2 Years In A Row: Kia Telluride Is Car And Driver 10 Best For 2021

Car And Driver's 10 Best list for 2021 once again includes the Kia Telluride. It's the second consecutive year in which the Telluride has collected this prestigious award from one of the world's leading automotive publications.

Snagging a 10 Best honour is no easy feat. Every vehicle in contention competes against every other vehicle – not just new vehicles, not just vehicles in the same segment, not just vehicles in the same price bracket. That means previous 10 Best winners are invited back along with every all-new or significantly revised vehicle priced under USD $90,000. 

That leaves 57 vehicles eligible: everything from the new Cadillac Escalade to the Land Rover Defender, Mercedes-Benz E450 All-Terrain, and Toyota Highlander.

And in its second year of eligibility, the Telluride wins a 10 Best placement for a second time. It's the only vehicle on the list that comes standard with a third row.

So why does Car And Driver rank the Telluride so highly?

• • "One tester pointed out that between the Telluride and the Cadillac Escalade, only one offers ventilated second-row seats – and it's not the Escalade."
• • "The ride is sedate and the body control taut, erring toward sportiness."
• • "We can also say, based on our long-termer, that this Kia is blissfully free of reliability foibles that might squelch our enthusiasm."
• • "This SUV is better than it needs to be."
• • "In the case of the Telluride, you get the experience of a luxury SUV without any pretense or badge-snob affectation."