Styling
Make no bones about it, we love the way the Mk5 Santa Fe looks. In the wake of the demise of the blocky old
Land Rover Discovery 3 and 4 models, and following its transition to the rounder
Disco 5, the Hyundai has boldly stepped in to fill the breach. You can obviously draw comparisons to those older Landies, yet the Santa Fe has its own, distinct look, thanks to the angular wheel-arch extensions, the parallel and perfectly straight design lines on its flanks (the roof rails, upper window frame, lower window frame and sills are all aligned with each other), and the truly brilliant conceit of the H-shaped light signatures fore and aft; one observer even said they looked a little like the Under Armour logo, which is a happy coincidence that gives the Santa Fe a youthful connection.
It's also a clever piece of design, because despite the Hyundai being physically large in order to accommodate seven people within, it doesn't give the impression that it is huge and hulking as you walk up to it. Even in all black, it has a strangely inherent sleekness that's at odds with its set-square styling, meaning you don't suffer any apprehension that you might somehow be mistaken for driving a hearse, and the Santa Fe appears to be lower to the ground than it actually is (at more than 1.7 metres tall). Furthermore, Hyundai's aerodynamicists have worked some arcane magic here, as the bluff, cuboid form of the Mk5 is of no detriment to its coefficient of drag figure; it's actually slipperier, at 0.29Cd, than the more rounded
Mk4 predecessor (0.33Cd), which is a phenomenal achievement by the Korean firm.
So that brings us onto the elephant in the room, as it were. That tailgate design. We'll be honest, when we first saw it in pictures, we were
not fans. Even when this Plug-In Hybrid (PHEV) Ultimate turned up for a week on test with us, we remained unconvinced by its layout. And it would appear, going on some of the social media responses we had, that we are not alone in that regard. However, while we're not about to say the Santa Fe's rear is pretty, we've grown accustomed to it enough in the space of seven days to say we could happily, happily live with this big SUV. Even if the low-set light bar stacked underneath the expanse of metal (no amount of large 'Santa Fe' lettering and that horizontal depression cut into the boot can hide it) above brings the 1980s' Tefal Man to mind; look it up if you're unsure, kids.
Interior
Any lingering concerns about the exterior styling of the Hyundai are soon allayed when you climb aboard. This is a truly sumptuous cabin, complete with a pleasing blend of eye-catching technology and proper, physical switchgear that operates in an intuitive fashion, while the material quality is genuinely exceptional. You also sit on plump, comfortable seats, with some beautiful fascia architecture to look at only enhanced by classy wood trim and light leather.
As already alluded to, the human-machine interface in the Santa Fe is so good that you quickly operate everything like it's second nature. True, there are a lot of menus to work through on that central 12.3-inch display, but they're reasonably well laid-out, while the also-12.3-inch instrument cluster is lovely and sharp, with a decent level of configurability. A bank of climate controls that are wholly separate to the infotainment system work slickly, even if some of the buttons in the middle are haptic rather than physical, and then to cap it all off there's a fabulous head-up display to utilise as well. The dual wireless smartphone charging pads, a feature of the mid-grade Ultimate, and the lower storage level of the console also make the Hyundai's interior feel welcoming, rather than intimidating. We love it.
Practicality
Another huge tick for the Santa Fe here, because even as the PHEV it comes with seven seats as standard, with an option of six - fitting two plush captains' chairs in the middle row, instead of the 60:40 split bench here - if you'd prefer. Legroom in the second row of the full seven-seater is generous in the extreme, however, and you can slide those two portions of the bench in the centre of the SUV forward and backward as required, to free up more legroom in row three. Admittedly, those rear-most two passenger positions are still more for smaller people, although the Hyundai is sizeable enough that you could imagine adults sitting back there for shorter periods of time if required.
Visibility out of the cabin is superb in all directions, while there's a wealth of useful storage compartments, USB sockets and even separate climate controls scattered throughout the rear sections of the passenger compartment. And when it comes to boot space, Hyundai has even aced this brief too. With all seven seats in use, the company doesn't cite a volume for the capacity behind row three, but there's enough there to get some soft bags stashed away, if it weren't for one of the minor annoyances of the Santa Fe PHEV - there's no under-floor storage in the boot, so the bags for its charging cables have to be stowed there. Worse, on any model, the luggage cover doesn't have a home when it's not in use, so you're best off leaving it at your residence if you're going out with the maximum passenger complement aboard the SUV.
