BILL OWNEY | Santa Fe: Hyundai builds an SUV perfect for Goldilocks

The Santa Fe comes in eight exterior colors, two dozen interior hues and materials, four drivetrain options, 15 trim lines, and prices that range from $28,815 to $45,360. (Photo courtesy of Hyundai)
The Santa Fe comes in eight exterior colors, two dozen interior hues and materials, four drivetrain options, 15 trim lines, and prices that range from $28,815 to $45,360. (Photo courtesy of Hyundai)

In a world awash in SUVs - from massive to the minute - Hyundai's midsize Santa Fe aims to hit many a customers' sweet spot.

No gas-guzzling behemoth, the Santa Fe offers generous space for five passengers and luggage. Large enough to avoid the jittery ride common to compacts SUVs, the Santa Fe is still small and light enough to be nimble and fuel-efficient.

The Santa Fe comes in eight exterior colors, two dozen interior hues and materials, four drivetrain options, 15 trim lines, and prices that range from $28,815 to $45,360. Goldilocks, go find thy car.

If you can.

Before we continue, let's stipulate that a new Santa Fe within a 100-mile radius of Texarkana is as rare as a cat with butterfly wings, a creature that is today nevertheless more plentiful than silicone chips. Older models are selling for more than the list price of new ones.

This birdie can be confusing to follow. One of Hyundai's best sellers, the midsize Santa Fe was Hyundai's first SUV and was an immediate hit when it hit the American market in 2001. It helped lift Hyundai, a South Korean engineering and construction conglomerate that first dipped its toes in automobiles in 1967, to prominence in the U.S.

Indeed, by 2007, Hyundai was building Santa Fes in Montgomery, Ala.

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Patrick Lee McElroy, 58, of Hot Springs National Park

As the company added more SUV models, the Santa Fe morphed into the largest on the lot. A short-wheelbase model was called the Santa Fe Sport. In 2018, the long-wheelbase Santa Fe became the Santa Fe XL. In 2019, that version became the Palisade.

In 2021, Hyundai redesigned Santa Fe on an all-new platform. Styling cues inside and out were adapted from the highly popular Palisade. The result was a car that is amiable at speed and pleasant sitting still.

This is the model that is hard to find, so if you are in the market for a Santa Fe, new or used, be sure to pack some apples and oranges. The Montgomery plant has faced periodic shutdowns and slowdowns since mid-June.

Crowd pleaser

Though most critics rank the Santa Fe slightly behind the Subaru Outback, Ford Edge, Nissan Murano, and Toyota Venza, it still has earned a passel of awards. It's a Consumer Reports recommended buy, an Editors' Choice at Car and Driver, and a Top Safety+ honoree at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

The latter is the most significant. Auto critics tend to look at subjective criteria (though those are often a nice fit with consumer desires), but IIHS uses objective, quantifiable data, like how well does it perform in six crash tests, the level of standard and available safety technology, and, all importantly, do the headlights work?

This was IHHS' way of getting manufacturers to quit installing outdated and unsafe halogen headlamps.

In the case of Santa Fe, the standard LED headlamps are not quite as good as those in vehicles costing $10,000 to $15,000 more, but they work well enough. To date, Hyundai and its luxury arm, Genesis, have garnered 15 TSP+ awards, tying Volvo. Toyota/Lexus has won 14.

The Santa Fe comes standard with a generous array of driver-assistance technology, including forward collision warning with automatic emergency braking. Rear cross-traffic alert and rear automatic braking are standard on all but the base trim.

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Hannah Keller/Contributing Photographer

Susie Smart, a registered nurse and co-owner of Approve Home Health Services Inc. in Batesville, found her calling in home health care and turned her passion for helping others into a 20-year career with the agency.

Santa Fe's blind-spot warning goes a step ahead of competitors. If visual and audible warnings do not stop a driver from trying to enter an already occupied lane, the car will apply selective braking to individual wheels to help bring the vehicle back into its lane.

Also standard are adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go technology and lane-keeping assist. These are systems that have a wide variety of performance across different manufacturers. We've driven Fords that would not engage the dynamic cruise control. We've driven a Subaru that bounced from side marker to side marker like an old Pong game. In Hyundai, both systems work as well as any on the market. The lane-keep feature keeps the vehicle nicely centered, even when going around mild to moderate curves (but you really should keep your hands on the wheel.)

A rear-door logic will remind the driver of rear seat occupants when exiting the vehicle. A lovely option is a rear-facing motion sensor that will also send an alert to a phone or email.

A safe exit system can sense if a vehicle or bicycle is approaching from behind when a door is opened.

Game changer

What sets the 2022 Santa Fe apart from the crown is the introduction of a plug-in hybrid version. In the vernacular, this is called a PHEV, as opposed to a Hybrid (HEV), pure electric (BEV), and internal combustion engine (ICE).

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Courtesy of Eric Larsgaard/Avery Outdoors

A goose flag is just one of many types of decoys hunters can use to draw wary Canada geese within shooting range.

Blonde Bride and I are shopping for a chariot in which to wander these what used to be United States. After kicking the tires on some 400 vehicles, we are firm that our next vehicle will be a PHEV. It's the best choice. Right now.

We grew up in the age of cheap gas, but it is clear that global warming is an inarguable thing, and all of us can only do what each of us can in our little spheres of influence. The single greatest cause of climate change is tailpipe emissions so it is just wrong-headed to go out and purchase a vehicle that gets 15 or 20 mpg. We need to think much higher.

Regardless of the power source gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar electric powered cars reduce emissions by a half to a third, and fuel costs by two-thirds.

We have driven some sparkling BEVs, and waves of them are about to enter the market. However, charging grid development is still a few years away and a bit spotty for a couple planning to spend long spans off the cultural grid.

A PHEV, then, offers the fuel economy of a hybrid about 33 mpg in the case of the Santa Fe while cruising up to 30 miles a day on pure electricity. Just plug it into a 110 outlet before you go to bed. That means Blonde Bride and I would only buy gasoline on the days we hit the road.

The EPA figures the Santa Fe PHEV will deliver the average driver 78 mpg. That's the kind of number we can all live with.

It's just right.

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