2024 Hyundai Santa Fe Maximizes Cabin Space with Blocky Styling

Hyundai is stretching the concept of “compact” with its 2024 Santa Fe SUV, which stretches 190 inches and packs three rows of seating inside. This new squared-off Santa Fe doesn’t just borrow some styling inspiration from Land Rover, it also borrows that brand’s focus on tailgating, with a huge rear hatch opening that is meant to make days spent spectating out the rear of the Santa Fe as comfortable as possible, even if Hyundai drivers may be less prone to watching polo or other equestrian events than Land Rover drivers.

The Santa Fe’s rear hatch opening stretches nearly six inches further than that in the outgoing model, reaching 50.2 inches across. It also adds 2.0 inches in height, making the opening 32 inches from floor to roof.

When the rear seats are folded down, they provide a flat surface that is more conducive to lounging for events or sleeping for camping.

Designer Kevin Kang, who heads Design Hyundai Design North America, says the Santa Fe’s cubist appearance is the logical result of the desire to maximize the available interior space within a reasonably sized vehicle. This is true, although it also happens that today’s buyers are gravitating toward boxier SUV styling.

The outgoing Santa Fe is a handsome design, but in a crowded market, it is not a distinctive design. The new Santa Fe’s square-edged styling turns heads and attracts notice while also providing more space inside.

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Unfortunately, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has done an analysis showing a 45 percent increased likelihood of fatality when tall, boxy vehicles strike pedestrians compared to cars and slope-fronted vehicles like minivans. Hyundai was not able to describe any specific measures in the Santa Fe taken by engineers to mitigate this concern, which seems to leave the opportunity for future improvements in pedestrian protection.

What engineers were able to mitigate is the aerodynamic drag that the Santa Fe’s shape suggests would be higher than that of the previous model. But cleaning up airflow beneath the vehicle by mounting plastic panels to the underside helps whittle the Santa Fe’s coefficient of drag to just 0.294, compared to 0.33 for the 2023 Santa Fe and 0.34 for the Subaru Outback.

Interior Design

The interior design is similarly clean as the faceted exterior. Thankfully, this does not mean, however, that the instrument panel has been swept clear of buttons and knobs for controlling critical functions as we’ve seen in other vehicles, most notably the Volvo EX30,

The Santa Fe has rotary knobs on the dashboard for infotainment volume and tuning as well as for driver’s-side and passenger’s-side climate control temperature. "My team and I are all about the buttons," Kang told Design News. "We will keep fighting for those."

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Unlike in some previous Hyundais that also had these knobs, the ones in the Santa Fe are sufficiently differentiated in size and appearance to minimize the likelihood of accidentally adjusting the HVAC when you’re trying to change the volume.

That entertainment could be through the Santa Fe’s native Amazon Music app that runs on the dashboard infotainment system, or it could be through Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. The Sante Fe now streams those wirelessly, so customers can simply lay their phone on the center console wireless charging pad to keep its battery topped off with no need for wires.

There are left- and right-side charging pads, so there’ll be no competition over whose phone needs the electrons more. This space is made available by the designers’ decision to move the shift function to a twist switch on a stalk on the steering column.

You twist the top away from you to engage Drive and toward you to engage Reverse. This shifter seems likely to be the same that Hyundai will use in electric models so there’s some sense in making shifters the same in combustion and electric models, though I’d prefer to see the standard PRNDL shifter that has long been the industry standard.

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A hidden exterior grab handle provides easier access to the Santa Fe's roof rack. DAN CARNEY

New Tech

Driving the Santa Fe is made more convenient by the availability of a digital key, which lets drivers unlock, start, and drive away in the vehicle just by having their phone with the digital key with them. I experienced this with the Rivian R1S tested recently and found that it is a nice convenience, even if it induces some anxiety in drivers with a lifetime of needing the car’s keys.

Seats in the first and second rows are comfortable, but the Santa Fe’s third row is a kid-only, short-drive space. They won’ t be happy in the way back for long trips, but it is fine for around-town carpooling duty. The panoramic skylight keeps the rear seats airy and light, which makes sitting there less claustrophobic.

My test was a fully loaded $50,000 Santa Fe Calligraphy, which adds another gadget that will surely be popular: an ultraviolet sanitizing compartment for killing germs on phones and other small objects. If you spend enough money, the Santa Fe’s upper of two glove compartments contains an ultraviolet light strong enough to disinfect the surfaces of small objects in ten minutes. You just put the phone, keys, or other object inside the box and press the button on the center console to activate the cleaning cycle.

Hyundai has long boasted of its democratization of technology and especially of safety features, so I hope that we’ll see the UV sanitizing box made available as an option across all Santa Fe trim levels, if not made standard on all of them.

Drivetrain Choices

The Calligraphy’s standard engine is the 277-horsepower turbocharged, direct-injected 2.5-liter four-cylinder. This provides a standard 3,500-lb. towing capacity. The off-road-centric XRT trim level is rated to tow 4,500 thanks to additional grille openings for improved cooling. Hyundai said there are no other physical differences that contribute to the extra thousand pounds of capacity. The EPA fuel economy rating for this drivetrain with all-wheel drive is 20 mpg in city driving, 28 mpg on the highway, and a combined estimate of 23 mpg. The front-drive version is rated at 1 mpg better.

This engine drives through an 8-speed dual-clutch transmission with wet clutches. The computer’s control of clutch engagement is unimpeachable, as the Santa Fe is adept at the tricky low-speed creep needed to place the car precisely in a parking space that is the hallmark of transmissions equipped with torque converters. Other recently driven vehicles using computer-controlled clutches, such as the Mazda CX-90, have demonstrated inferior clutch control in delicate situations.

There is also a 1.6-l engine available that is the heart of a hybrid-electric system with a total combined system output of 231 hp. This vehicle was not available for testing, so we’ll have to drive it later. It drives through a conventional 6-speed automatic transmission. The hybrid is rated to tow 2,000 lbs. and it is rated at 36 mpg city, 35 mpg highway, and 36 mpg combined for front-drive, and the AWD system again costs 1 mpg in combined driving.

The Santa Fe Calligraphy has a surprisingly good ride even with the 21-inch wheels and their corresponding low-profile tires, but the standard 18-inch wheels with their additional tire sidewall would be even cushier and provide better protection against blowout damage when striking sharp potholes.

Off-Road Capability

Some off-road driving the XRT trim model showed that the Santa Fe has some legitimate off-road capabilities, as it negotiated a course with enough twist to lift a wheel off the ground without needing to engage the available differential lock. The Hyundai crew reported that the course had been wetter and slipperier previously and that in those conditions the Santa Fe was able to show the benefit of the differential lock feature.

The XRT also features hill descent control, which is when the car’s stability system automatically maintains the vehicle’s speed without the driver having to brake and potentially lose traction trying to prevent the Santa Fe from gaining speed while going down steep hills. The system either maintains the speed at which it is engaged or if it is engaged at a stop, it maintains about 2.5 mph. This speed can be increased using the steering wheel-mounted shift paddles.

Even with these features, no one will mistake the Santa Fe for a Land Rover. But they do give it the ability to cash at least some of the checks its blocky sheetmetal is writing. Customers who are concerned about the ability to reach a cabin on a rutted road when there is snow can hedge their bets by choosing this more capable XRT trim level.

Though it boasts no breakthrough technology or an amazing electric drivetrain, expect the 2024 Santa Fe to be a hit with customers thanks to Hyundai’s thoughtful application of incremental improvements, its extra passenger space, and its burly stance.