Hyundai Santa Fe review

No more diesels here. Every version is a combination of engine and electric. We’ve driven the non-plugged hybrid. It consists, as many other hybrids from Hyundai and Kia, of a 1.6-litre turbo four-cylinder engine driving through an auto box. Sandwiched between engine and transmission is the motor, so it too operates through all six ratios.

This isn't absolutely the most efficient of the hybrid systems out there. But it'll match a diesel, and it does feel very normal. The engine revs rise and fall as with a conventional automatic (because that's what it is) when you're on the accelerator. When you're going gently it can hand off entirely to the motor, falling still and silent – even up to quite high speeds if you're lifted off or going gently downhill. But since any petrol engine would be pretty quiet at those times, you hardly notice.

As a petrol auto it's smooth and progressive when driving gently, but ask any more of it and the revs rise, the engine drones busily and vibrations come through. It’s not an engine that encourages you to use it hard. Or rewards with sporting performance. Still, the brakes stand up remarkably well to hard use – a good sign it was developed to perform well with heavy loads on board.

In Eco mode the column paddles control regenerative braking; in Sport you have control of the gears.

And what does it weigh?

Anywhere between 1,845 and 2,145kg, the 300kg spread accounted for by 4WD (adding about 65kg) and the plug-in hybrid system (adding about 125kg). The rest of the weight change is accounted for by the seat layout (boot seats add 35kg) and trim level.

Still, around two tonnes for a well packaged hybrid family SUV means the Santa Fe weighs considerably less than rivals such as the Audi Q7 or Volvo XC90.

If it’s heavy when accelerating, what about when cornering?

The suspension manages that weight pretty well. The steering is well-weighted, has a progressive action, and marries well with the roll angles. In any case, roll, pitch and heave are well contained, at least when it's not full of people. So you're confident in carving neat lines whatever the road.

But let's stress again, it's not a sports SUV and it's not meant to be. That's part of its appeal, frankly. The ride is smooth enough, although there's some secondary shimmy from the big heavy tyres. Nothing too bothersome. However, refinement is undermined a little by light chassis tremors and noise fed back through the suspension. It could and should be better insulated to defend against this. It causes the sort of background drone that can be tiring.

Talk to me about driving assistance.

It comes with Hyundai's usual driver assist suite. There are sentinels all around to try to prevent you biffing into stuff or people. On motorways the lane centring and adaptive cruise work smoothly, and their symbols and switching logic are easy to get your head around, especially with the high-trim HUD. If you don’t want their ‘help’, they’re reasonably easy to disable – a button on the steering wheel switches out the lane keep and steering assist, and you don’t have to burrow too far into the screen menus to disable the driver attention and speed limit bongs.

Will it go off-road?

Well, it has 177mm of ground clearance and a 4WD system that, while front-drive biased, has an electrically controlled variable torque split and engages the rears smoothly and more often than you might expect. A button low on the console allows you to select various terrain modes, and they’re well thought through.

In slippery conditions, including snow, we found it managed itself very well indeed. However, it's pretty clear that the road-biased tyres and suspension and lack of crawler gears mean this isn't the aim.

How efficient is it?

As ever, the PHEV is only worth going for if you can charge up at home, and even then you’re only looking at 25 real world miles of EV running from the 14kWh battery. And you lose 20 litres of petrol tank (47 versus 67 litres). We got 37mpg or so from a claimed 38mpg in the top-spec hybrid, which is decent for a car this size. Interesting that without charging, both powertrains shake out roughly the same numbers.