2023 Kia Telluride vs 2022 Land Rover Defender

Over seven decades in the car business, Land Rover has shifted from making utilitarian vehicles prized by farmers, explorers, and soldiers to making luxury vehicles prized by wealthy suburbanites. The 2022 Land Rover Defender aims to bridge the gap between Land Rover’s past and present.

As other Land Rover models got more luxurious, the original Defender carried on as a rugged, basic off-roader. While Land Rover stopped selling the old school Defender in North America during the 1990s, it remained in production for other markets until 2016. By that time, Land Rover was already planning a clean-sheet redesign that brought the Defender back to North America for the 2020 model year.

The new Land Rover Defender contrasts the automaker’s other models, like the Discovery and Range Rover, with an emphasis on ruggedness. It’s still bigger and cushier than the original Defender, but less fancy than its sibling models. And like the original Defender, the new model is available in two-door 90 and four-door 110 body styles. A three-row, eight-seat Land Rover Defender 130 body style is also on the way for the 2023 model year.

Meanwhile, changes for the 2022 model year include a new optional 11.4-inch touchscreen, standard wireless phone charging, and an expansion of trim levels. The Defender 90 gets a new X-Dynamic SE trim, and a new V8 powertrain option debuts for both the 90 and Defender 110. Shared with other Jaguar Land Rover products, the supercharged 5.0-litre V8 provides a serious boost in performance. We sampled it in a Defender 90 for this review.

Kia can barely keep up with demand for the Telluride, and its dealers and customers have told the company not to change a single thing, so you’d think it unnecessary for the automaker to invest a single penny upgrading the popular three-row crossover SUV.

Kia would disagree.

This year, the 2023 Telluride gets minor styling changes, new technologies, and some off-roading attitude in the form of new X-Line and X-Pro trim levels. We headed to San Antonio, Texas, to sample the Telluride’s new kit. And we remain impressed with this excellent family-size sport-ute.