- Santa Fe Hybrid makes 231 hp and 271 lb-ft of torque
- Santa Fe Hybrid averaged 31 mpg combined over mostly highway miles
- Comfy seats, clever storage, and a spacious cargo area with the third-row folded make it a good family hauler
My teen daughter’s a videographer. Whenever I test a big car, fast car, cool car, anything that’s not “mid,” which is most things, she urges a video shoot. On a roadtrip to Detroit from the Chicago suburbs for her hockey tournament, she kept saying how we had to ‘Tok the new Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy.
Impressing a teen with a midsize SUV is like impressing her with a book. Redesigned for 2024, the Santa Fe grew out of its midsize proportions to fit a third row in a much more practical way than it did way back in 2008. Longer, wider, roomier, stamped with H logos everywhere, this Lego-like SUV charmed her on the inside out.
It’s one of the only midsize crossover hybrids with a cramped but capable third row. It’s more stylish than either the related Kia Sorento and the aging Toyota Highlander. The Honda Passport is too expensive, and the Chevy Blazer and Jeep Grand Cherokee lack a third row and a hybrid without a plug. The Santa Fe Hybrid is a great family car, especially if you don’t want to size up to the Hyundai Palisade and its kind.
Pro: Santa Fe Hybrid powertrain smooths out the shifts
The best thing about the hybrid powertrain in the Santa Fe is how it’s mostly unnoticeable. Hyundai takes its 1.6-liter inline-4, adds a 47.7-kw electric motor that gets power from a 1.5-kwh lithium-ion battery, then bolts in a 6-speed automatic transmission all in one clean powertrain sandwich. Total system output is 231 hp and 271 lb-ft of torque, so there’s plenty of power for uphill passing, and a little electric boost off the line. At low speeds on motor power alone, the shift from first to second gear can surprise drivers familiar with single-geared electric vehicles or a continuously variable hybrid transmission where there’s no real gear shifts. Other than that, it’s quiet and the transition from motor to engine is seamless.
Put it in Sport mode and the throttle is more sensitive and the shifts are delayed. But the power is in your hands, because you can override the shifts by flicking the steering wheel paddles. In Eco or Smart mode, the paddle shifters change. They become regenerative brake settings, with up to four different levels; it can coast like a normal gas car, or get pressed to the most assertive level, L3, and when you let off the gas it’ll regen brake like an electric car, just not down to a stop. It’s great for around-town driving to recharge the battery and rely more on electric power and less on gas power.
Pro: Comfy long-distance seats
I have a series of pictures of my teenager sleeping shotgun with the passenger seat folded back and her body twisted in sweatshirts and a seatbelt. This time, she slept like the baby she was not so long ago. I was comfy enough, too, with power adjustments for lumbar and thigh support, to drive for six straight hours without wanting to get out and stretch. The big seats with plenty of side support are not Lincoln-levels of comfort, but they’re close.
Con: Santa Fe Hybrid’s limited third row
The Santa Fe Hybrid has a raised floor under the second and third rows of seats (the battery pack sits in the floor under the front passenger seat). That makes for an awkward third-row seating position, with your knees higher than your hips. With only 30.0 inches of legroom, even grade-schoolers will need to negotiate with second-row passengers to move up for adequate toeroom. If you’re on carpool duty, or watching littles for an evening, the third row suffices, but for more than occasional use, step up to the larger Hyundai Palisade.
Pro: Santa Fe’s clever center console optimizes space
A tiered center console is a welcome new car feature thanks to automakers like Hyundai moving the gear selector back to the steering column. In the Santa Fe, twin wireless smartphone chargers fill the top half while an open storage shelf lines the bottom. But the storage area under the console armrest is equally clever. It opens from the front or the back, so second-row passengers can access it. Hidden beneath it is a drawer that those same rear passengers can pull out and stow their items. Neat, as in keeping it neat.
Con: How to move power second-row seats in Hyundai Santa Fe
Moving the second-row seats to get into the third row is relatively easy: push the power button on the seat top and it tilts and slides forward. The gap to get to the rear is narrow, so leave it to the kids. But moving the seat back in place requires a button press on the control panel to unlock the seat. You can move it back into position with the power buttons or a manual bar under the seat bottom. It seems unnecessarily complicated.
Folding the seats flat took me an embarrassingly long time. In top Calligraphy models, they can be power-folded from the cargo hold, as long as the front seats are moved up enough to fit them. From the rear door, it takes a double press on the seat control unit once the seat back is past the high noon position to fold down completely. If pressed for time, I could imagine some sharp voices exchanged between parents and kids. Impatient types might prefer the manual levers on the bench seat instead of the fancy power-activated captain’s chairs.
Pro: Big rear opening
The boxy new design of the Santa Fe doesn’t just harken back to a classic SUV profile, it also opens up a huge tailgate opening that makes it easy to load it up, even on Costco runs. “Costco was definitely a source of design inspiration for me,” SangYup Lee, the head of Genesis and Hyundai’s global design center told us at the redesigned Santa Fe’s global reveal last year. There’s only 14.6 cubic feet of space with the third-row seats up, and a hidden cargo floor holds a 12-volt battery so even that is limited. Pull the straps and collapse the third row and it expands to 40.5 cubic feet, which is more than enough to transport even the most ambitious Costco run. Dogs love the low liftover height, and the broad opening means that two people can sit back there in comfort during, say, a youth hockey tailgate in the parking lot. The Hybrid loses only 1 cubic foot of total passenger and cargo space versus the gas model.
Pro: Passing gas stations in the Santa Fe Hybrid
The massive 17.7-gallon gas tank meant we didn’t have to stop on our roadtrip. We came up short of the EPA’s estimated 34 mpg combined rating, getting about 31 mpg on the highway, but with that big tank and that fuel economy, the Santa Fe Hybrid can go for about 600 miles between fill-ups. That makes for a great road-trip vehicle for dads of a certain—impatient—temperament.
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2025 Hyundai Santa Fe Hybrid Calligraphy AWD
Base price: $38,615, including $1,415 destination
Price as tested: $50,425
Drivetrain: Inline-4 with a 64-hp motor (231 hp total), 6-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
EPA fuel economy: 35/34/35 mpg
Pros: Range, seamless powertrain, front seat comfort, clever packaging
Cons: Cramped third row, convoluted second-row power captain’s chairs