Kia Puts Five Hybrids in One Ad as Hybrid Share of US Sales Hits a Record
A Gesaffelstein-scored spot puts the Telluride, Sportage, and Carnival turbo-hybrids at the center of Kia's marketing — just as hybrids hit a record share of US new-car sales.
Kia America is spending its advertising money on hybrids, not EVs. The brand's new campaign, "Hybrids That Move to a New Beat," launched September 14 and puts five hybrid models — Telluride, Sportage, Sorento, Carnival, and Niro — at the center of a push spanning broadcast, print, digital, out-of-home, and social media.
The 30-second spot is cut to "OPR" by Gesaffelstein, the Grammy-winning French producer. A Telluride Turbo-Hybrid accelerates through city streets while skyscraper windows light up in sync with the track, spreading an equalizer effect from block to block. A Sportage follows through a tunnel, a Carnival carves a corner, and the finale shows all five hybrids from above on a highway — Sorento and Niro included — framed to look like knobs on a mixing board.
The ad flashes hard numbers, too. The Telluride Hybrid's 329-hp turbocharged 2.5-liter powertrain and a 564-mile total driving range appear on screen; on Kia's consumer site, the figure runs as high as 637 miles for the EX FWD trim. The Carnival Turbo-Hybrid is credited with 608 miles between fill-ups. Kia also repeats its claim of offering the industry's second-largest hybrid lineup, without naming who sits first.
The timing is the real story. Hybrids took a record 16 percent of US light-duty vehicle sales in the second quarter of 2026, according to the Energy Information Administration, while battery-electric share slid to 6 percent after the federal tax credit expired last September. Urban Science's retail data tells the same story: hybrids outsold every powertrain outside the gasoline mainstream, while BEV retail sales dropped 26.6 percent year over year.
Kia is riding that wave harder than most. The brand posted its best-ever first half in 2026 at 430,727 units, with hybrid sales up 115 percent through June — and up 187 percent in June alone. August then became Kia America's best sales month in history, with hybrid volume nearly doubling year over year. The Sportage Hybrid has been the engine of that growth, up 133 percent in the first half, and its production is set to begin at the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant in Georgia — the first Kia, and the first hybrid, built there.
There's no new product in the campaign, and that's the point: the message is breadth. With EV demand resetting and no federal incentive to lean on, Kia's marketing dollars are following its sales mix — and right now both point in the same direction.
