual segment awards, as well as the A5, which was a mere point off the top of its segment. SV also handed out compliments for the Audi's interior work. The win for the German brand is a nice improvement over its IQS score, with which it landed above the industry average, but solidly mid-pack.
Jaguar was without a segment winner, although SV did say that the Indian-owned English brand had a number of vehicles very near the top of their segments. This is the second significant win for Jag in two weeks, after it finished second overall on the JD Power IQS a few weeks ago.

2020 Kia Cadenza gets a bigger touchscreen and a new dash to fit it

Admit it, you forgot the Kia Cadenza existed. You might've even thought it was something you put in the living room somewhere between the hutch and the chesterfield. But the 2020 Kia Cadenza is a thing, still, and the full-size sedan's even been given a nip, tuck and extra features for this new model year. To the surprise of no one, this revised Cadenza is identical to the Korean-market K7 we showed you last June. We even included some of those images in the above gallery since Kia only provided a pair of pics for the Chicago Auto Show reveal. However, as it seems likely you'll need side-by-side images to tell the difference between the 2019 and 2020 Cadenzas, here you go. There. As you can now tell, the 2020 Cadenza has an enlarged concave grille that nevertheless maintains Kia's signature "tiger nose" shape. The headlights are now all-LED and fit within a sleeker slit-like housing. The bumper portion has also been redone with the old quad pod of LED lights in each corner giving way to an architectural metallic trim piece that spans its width. The rear bumper and taillights have also been given a re-think. The interior gets more noteworthy changes, however. The dash has been redone to accommodate the standard 12-inch panoramic touchscreen that migrates from the Telluride and other higher-end vehicles in the Hyundai empire. The air vents are now below the screen rather than on either side of it, and the screen itself fits just forward of the concave dash surrounding it. The design achieves the purpose of reducing visual bulk without resorting to the iPad-glued-to-the-dash look. The climate and secondary infotainment controls were also lowered and rearranged into a waterfall panel that now meets up with the center console. 2020 left, 2019 right Interior feature content is largely the same apart from three extra USB ports (one more up front, two in the rear) and an enhanced 10-watt wireless charging pad. It's the safety tech roster that really gets bolstered, however, as Kia's Drive Wise suite of driver assistance features now comes standard. This includes the extensive blind-spot monitoring system that won Autoblog's Technology of the Year award, as well as forward collision warning with pedestrian/cyclist detection and automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, adaptive cruise control with steering assist and navigation-system input, and the Safe Exit Assist feature that warns passengers when traffic is detected from the rear.