That said, folding the seats down in rows two and three is the work of a moment, although returning the heavier middle chairs back to their original position isn't quite as straightforward and requires two hands as you have to hold the adjustment lever on the side of the base up while you tilt the backrest with your other hand. But if you do drop the rear pair of seats, then even in the PHEV you have 621 litres to play with, which is vast, and getting rid of all chairs but the front two liberates a colossal 1,942 litres. In all honesty, barring a few minor niggles, the Hyundai is every inch as capacious and configurable inside as you could want from a seven-seat SUV like this.
Performance
Regardless of its size, and the fact it weighs more than two tonnes as a PHEV, the Hyundai Santa Fe range is powered by various hybridised versions of the 1.6-litre turbocharged four-cylinder petrol. Now that might sound like a rather small engine in a somewhat gigantic car, but we're here to tell you it's absolutely fine.
In the PHEV, the Santa Fe's 160hp/265Nm combustion engine is augmented by a 72kW (98hp)/304Nm electric motor powered by a 13.8kWh battery. That's not a huge unit, for a modern-day plug-in, so the Hyundai's official eco-stats - electric range 34 miles, fuel economy 161.2mpg, CO
2 emissions 38g/km - are not exactly stellar (if you'll forgive that unintended reference to one of the Korean firm's past products). However, weirdly you can find online specifications for the Santa Fe PHEV which say it achieves 37.2mpg, which might sound alarmingly low for a plug-in hybrid, but at least it's a more believable real-world figure.
To check this out, we stress-tested the poor thing by simply not charging its battery back up once, after it had exhausted the initial supply it arrived with, mainly because we don't have an AC wallbox at our premises; call us lazy or call us thorough, we don't care. Anyway, across 615 miles and nearly 18 hours at its wheel, the Santa Fe PHEV turned in a more-than-acceptable 34mpg in such circumstances. It'd happily push 40mpg at a fast motorway cruise, battery depleted (it in fact seems to reserve about 10-15 per cent of its charge at all times, in order to keep providing drive assistance), and there were occasions on local jaunts, sub-20 miles, where it was hovering in the 48-50mpg bracket with no driver effort whatsoever. For a two-tonne, small-engined, seven-seat SUV running almost entirely on petrol power alone, we don't think that's half-bad at all. You'd only need to mains-charge it infrequently as an owner to comfortably better our returns, too, and at just 13.8kWh to replenish then you're going to easily fill it with an overnight charge at home.
The PHEV drivetrain in the Santa Fe also performs well when it comes to speed. A 9.3-second 0-62mph time gives a pre-drive indication of the strength of the Hyundai, but it doesn't accurately convey how rapid it feels in practice. Once it's rolling, there's bags of torque to play with and it powers up to motorway velocity in surprisingly short order, while both the gearbox's shift patterns, plus the integration of the electric and petrol portions of its powertrain, deserve the highest of praise for being so unobtrusive. The 1.6-litre engine isn't even raucous if you do spin it right out, making something of an appealing snarl (as plain turbo fours go) when nearing the redline, and yet it's super-smooth and hushed if you're just ambling around on the lower slopes of its rev range. Lovely throttle and brake pedal calibration also help hugely here, so driving the Santa Fe quickly reveals itself to be a pleasure, rather than a chore.
Ride & Handling
With self-levelling suspension equipped with frequency selective dampers (FSDs), the Hyundai promises much for rolling refinement, especially when factoring in its unexpected aerodynamic prowess. However, all models also run on 20-inch alloys, so there's the potential the Santa Fe's ride quality and refinement could be compromised in the name of exterior style. Not so; aside from on the very worst surfaces, where there's a little rumbling from the suspension at times, in general this SUV exhibits a high level of sophistication in a wide array of scenarios. It's serene and elegant on the motorway, it's comfortable and soft around town, and it keeps its composure through the corners if you're pushing it along a country road. Wind noise is notable only by its relative absence, and if there's any tyre roar seeping through the sound-deadening then it's only trace levels of the stuff which are audible. In general, the Santa Fe feels like exactly what it needs to be: a grand, ultra-refined, long-distance hauler.
