[MUSIC PLAYING] BRIAN WONG: One of the
more common complaints that we hear about new
cars, especially SUVs, is that they all kind
of look the same. And if you don't believe
me, as you can see, styling on these
utility vehicles is kind of homogeneous. This makes it
especially exciting when a run of the
mill SUV comes out with something
exciting and fresh, something like this, the
new 2024 Hyundai Santa Fe. This represents
a serious glow up for Hyundai's
other mid-size SUV. Now, the Palisade might
grab more of the headlines, because frankly,
since it debuted, it's been the better vehicle. But this new Santa Fe has
a few tricks up its sleeve that I think might put it on
par or make it even better than the Palisade, starting with
this rugged exterior styling. Now, this is kind of
a first for Hyundai. They've got a lot of SUVs in
the lineup, but none of them look like this. None of them look
like they're actually ready to take on
the great outdoors, as this new Santa Fe does. Hyundai actually says
that they've taken lessons that they learned from the
Ioniq electric vehicles and applied them
to the Santa Fe. So you get active
grille shutters. There's some air routing
underneath the vehicle. So this new Santa Fe is
actually more aerodynamic than the outgoing one, even
without the curvy styling. Also up here, you have
a black Hyundai badge. That's only going to come
on Calligraphy models with a black ink package. We're going to see a
few of those today. Also new up front, these
sort of H-shaped LED elements that kind of run all the way
here across the front, as well, and they connect completely. Gives the Santa Fe a really cool
visual signature, especially at night. Coming down the side here, we
have some very vertical sides. And one of the cool visual
tricks about the Santa Fe, is that it's not very tall. When we first saw
pictures of this vehicle, we thought it looked
huge vertically. But as you can see as
I stand next to it, it's actually about the
same height as the old one. And despite this
rugged appearance, it actually has about
the same ground clearance as the last model,
as well they say. But it has these extra kind
of black styling elements underneath it, and that makes
the whole vehicle look lifted a lot taller than it is. Sort of like if I was
wearing platforms. Now this styling is meant
to make the Santa Fe appeal more to overlanders. And they're actually
features on the outside of the vehicle that
should make it easier to access the roof, as well. So, as you can see
here on the pillar, there's this little panel here. And this is actually
a grab handle. So if I have things
on the roof in a bin, or if I need to climb up in
a tent, I can just grab here and there's a little
pad here to put my foot. And now I have much
easier access to anything that I'm storing up here. Just a really cool
way to use this space. You also have this
3D kind of look to both of these pillars
that I really like. And I'm just going to
get this out of the way now, because it needs
to be said once. There are serious Land Rover
vibes with this vehicle. But I kind of like it. Now moving around
to the rear, this is the one styling element
that we weren't quite as sold on in the beginning,
and it's the position of these tail lights. They're actually very low
here, down near the bumper. And one of our
social media editors actually took it
upon himself to make a Photoshop of where we thought
the tail light should be. And I agree with him. They do look better there. However, the position of these
tail lights is also functional. And it allows for a
larger cargo opening. According to Hyundai, while they
were developing this vehicle, one of the priorities was
to have a very big sort of wide open cargo space. And that's accomplished because
of this kind of large strut here. So as you can see, instead
of coming down vertically, it actually tapers outwards. And Hyundai says that if
the tail lights were higher, they would have had to position
this strut inwards by about 100mm, which is roughly this. And that would have
really shrunk down the area in which you
have to load cargo. They didn't provide exact
measurements for this space yet. We know that the last vehicle
had about 32 cubic feet of cargo room behind
the second row, but that's information we're
going to find out later for this vehicle. Another cool thing
about this cargo area is, now that the third row
and the second row both fold completely flat. So there's these little
buttons here in the cargo area. Just give them a little tap. Second row seats fold down. And the cool thing
is, that if I'm sitting up front in the
driver or the passenger seat, I can also do that through
the front infotainment screen. So if someone's coming
around to load something, I can basically make them
a pretty flat load flow without even leaving my seat. The new Santa Fe is larger. It's about two inches longer
in both overall length and in the wheelbase. But that still leaves
at about four inches short of the Palisade. However, Hyundai
tells us that in important interior
measurement where you measure the length from
the dashboard all the way back here to the tailgate,
the Santa Fe is actually larger than the Palisade. Given that, the Santa Fe should
have analogous interior room, and potentially now
a third row that can fit adult passengers,
which was a weakness of the previous Santa Fe. So, that means we're
going to put the Santa Fe through the semi-famous
three Brians test. Now, I'm 5' 11", so unlike
my vertically challenged colleague, Clint,
I'm actually going to give this third row
a real adult size test. What I've done is, I've put the
front seat, the driver's seat where I like to drive. I put the second row seat,
