Spending hours in these two top-end Telluride trims gave me a lot of time to appreciate the interior, which is a big upgrade from the old one. Don’t get me wrong, the outgoing Telluride is nice inside, but it definitely feels outdated against other new Kia offerings, especially the EV9. Its layout and design is like a mix of EV9 and the old Telluride, retaining the first-gen’s prominent center console with a grab handle on each side. The dashboard wraps around onto the door panels, which looks fab and creates two-tone color splits, and configurable ambient lighting is used to great effect.
Like most other Kias there is a 12.3-inch gauge cluster display (4.2 inches on low-end trims) and 12.3-inch touchscreen sandwiching a 5-inch touchscreen for the climate controls, which can be annoying to use while driving. The rest of the infotainment system is great, though, and has wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There are seven USB-C ports throughout the interior, plus two wireless chargers in the center console with rubbery pads that will actually hold your phone in place pretty well. An 8-speaker sound system is standard, but you can get a 14-speaker Meridian surround-sound system that would feel right at home in a true luxury car.
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Depending on trim level the Telluride has no sunroof, a single-pane power sunroof above the first row of seats, or a large dual-pane panoramic roof, the front pane of which opens. If you get the big one, which my test cars had, the new Telluride has more headroom in all three rows of seats than the outgoing model. Shoulder room is better for second-row passengers, and there’s over half an inch more leg room in both the second and third rows. Kia says third-row ingress has been improved by 2.3 inches, and it does seem easier to get in and out with, either with the available powered second-row captain’s chairs or the manually adjustable ones. Both are pretty easy to use, and while unnecessary, the power ones seem to better move out of the way. (According to a Kia spokesperson, the Telluride is unaffected by the Palisade’s power-seat-related recall.)
In SUVs like this cargo space is just as important as passenger space, so the Telluride has more of it, too. With the third row up there’s 22.3 cubic feet of space including the bit of room under the luggage tray cover, 1.3 cubes more than the old Telluride. Folding the third row expands that to 48.7 cubic feet, 2.7 more than before, and if you also fold the second row flat (doable with buttons in the cargo area) there’s a total of 89.3 cubic feet, an increase of 2.3 cubes. Going for the hybrid only takes away 1 cubic foot from each of those measurements, which is really not bad. The center console storage is expansive, as are the door pockets.
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An often-overlooked feature of a car are the overhead lights, but you’ll be happy to know Kia did some innovating with the one in the Telluride X-Pro’s tailgate. Not only is the brightness adjustable — and it gets very bright — you can also adjust the hue of the light from normal to cool or warm. There’s also exterior ground lighting that illuminates all four sides of the vehicle.
The Tellurides at the drive all had Kia’s carpeted floor mat accessory package, which includes a mat that covers the cargo area and the back of the third row, velcroing on. They looked fine with the third row folded flat, but the mat weirdly bunched up when the seats were in place. That could just be because it was new and stiff, but floor mat lovers beware. See? That’s the sort of nitpicky stuff you come to Jalopnik for.