Which then makes its spry handling all the more of an unexpected delight. There's no need for a seven-seat SUV to be sporty in the bends and, in truth, the Santa Fe isn't that - but it's far better set-up for cornering than it needs to be. Fantastic steering, for this class of car, is the primary weapon in its armoury, as it turns in keenly via a wheel that feels ideal in terms of weighting, and which even offers up some small morsels of feel. This is not your typical, over-light, US-style steering calibration, which you might reasonably expect of a 2,000kg-plus family chariot like this. And then there's the suspension, which is admittedly on the softer side of things, allowing for a degree of lean in the corners, but it's not so loose that the Hyundai feels roly-poly if you start to test its capabilities. Indeed, you'll surprise certain other road users with how quickly the Santa Fe PHEV can hustle along a twisting road, disappearing into the distance with a clean, assured display of roadholding. We'd stop short of calling the Santa Fe fun or engaging, you understand, but... well, it's certainly
amusing to drive it in a fashion that's emphatically out of its comfort zone, at the very least.
Value
With a starting price approaching 50 grand for the range in general, and with the Ultimate specification of the PHEV costing more than £55,000 basic as tested, the Hyundai Santa Fe Mk5 might look pricey on the face of it. That's doubly true if you are ranging it up against its more traditional mainstream rivals, such as the
Peugeot 5008, the
Skoda Kodiaq and, of course, the distantly related
Kia Sorento.
But we'd say this boxy fifth-gen Santa Fe has moved considerably upmarket from any of the above, including the Kodiaq (one of our faves of this vehicle type), so instead we reckon the Hyundai is outstanding value if you chuck it up against the much-more-expensive likes of the ageing
Audi Q7 and the somewhat newer
BMW X5. And it's roomier inside than either of those two. Indeed, the vehicle the Santa Fe most reminds us of is our absolute shining star of this class of vehicle, the second-generation
Volvo XC90. The Santa Fe is the only thing that matches up to Swede's general feelgood factor, its interior quality and practicality, and the same sort of refined driving manners. It's still less dear than even the most inexpensive XC90, too, which is saying nothing of how much cash the T8 PHEV Volvo commands in its dotage, and while you can spend even more money on toys by opting for the Calligraphy-grade Santa Fe (£57,635), you really don't need to. The Ultimate is dripping in kit, up to and including leather upholstery, heated and cooled front seats, heated seats in the outer positions of row two, an uprated Bose sound system, and also Hyundai's exceptional blind-spot warning system that puts the relevant rear-facing camera views (left or right) in the appropriate dial of the instrument cluster when you use the indicators. There's a heck of a lot more equipment on the Hyundai than just these items, however, so while we feel a little uncomfortable typing this, we're nevertheless convinced that at £55,135 as tested, this Santa Fe is one of the most reasonably priced modern cars we've driven in years.
Verdict
Let's be clear, we have some (very) minor gripes about this new Hyundai Santa Fe. And they are these: the rear styling is divisive; while switching off certain ADAS functions in the cabin is the work of a moment, there's always a 'coffee cup' driver monitoring system running in the background that we couldn't switch off which, very occasionally, had a weird hissy fit (normally in crosswinds, involving lots of small steering corrections in a short space of time); there's no dedicated space in the body for the PHEV's charging cables nor its boot-located luggage cover; and a bigger battery and better eco-performance might help the Korean's cause yet further.
But, aside from those - none of which we'd consider in any way close to approaching being dealbreakers - everything else the Hyundai Santa Fe PHEV does, it does it to an incredibly exalted level and with no small degree of polish to top it off. Luxurious, comfortable, spacious, ergonomically sound, bounteously equipped, great to drive and hugely relaxing to travel in, we can't think of many SUVs, seven-seaters or otherwise, at any price level of the market which do things much better than the Santa Fe. It's therefore thoroughly deserving of our first-ever five-star award for a Hyundai that
doesn't have an 'N'-badge on its bootlid.