where I can sit comfortably. And then I see how I can
fit in the third row. And the answer to that question
is, actually, pretty well. There's a little
bit more legroom, so my knees aren't
jammed up here. But the thing that
I really appreciate is the increase in headroom. There's actually this
cutout in the roof where your head could go. But you don't even need
it, because there's just so much headroom. And you actually have a
pretty good sized window here. You have an air vent here. You have USB ports at every
seat, so everyone can charge and everyone has air. The only thing that would change
is that the seat height down here is a little bit low,
so my knees are kind of up towards my chest. So not a great place for
like a really long trip, but for anything
under two hours, you can totally fit
an adult back here. This being a
pre-production model, it doesn't really have all the
features that will eventually be on this vehicle,
but Hyundai has added for the second
row, the relaxation mode that you do get on the
front row of the Ioniq 5. So there will be a little
footrest that folds out here. And this seat will fold
back almost all the way, making it an ideal place
for a nap or to rest while you're on the go. I know that the
exterior of this vehicle got a lot of the attention. But for me, the real
star of this vehicle is the interior, the
way that it's packaged, how efficiently it uses space,
and this new styling up front. So 12.3-inch screens here in
front of me for the instrument cluster and for the
multimedia system, all sitting behind this
single curved display. On the left here, a fingerprint
sensor that you can even use to start the vehicle. This steering wheel
looks awesome. On the little thing here,
it has the same touch that you get in the Ioniq, these
four dots that are actually an H in Morse code. So a cool little touch there. And again, the H theme
kind of continues along with the air vents here
and this, just, I mean, Hyundai has done a
good job with interiors and we really liked it, but this
is on a completely different level. Another thing very
cool, this storage bin. So you can actually open
it from the front here. And there's another handle where
you can open it from the back. So if you have kids
in the second row, and this may or may
not be a good thing, they're going to have better
access to snacks or anything else you're storing in this bin. Hyundai has also moved
the gearshift from here in the center console
up onto the stalk here, which is a good
move, because all of these are electronic anyway. You're not actually
changing any of the gears or doing anything here. And that also helps to open
up this large storage bin underneath, which
is a great place to put a small bag or
a purse, just a really thoughtful kind of touch. Two glove boxes. The top one, of which, actually
comes with a UV sanitizing tray. So if you want to sanitize
your phone or anything else, pop it in there, it
gets rid of the germs. Another thing about
the center console, you'll notice that this
tray has gotten very big. And that's because there's now
two wireless charging pads. So one for the driver,
one for the passenger. They can both charge at up
to 15w at the same time. Hyundai says that there's also
a fan underneath these things to help keep your phone cool. So after you charge
it this way, you don't have to pick it up
and be like, oh, that's hot, and drop it again. And while we're on the
topic of wireless things, I am very pleased to inform
you that the Santa Fe is going to come with wireless
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, a feature that
we've been clamoring for in Hyundai's Genesis and
Kia vehicles for some time. It's finally here, and it's
just really fits this very kind of tech forward interior. I mean, I like the exterior. I love the interior. As for powertrains, Hyundai has
only confirmed that two of them will be available for the
North American market. That would be a 2.5 liter
turbocharged 4 cylinder and a hybrid with a 1.6 liter
turbocharged 4 cylinder. And if those sound
familiar, that's because those are basically
the same powertrains that you'd find in the
previous generation Santa Fe. And we have some power figures,
but not officially confirmed yet for the US, but
we should expect them to make basically the
same horsepower and torque. And we're just going
to have to wait a little bit for those
fuel economy numbers, as well as pricing. [MUSIC PLAYING] This represents a very splashy
debut for the fifth generation of the Hyundai Santa Fe. And we think that these rugged
looks and interior upgrades will definitely play well. Now we're still
waiting for a lot of these final details,
like pricing, trim levels, and seating configurations. Hyundai says we'll
find those things out in November at the LA Auto Show. But for now, we've
seen enough to really get excited about this vehicle. Now, there are
those that might say that even though it looks really
rugged, how much more rugged could it be, since
there's not really great mechanical changes, not
really added ground clearance? And to that, Hyundai
says, check this out. This is the XRT concept. And this kind of
shows the potential for this vehicle if you added
more overlanding equipment, gave it maybe a lift, and
some all-terrain tires. It's a much more
rugged take, and it shows that Hyundai is
at least considering adding off road performance
to match the Santa Fe's rugged looks. And we like that that's where
their thinking is going. The 2024 Santa Fe is set
to go on sale next year. For more information
about the Santa Fe head over to edmunds.com. And if you've been
enjoying our videos, please help us out
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Thanks for watching.
