I bought a 2025 Sportage Hybrid EX with moon roof a few weeks ago for $36,000 OTD in MD. The base price was about $32,500, then sales tax, tag, dealer processing fees, etc. The base price on the purchase paper was probably made up but I really didn't care. I capped the OTD price and the dealer can write whatever on paper as they wanted. In order to buy at that price which was supposedly discounted, I had to use a 3rd party bank that provides car loan instead of KIA Finance which couldn't provide as much price discount. I can pay off the loan quickly after purchase without prepay penalty so I didn't care who was the lender, nor the interest rate, as long as there is no prepayment penalty.
As for the vehicle itself, power seems to be moderate; body roll is acceptable; feels like a heavy vehicle than it is; can hear some wind noise on highway (with two cross-bar on top installed); the center screen looks nice, but it's somewhat annoying: almost everything is on a touch screen (very few physical buttons), the touch screen is very sensitive - even if your fingers happen to very lightly brush it by accident, it triggers a touch screen function. mileage wise, I got about 34.5 miles/gallon for the first 1000 miles also. Overall, no big complaints.