- Modest modifications arrive for the Tucson’s exterior
- It is inside what 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 just a few 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 bought final 12 months—and Hyundai expects that share to develop. Automakers face more and more stringent emission limits for vehicles in mannequin years 2026 to 2035, and hybrids at engaging costs stands out as 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 onerous to fault on most ranges, and we anticipate the hybrid choice to take a rising portion of gross sales within the compact-SUV class that’s now the most important single U.S. market phase. (Sure, greater than full-size pickups.)
2025 Hyundai Tucson (PHEV inside)
Hyundai Tucson Hybrid: Large modifications inside, not a lot exterior
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 superb, although subsequent to the newer, slab-sided, Land Rover-esque Hyundai Santa Fe three-row utility, the Tucson now seems softer and maybe somewhat dated.
As a substitute, the large modifications for 2025 lay inside all Tucson trims. It positive factors 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 gives the motive 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 seems clear, crisp, and trendy.
A flat tray now faces the entrance passenger, and the middle console flows out of the sprint all the way down to about ankle degree, the place it provides a large flat floor with a rubber pad to carry cell units. The armrest underneath entrance riders’ elbows has a bin beneath; forward of that may be a wider space with two bigger cupholders plus a flat pad for charging cellphone. 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. Whole output of the mixed powertrain is 231 hp, up 5 hp from final 12 months’s mannequin—attributable to a barely increased energy output from the 1.5-kwh lithium-ion battery, in response to senior supervisor of product planning Andre Ravinowich.
On the highway, the electrical motor gives sufficient instantaneous energy to let the 2025 Tucson Hybrid sustain with visitors with out sounding strained. Energy supply is nearly all the time easy, no matter whether or not it’s engine, battery, or each powering the wheels. Typically, the engine switching on was imperceptible, or nearly. It’s nonetheless a shock to really feel the transmission upshift or downshift a number of instances whereas the automotive is working on battery alone—matching motor pace to highway pace—however that’s a crucial disadvantage 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 overview. 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” characteristic within the powertrain management software program. It makes use of the electrical motor to easy out each sudden acceleration and deceleration, making it extra comfy 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 automobile pitch.
The twisty canyon roads and rural lanes north of Santa Barbara confirmed the Tucson Hybrid is about up for consolation over sporty precision. That’s not unhealthy, however over irregular highway surfaces and thru rippled turns, it might get somewhat jouncy—the worth of a snug experience. Ought to this matter to consumers who will seemingly purchase the factor? It in all probability received’t. TL/DR: The Tucson Hybrid is comfy in nearly each circumstance, however you received’t beat a BMW by the curves—and it’s not attempting to do this.
Hyundai hopes for a High Security Choose+ score 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 comfy, it’s the rear compartment that offers the Tucson its edge. It has an extended wheelbase than every other compact hybrid SUV, that means rear passengers profit from a bigger door opening and a rear seat positioned additional again. This provides it, says Hyundai, 41.3 inches of rear legroom, probably the most amongst main opponents—and headroom (40.5 inches) equal to one of the best of the remaining. We sat within the again, and we’ve got to concur.
Supplies are nice, with good-quality soft-touch surfaces and engaging plastics. The new sprint makes the cabin really feel airier and extra open, and that’s a great factor, particularly in case your inside is all-black. Choices for inside colours are black, gray, and a three-tone inexperienced and grey (extra engaging than it could sound). Two new paint colours—a really darkish Atlantis Blue and an olive-like Rockwood Inexperienced—enliven 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 participating 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 bundle. 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. Machine mirroring through Android Auto and Apple CarPlay stays commonplace as nicely. Sure fashions supply Hyundai Pay, digital-key functionality, and extra superior capabilities.
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 bundle 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 price.
(The plug-in hybrid Hyundai Tucson prices at the very least $40,775 for 2025, by the best way.)
Highway checks by auto reporters may be fairly not like common use, so we didn’t draw any conclusions on real-world gasoline economic system. In comparison with the traditional model, the Tucson Hybrid SEL boosts the EPA fuel-economy score 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), nevertheless it’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 motive force (it’s elective).
Hyundai supplied airfare, lodging, and meals to allow Inexperienced Automobile Stories to carry you this first-person drive report.
