- Modest modifications arrive for the Tucson’s exterior
- It is inside that counts: A brand new widescreen sprint brings wi-fi smartphone connectivity
- Costs are up, in fact: it is $34,510 for the most affordable 2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid
The 2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid is an up to date model of the present Tucson in its fourth mannequin 12 months. Hyundai has revised and up to date the inside and made a number of modest exterior modifications.
It additionally tweaked its hybrid system, making it barely extra highly effective and splitting out a “Blue” model and an ordinary Hybrid—all fitted with mechanical all-wheel drive as commonplace. There’s additionally a Plug-In Hybrid model coming late this 12 months, which we didn’t have an opportunity to drive.
Hybrids are a rising portion of Tucson gross sales, making up one out of each 4 Tucson offered final 12 months—and Hyundai expects that proportion to develop. Automakers face more and more stringent emission limits for vehicles in mannequin years 2026 to 2035, and hybrids at enticing costs will be the best approach to meet these targets. Hyundai will add extra plug-in hybrids whereas it additionally rolls out 21 new electrical automobiles within the coming years—and it’ll construct each at its new Georgia “Metaplant” close to Savannah.
We drove the brand new 2025 Tucson Hybrid by the rolling hills and canyons round Santa Barbara in late August. We discovered it exhausting to fault on most ranges, and we count on the hybrid choice to take a rising portion of gross sales within the compact-SUV class that’s now the biggest single U.S. market phase. (Sure, larger than full-size pickups.)
2025 Hyundai Tucson (PHEV inside)
Hyundai Tucson Hybrid: Large modifications inside, not a lot outdoors
From the skin, you could be hard-pressed to inform the distinction between a 2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid and its 2024 predecessor. Hyundai made the grille and headlight design a bit extra vertical and upright—to make the automotive “extra dynamic” and present “toughness”—however the modifications are obvious provided that they’re parked subsequent to one another. A brand new bumper cowl with a skid defend provides lower than half an inch to its size; all different dimensions keep the identical.
The automotive’s streamlined form and expressive, articulated flanks are supposed to remind viewers of a racehorse in movement. That’s high-quality, although subsequent to the newer, slab-sided, Land Rover-esque Hyundai Santa Fe three-row utility, the Tucson now appears to be like softer and maybe somewhat dated.
As an alternative, the massive modifications for 2025 lay inside all Tucson trims. It features the most recent signature Hyundai dashboard: a pair of adjoining barely curved 12.3-inch screens sitting atop a horizontal shelf that spans door to door. The left display screen supplies the driving force with an instrument cluster; the middle one is a touchscreen for each front-seat occupants to make use of. The format has already been seen on the Ioniq 5 and 6 and the most recent Santa Fe; it appears to be like clear, crisp, and trendy.
A flat tray now faces the entrance passenger, and the middle console flows out of the sprint right down to about ankle stage, the place it affords a large flat floor with a rubber pad to carry cell gadgets. The armrest beneath entrance riders’ elbows has a bin beneath; forward of that could be a wider space with two bigger cupholders plus a flat pad for charging telephone. That leaves sufficient room between the higher console and the sprint for riders to achieve no matter’s within the lower-level trays.
All in all, it’s a really usable inside with loads of room for stuff, from water bottles to telephones to notepads to purses. Laudably, Hyundai listened to shopper suggestions, and introduced again precise knobs and buttons for air flow and audio management. It additionally changed a pushbutton drive selector on the console with a rotating lever on the column—once more, as within the Ioniqs and Santa Fe.
2025 Hyundai Tucson XRT
Hyundai Tucson Hybrid:Barely extra highly effective—and ‘Child Mode’ too!
As earlier than, the engine within the Hybrid (and PHEV) Tucson is a 1.6-liter direct-injected inline-4, paired to a 6-speed computerized transmission. Between engine and transmission is a 47.7-kw (64-hp) electrical motor. Complete output of the mixed powertrain is 231 hp, up 5 hp from final 12 months’s mannequin—as a result of a barely greater energy output from the 1.5-kwh lithium-ion battery, based on senior supervisor of product planning Andre Ravinowich.
On the street, the electrical motor supplies sufficient immediate energy to let the 2025 Tucson Hybrid sustain with site visitors with out sounding strained. Energy supply is nearly all the time clean, no matter whether or not it’s engine, battery, or each powering the wheels. Generally, the engine switching on was imperceptible, or nearly. It’s nonetheless a shock to really feel the transmission upshift or downshift a number of occasions whereas the automotive is operating on battery alone—matching motor pace to street pace—however that’s a mandatory downside of Hyundai’s single-motor hybrid system.
