Kia Telluride in Brooklyn: The All-New Three-Row for Weekends Out East

It is three o’clock on a Friday in Carroll Gardens, and a family is loading a car on a brownstone block: duffels, a cooler, a folded stroller, a dog who knows exactly what is happening. Ahead lie the Long Island Expressway, the farm stands of the North Fork and, if the timing works, the line for the Shelter Island ferry. The three-row SUVs that make this trip comfortable have long worn luxury badges and priced themselves accordingly. The second-generation Kia Telluride, new for 2027, makes a quiet argument that they no longer have to.

Anyone looking at a Kia Telluride in Brooklyn this fall has, for the first time, two powertrains to choose from, and the choice says a lot about how the car will be used. Before that, though, it is worth sitting inside.

A cabin that borrows from the class above

Kia redesigned the interior around available dual 12.3-inch panoramic displays, and the optional details read like a luxury spec sheet: front relaxation seats with leg rests, power-operated captain’s chairs, SynTex upholstery with suede inserts, ambient lighting, heated third-row seats and a 14-speaker Meridian sound system. The wheelbase grew 2.7 inches, to 116.9, which shows up as legroom in the back rows.

The car also grew to 199.2 inches overall. On a tight Cobble Hill block, or in a Brooklyn Heights garage built for smaller cars, those extra inches are worth measuring before they are worth admiring.

Hybrid or turbo, depending on where the weekend goes

The standard 2.5-liter turbo makes 274 horsepower and tows up to 5,000 pounds, which suits a boat trailer or a pair of jet skis bound for the South Shore. The new turbo-hybrid pairs that engine with an electric motor for 329 horsepower and 339 lb-ft of torque, earns an EPA rating of 35 mpg combined in front-drive form and 31 with all-wheel drive, and still tows 4,500 pounds. Kia puts the front-drive hybrid’s range at more than 600 miles on a tank.

The hybrid adds a small, civilized feature called Stay Mode, which runs the climate control, cabin lighting and stereo for about 20 minutes without starting the engine. That is a quieter way to wait out a ferry line in August. The X-Pro, offered with the turbo, goes the other way: 9.1 inches of ground clearance, all-terrain tires and a Ground View Monitor, for Catskills cabins at the end of unpaved roads.

Take a typical Park Slope family of five with a summer rental in Greenport. Most of their miles are errands around the neighborhood and the Sunday-night crawl back on the LIE, the kind of stop-and-go driving where a hybrid is at its most efficient. The house sits on a paved road and nothing needs towing, so the hybrid with all-wheel drive for ski season covers the year and the X-Pro stays on the lot.

What to try before you sign

• Sit in the third row yourself, not just the children.
• Test the relaxation seats and captain’s chairs on the exact trim you would buy, since both are available rather than standard.
• Check the build date on the driver’s door jamb. The IIHS Top Safety Pick+ award for the 2027 Telluride applies only to vehicles built after June 2026.
• Measure your garage or usual parking spot against the new length.
• Load what you actually pack: the stroller, the golf bag, the cooler.

Comparing on one block

Plaza Kia is part of Plaza Auto Mall, family-owned on Nostrand Avenue since 1975, where five franchises share one block. That puts the Telluride a short walk from the showrooms behind the Toyota Grand Highlander, Honda Pilot, Hyundai Palisade and Acura MDX, which makes an honest cross-shop possible in a single afternoon. Current new inventory is listed at www.plazakiany.com/new-kia. The showrooms are open Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and delivery is free within 25 miles, a radius that reaches much of Nassau County.

The takeaway

The new Telluride’s appeal is less about any single feature than about how many of them now come without a luxury badge attached. Choose the hybrid if your weekends run on highways and ferry lines, the turbo or X-Pro if they involve a trailer or a dirt road, and check the build date either way.