2022 Kia Carnival

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — When we write about minivans, it’s easy to focus on the Toyota Sienna, Honda Odyssey and Chrysler Pacifica, while mostly ignoring the other option out there: the Kia Sedona. It’s older than the other three, each of which has recently seen a refresh or, in the case of Sienna, a complete redesign. Now, Kia is changing the game, sunsetting the Sedona while launching the much splashier 2022 Kia Carnival minivan to replace it. The Carnival is hard to overlook, with its unique design and rich list of available content. With its introduction, we can no longer suggest you simply pick from the other three based on your needs. If you’re looking at buying a new minivan, you’d do yourself a disservice to continue ignoring Kia. The Carnival’s styling is interesting, and the longer I looked at it, the more I came to like it. It doesn’t exactly look like a minivan. Give it some bigger wheels and a bit more ride height, and it begins to look a lot like a crossover. Specifically, as Autoblog West Coast Editor James Riswick pointed out, it really resembles a Chevy Traverse. Kia does, after all, mostly refrain from using the word “minivan” to describe the Carnival, instead referring to it officially as an MPV, or multi-purpose vehicle (which, coming full circle, is a term many markets have used for years in lieu of the word “minivan”). And the Carnival definitely looks unlike the competition. The grille on our SX Prestige tester was made up of blocky chunks of material surrounded by a mesh of negative space. The hood, with its pair of sculpted lines and the first use of the new Kia logo, terminates in a horizontal line above the grille. That line extends above the headlights, and a character line brings it rearward to the horizontal rear lighting. Blacked-out A-, B- and D-pillars contrast with the chunky chrome C-pillar with its vanishing-diamond texture in this trim level. The shiny bumper valences and side skirts are a nice touch, and our tester’s black wheels completed the sporty appearance. But the lowered stance and sliding doors are indicators that the Carnival is indeed a minivan, just like the Sedona it replaces. It rides much closer to the ground than that Traverse we compared it to above, which translates to easier ingress/egress, easier loading, and a more carlike ride. Of particular note is the cut line for the sliding doors, which lines up with that character line that extends rearward from below the hood. “Rather than shy away from the cut line for the doors, our designers embraced it,” said Joseph Choi, advanced project planning and strategy manager at Kia. We still wish Kia would have committed further to distancing from the minivan look and tucked this line away somewhere less conspicuous. Inside, the Carnival is darn near palatial. In the top SX Prestige trim ($47,275 with destination), it features leather seating for seven occupants. The first and second rows are …
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