Nonetheless, the Korean maker has put a prodigious quantity of effort into refining that drivetrain, and the software program algorithms that management it. And it’s paid off. Late in 2010, this reporter drove an early 2011 Hybrid Sonata whose powertrain was so disagreeable we by no means wrote the evaluate. The corporate has come a really great distance since then. (Distinction that to Mazda’s new plug-in hybrid system, which was as disagreeable to drive as that first hybrid Sonata.)
The hybrid Tucson now features a “Child Mode” function within the powertrain management software program. It makes use of the electrical motor to clean out each sudden acceleration and deceleration, making it extra snug for a child using within the again in a rear-facing seat. It makes use of slight purposes of motor energy or regenerative braking in the identical approach to modulate lane modifications, evasive maneuvers, and even car pitch.
The twisty canyon roads and rural lanes north of Santa Barbara confirmed the Tucson Hybrid is ready up for consolation over sporty precision. That’s not dangerous, however over irregular street surfaces and thru rippled turns, it could get somewhat jouncy—the worth of a cushty trip. Ought to this matter to consumers who will doubtless purchase the factor? It in all probability received’t. TL/DR: The Tucson Hybrid is snug in nearly each circumstance, however you received’t beat a BMW by the curves—and it’s not making an attempt to do this.
Hyundai hopes for a High Security Decide+ ranking from the Insurance coverage Institute for Freeway Security (IIHS). Final 12 months’s mannequin earned that designation, so it appears an inexpensive aspiration.
2025 Hyundai Tucson N Line
Hyundai Tucson Hybrid: Quiet cabin, interesting trim, greatest rear legroom
Whereas the entrance seats are snug, it’s the rear compartment that offers the Tucson its edge. It has an extended wheelbase than some other compact hybrid SUV, that means rear passengers profit from a bigger door opening and a rear seat positioned additional again. This offers it, says Hyundai, 41.3 inches of rear legroom, essentially the most amongst main rivals—and headroom (40.5 inches) equal to the most effective of the remainder. We sat within the again, and we’ve got to concur.
Supplies are nice, with good-quality soft-touch surfaces and enticing plastics. The new sprint makes the cabin really feel airier and extra open, and that’s a very good factor, particularly in case your inside is all-black. Choices for inside colours are black, gray, and a three-tone inexperienced and grey (extra enticing than it could sound). Two new paint colours—a really darkish Atlantis Blue and an olive-like Rockwood Inexperienced—brighten up an in any other case predictable array of white, black, and no fewer than 4 grays and silvers.
Noise suppression is exceptionally good, and cabin noise is minimal for a automotive on this class. The one exception is the electrical parking brake, which was exceptionally loud both partaking or disengaging. It’s significantly noticeable as a result of there’s not often any engine noise to masks it.
A part of the redesigned inside brings Hyundai’s newest multimedia system, able to updates over the air. As all the time, each Tucson model will get the top-rated Hyundai BlueLink+ connectivity package deal. Not like different makers (GM, cough), Hyundai has pledged to maintain that connectivity free so long as the primary purchaser owns the automotive. Over-the-air updates to the system are free for the primary three years. Gadget mirroring by way of Android Auto and Apple CarPlay stays commonplace as properly. Sure fashions supply Hyundai Pay, digital-key functionality, and extra superior features.
2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid
2025 Tucson: Costs vary from $34,000 to $42,000
The 2025 Hyundai Tucson Hybrid is available in 4 trim ranges, all with AWD. They begin with the base Blue at $34,510. The SEL Comfort model provides $3,000, and the N Line look package deal a further $1,750. Beginning at $42,340, the Restricted tops off the vary with 19-inch alloy wheels, a panoramic sunroof, heated and cooled seats, a Bose 8-speaker audio system, a shift-by-wire column-mounted shift selector, and a head-up show. All costs embody the obligatory $1,395 supply charge.
(The plug-in hybrid Hyundai Tucson prices a minimum of $40,775 for 2025, by the best way.)
Street exams by auto reporters could be fairly not like common use, so we didn’t draw any conclusions on real-world gas financial system. In comparison with the traditional model, the Tucson Hybrid SEL boosts the EPA fuel-economy ranking from 26 mpg (AWD) or 28 mpg (FWD) to 35 mpg mixed (it comes commonplace with all-wheel drive). That’s not fairly equal to the Toyota RAV4 Hybrid (41 mpg mixed) or the Honda CR-V Hybrid AWD (37 mpg mixed), but it surely’s sufficient to save lots of you many {dollars} of gasoline each 100 miles. The entry-level Tucson Hybrid Blue does higher, at 38 mpg mixed, at the price of dropping some niceties like leather-based trim and an ordinary 12.3-inch show in entrance of the driving force (it’s non-obligatory).
Hyundai offered airfare, lodging, and meals to allow Inexperienced Automobile Studies to carry you this first-person drive report.
